Flyover Media CIC was set up, in part, to enable us to apply for grants to expand the work we currently do in local journalism in SE London.
But The Greenwich Wire would not exist without funding from their readers. The structure of Flyover Media means we can provide some transparency about where that money is going, and demonstrate that funding our sites goes a long way to help promote community journalism for everybody in southeast London. (Figures correct as of November 2023.)
How The Greenwich Wire is funded
The Greenwich Wire is funded by readers paying monthly sums using the Steady, PressPatron and Patreon platforms, together with ad hoc donations through Ko-fi. In total, they pay about £1,000/month towards the site’s running costs.
Out of this, the site’s editor/reporter, Darryl, is paid £700 per month – roughly 12 hours per week at London Living Wage. The remainder is kept by Flyover Media to pay for hosting and business costs, freelance contributions and to invest in the site. This system meant we had funds to pay for the redesign and relaunch of the site in July 2023.
It also means we can avoid relying on ugly programmatic advertising (like the ads you can see on this website) for income, although we would like to introduce some limited advertising in future.
We will be working with the consultancy News Spring into 2024 to build The Greenwich Wire’s audience and increase the site’s income.
Grant funding
We also apply for grants for specific projects. In 2020 we accepted £4,500 from the European Journalism Centre to commission a series of stories about the effects of the coronavirus pandemic. This emergency funding meant we were able to expand our coverage during a time when the legacy media titles were cutting back.
In 2021, we are worked with the Centre for Investigative Journalism and Trust for London on an investigative project on social care cuts in Greenwich, working with an early-career reporter, Yohannes Lowe. This raised concerns about how ringfenced social care money was being spent in the borough, and highlighted the human cost of the social care crisis.
We continue to look for opportunities for grants – they are very hard to come by. Email darryl[at]flyovermedia.london if you’d like to work with us on a project.
Funding future projects
We have a number of ideas for new projects. We’ve thought about recruiting a part-time reporter to expand The Greenwich Wire‘s coverage – perhaps to the borough of Lewisham, which has next to no local public interest reporting at all, or Abbey Wood and Thamesmead, where we struggle a little. We’ve also thought about a hyperlocal newsletter for Woolwich – either in print or by email. Or a podcast.
But we’ve never had the time – or the money – to get them off the ground. If you’d like to help make one of these ideas a reality, email darryl[at]flyovermedia.london and we’ll see what we can do together.
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