In case you missed the news, Milwaukee Record celebrated its 10th anniversary on Sunday, April 7, 2024. That day was declared to be “Milwaukee Record Day” throughout the city, as proclaimed by Mayor Cavalier Johnson himself. The following day, we went down to City Hall to meet the Mayor and pick up our framed Proclamation. That same day, Matt Wild—my fellow co-founder/co-editor, business partner, and friend—featured Milwaukee Record in our Mandatory Milwaukee article series, saying he envisions “MORE” in our business’ future.
I wholeheartedly agree with him on that front. I absolutely want to reach more people, cover more things, feature more voices and more perspectives, host more events, and write more weird articles in the way only we can. I really want to keep doing this for the long haul. However, I must admit something to you, reader. I’m so, SO goddamn tired. I wouldn’t trade these past 10 years—the good, the bad, the scary, the fun—for anything, but as we celebrate crossing the decade milestone at a time in which independently-owned media is collapsing all around us, I have to tell you that I don’t think I can do another 10 years of Milwaukee Record (and here’s the important part) like this.
To be clear, after clawing to get this endeavor off the ground, then scraping by for a couple years to survive during the pandemic, then subsequently rebuilding, Milwaukee Record as a business is now in arguably the best financial shape we’ve been in since we started. We’re coming off our second-best traffic year (2020 was an anomaly for page views!) and we have a lot of fun things planned for the rest of 2024. Still, we’re in this frustrating in-between zone where the expectations, workload, and responsibilities have become unrelenting, but the staff—me, Matt, a fluctuating cast of great freelance contributors, and a part-time ad guy—and the pay doesn’t really come close to matching up.
Milwaukee Record truly plans on delivering “MORE” to you in the (hopefully) many years we have left. In order to do that, though, I—the colder and more financially-fixated end of the partnership—am telling you bluntly and directly: we need more, too. More money, more staff…MORE. As we celebrate 10 years, here are some things we want…no, need, in order to continue for another 10 years.
1. Just keep reading
This is the easiest one to do. It’s also free! And it will always be free. High traffic makes us more appealing to potential advertisers and opens doors to do even bigger and better things in terms of our coverage.
2. Support us on Patreon
If you have the means and you want a little more Milwaukee Record content in your life, such as exclusive articles and podcasts, we recommend supporting us on Patreon. There’s some great Patreon-exclusive stuff on there at the $5/month and $8/month levels. There’s also a $1/month “Tip Jar” level, which we occasionally reward with exclusive things.
3. Subscribe to our newsletter
Did you know we launched a weekly newsletter last year? We did! You can subscribe HERE to get a nifty, well-organized encapsulation of that week’s stories, as well as info on upcoming events we’re hosting, new products, and a weekly newsletter-exclusive story written by Matt. We also occasionally do ticket giveaways strictly for newsletter subscribers.
4. Advertise with us
We want to hire writers. We want to increase our freelance contributors. We want to release more products. We want to cover more things in more places. We can’t do all of that right now, but running ads with us is the best and most direct way to help that to happen eventually. Plus, your business will get exposure on our locally-focused site that gets millions and millions of page views annually. Seems like a win-win to me! We can make something happen for almost any budget. You can either reach out to Josh Hoppert (our Director of Advertising) or you can just hit me up at [email protected] and we’ll figure something out.
5. Support businesses who support us
We simply couldn’t exist without the support of our ad partners. They mean the world to us and the majority of them, like us, are also small independent local operations who could certainly use your business. And if you feel like letting them know that we played a small part in bringing you there, even better!
6. Buy our T-Shirts
Did you know we have a bunch of different apparel? You can represent Milwaukee Record, look good, and send some money our way by purchasing a T-shirt. In fact, you can save 10% on all items this month by entering the code MR10 at checkout.
7. Get our beer, coffee, and gummies
Speaking of ways you can directly bring some money to us, we have a specialty Anodyne Coffee blend and a 69 mg Delta 8 gummy varietal made by Kind Oasis. We get a portion of sales from both of those things. There’s also a Milwaukee Record Re-Porter beer that Company Brewing makes for us, and we donate all the proceeds we receive from sales of that to Milwaukee Women’s Center.
8. Go to our events
In addition to the 1,000-plus articles we publish each year, we also host approximately 60 events annually these days. Some are free seasonal local concerts. Others are monthly movie screenings at Avalon Theater. We even have a few ambitious large scale happenings like our N/A Day “Dry January” beverage festival, our Casserole Call charity hot dish bakeoff, and the annual Roast Of Milwaukee. Whether you’re paying a cover or just helping to fill a room with your in-person patronage and pleasing sponsors in the process, you’re helping more than you know. By the way, this weekend’s “High Score” 4/20 Market could use a little love.
9. Write for us!
Seriously! Are you a capable writer who has ideas you feel might be a good fit for Milwaukee Record? Let us know! If you write for us, we’ll pay you and everything.
10. Repeat steps 1-9
We couldn’t have made it 10 years without you. Frankly, we also can’t make it another 10 without you. If you like Milwaukee Record and value what we do, please let us know by backing us in one (or more) of the ways we’ve mentioned. Thanks for a decade! Here’s to many, many more.
