Seven years ago today, a small group of us opened our laptops and launched The Colorado Sun with big dreams, more than a little anxiety and a strong determination to serve our state. We promised to work hard for your support as we explored a new business model for journalism.
Our full-time staff numbered 10, and we had zero subscribers and members. Today, 25 of us work to produce statewide news for our 110,000 newsletter subscribers and the nearly 1 million unique visitors to our website each month. Our coverage has informed, entertained, spurred changes to state laws and given all of us a better understanding of what’s going on in Colorado. We share our journalism with dozens of news outlets across the state, and we work with nonprofit volunteers who read Sun stories every month to thousands of blind and vision-impaired Coloradans.
We’ve learned a lot about running this business amid challenging times in our industry. And we’ve been very fortunate in our friends, who have offered advice, encouragement and support in many ways.
The Sun is now a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, meaning we answer only to you, our readers and supporters. We operate on a few basic principles: News is a public good. Everyone deserves access to news and information, whether they can afford to pay for it or not. Treat our readers, and each other, with respect. Work to earn your trust every day. Admit when we make mistakes, correct them and make it easy for readers to hold us at least as accountable as we strive to hold politicians and the powerful to account.
Your gift fuels our journalism
Everyone deserves to have someone looking out for them, including you. That’s why we made it our job.
When you give to The Colorado Sun, you’re defending facts, funding truth-seekers and keeping our communities informed.
Help us keep our news free with a donation today.
Nearly one year ago, we landed a $1.4 million, three-year grant from a respected national nonprofit, the American Journalism Project. The grant followed a competitive process that considered dozens of news organizations across the country.
The AJP grant is an important endorsement of the value we produce for Colorado and our prospects for continued growth and stability ahead. The grant is already helping us bolster the business side of our operation while keeping our journalists focused on the important work of covering our state. The grant made it possible for us to hire our first chief operating officer, Lamont Browne, who is an experienced and successful operations manager and leader.
We’re proud of what we have accomplished over these past seven years, and we are grateful to the many Coloradans who have supported us and stood with us as we built this Sun community dedicated to creating a better and more informed state.
We have not stopped dreaming about something better for Colorado, even as we have watched with dismay as legacy newspapers continue their decline across the state. Far too many have gone dark since 2018, leaving entire communities and some counties without access to reliable local news. We look with concern as consolidation and funding cuts threaten our friends in public radio and TV news.
We believe that with the continuing help and support of our readers, The Sun can further expand our coverage around the state to fill some of those gaps, to help bridge the urban-rural divide and give more Coloradans the news they need and deserve to make informed decisions about their government, their environment and their daily lives.
We are aiming to establish a series of news hubs around the state to help bring more focused coverage to additional areas of Colorado. We have been hard at work on identifying locations and making plans to engage with more of our fellow Coloradans to ensure that we understand how we can best help.
We have a lot of work to do, a lot of listening to do, and we will be asking you and other fellow Coloradans to help us make it happen. We want to hear from you about how we can work together to ensure that The Sun is telling the stories that matter in your life and in your community.
As always, we are stronger together.
Thank you for a great seven years!