Friday, August 16, 2013

Pledge drive begins for Inside Joplin, the Turner Report

As most of you know, last Saturday night, Jessica Nugent and I launched the newest website featuring news and information about the Joplin area, Inside Joplin.

This was a soft launch, with a blog-type format similar to this one. The full-fledged launch for Inside Joplin will take place in mid-September and with that will come major changes, both for that side and for the Turner Report.

As Inside Joplin will strive to be the best possible news source for Joplin and the surrounding area, the Turner Report will increase its coverage of education news, both on the state and national level, and, as always, news about Missouri politics and government.

The accompanying video explains more about what is coming for Inside Joplin. I will be writing more during the six-day pledge drive we are running through Indiegogo.

If you would like to join in and help these sites become even more of a source of information to those who are interested in news, education, and politics, please give what you can to this drive. If you are one of those who is not comfortable using PayPal or your credit card through the Indiegogo crowd sourcing campaign, feel free to send a check to Randy Turner, 2306 E. 8th, Apt. G, Joplin, MO.

I will not disappoint you.

5 comments:

david humphreys said...

Is Inside Joplin a 501c3 charitable organization? if so, have you received an IRS determination letter yet? if not a 501c3 then what?
where is the link to contribute?

Randy said...

Mr. Humphreys, Inside Joplin is not a charitable organization. What we are going to try came from a suggestion from one of my former students. She covered Marian Days for us and said she wanted any money to go to Vietnamese charities. Jessica Nugent and I had already been discussing a plan to help augment anything we can pay our columnists and contributors by setting up a link where readers can donate if they wish to do so Half of the money would go to the columnist or contributor and half to Inside Joplin. When my former student made that request, it occurred to us that we might be able to do some good both for local charities and for Inside Joplin by allowing people to contribute money with half going to the charity and half to Inside Joplin. We would make sure that documentation is provided from us and the charity so that the contributor can deduct that half of the contribution. For instance, a contributor could designate money for his or her column to go to Red Cross, Bright Futures, Thomas Jefferson Independent Day School, Salvation Army or any other good cause. We also are planning to set aside certain special days probably about one time per month when 100 percent of what people contribute goes to a certain charity. Hopefully, I will be able to explain this a little better as the time approaches, but we are excited about the idea of being a conduit to help improve our community. Thank you, Mr. Humphreys.

david humphreys said...


randy: sounds great. thanks.
david

jedi said...

Randy will the new site have editorial and opinion content or will it be just straight news?
Rod Jetton

Randy said...

Right now, Rod, the plan is to add in both areas. I plan to expand my coverage of state government and education with an eye toward keeping readers informed of what is going on and how it affects or will affect them. I am also going to open the Turner Report and Inside Joplin to writing from all across the political spectrum. We are also hoping to use the same approach to the Turner Report as we are with Inside Joplin and giving readers an option on donating money with half of it going to either the contributor/columnist or to a designated charity, with days set aside all of the money, including the part that would normally go to the Turner Report, be devoted to one designated charity. That is a bit further down the road and we plan to test drive the idea with Inside Joplin first. The whole idea is that we create a community where news and ideas can be exchanged and at the same time raise money for worthwhile causes.