LA Youth says $187,000 keeps teen paper alive

Donna Myrow, the founder and executive director of the nonprofit that publishes LA Youth, emails: "We've received $187,000 from individual donors. Fundraising continues and the presses roll next week [on] the May-June issue." She had previously said the paper faced closure, prompting items here and mainstream media coverage.

Statement from LA Youth added:

We knew we had only two weeks to raise a lot of money and that we couldn’t go back to our traditional funders—the foundations. We had to get the word out to a new audience that explained why it was so important that they support the uniquely vital resource we provide to tens of thousands of students and more than 1,000 teachers every year.

To do that we had to get media attention to the fact that L.A. Youth, the newspaper by and about teens, a nearly 25-year-old civic and cultural organization was faced with closing its doors, so we rushed to reach out to all our contacts in traditional and new media. The Los Angeles Times, KPCC, KCRW, Patt Morrison, WitnessLA, GOOD and LA Observed all reported on our funding crisis and we also used Twitter, Facebook and email to reach alums and friends.

We heard from dozens of our hundreds of alums who said that without L.A. Youth they wouldn’t be where they are now. Four made videos and posted them to YouTube and dozens of them donated, including one who herself works at a non-profit who gave $500. She said that “L.A. Youth means so much to me and $500 doesn't even cover it.”

Also, teachers who have already taken pay cuts were donating because they understood that if L.A. Youth disappeared there’s no one else doing anything that would even remotely begin to replace what we did.

We still have a lot of money to raise to keep going.

The May-June issue rolls off the presses next week and the summer workshop starts at the end of June. Thanks to the generosity of so many we hope to keep bringing you L.A. Youth next school year.