Jordan and I are now more than three months into business ownership, and I cannot even begin listing everything we’ve learned.
From bookkeeping to ad design, printing management to sales and digital advertising to distribution, we’ve been leveling up our skillsets much quicker than either of us anticipated just six short months ago.
Yet, no matter how much we pile onto our plates, the job remains incredibly rewarding.
A healthy serving of that reward is seeing how far our work goes and how people in the community use it.
One example that hit us early on was following a story I did on a Butterfield family that lost their home in a fire in January. We called for donations to help the family get back on their feet. The motherof- three choked back tears when she came a couple weeks later to collect the donated items.
Jordan and I were choking them back, too. Last month, I was religiously tracking our social media reach. Jordan hit the jackpot with her timelapse video of Roaring River State Park on Opening Day.
That post dovetailed nicely with our standard Opening Day coverage, as well as Trout Times stories we have never previously posted on our website.
The river-based news opened a floodgate of viewers. In the 28 days that encompassed those events, Cassville’s state wrestling coverage and Southwest district basketball title coverage, our page reached nearly 200,000 people.
In a county of fewer than 35,000 people, and of which we only cover the southern half, the number left our minds boggled. Incorporating more videos and individually publishing special section stories is a time investment I am pushing myself to make, and it’s incredibly satisfying to see the return.
Other times, rewards are much more straightforward. A smile overtook my face last week when I saw photos posted from the wrestling team’s banquet. The 11 wrestlers who went to state each received a photo collage from the competition.
It’s incredibly honoring and humbling to see that, from what I could tell, the overwhelming majority of the photos used in the collages were mine.
These captured moments will be something these athletes look back on for many years. It boggles my mind again that I provided them, and in using the photos, the team gave back to me in a way.
Giving back is something Jordan and I have been mulling since we took over the Democrat. We give our time and efforts to provide an excellent newspaper product and to maximize community engagement, but what else can we do?
As much as we were thinking about it, the idea was almost given to us. We had an advertiser to one of our special sections focused on schools ask if any money from his advertisement was going directly to the schools.
No, but why shouldn’t it? A couple of weeks and brainstorming sessions later, the Cassville Democrat’s “Back 2 You” campaign was born.
We are immersed in this community. It’s where our daughters go to school and daycare, where we shop and play, where we work and live.
We want to give back. As of Jan. 1, the Cassville Democrat is pledging 2 percent of advertising sales for every special project to a non-profit relating to the focus of each project.
For example, 2 percent of revenue from Unsung Heroes will go to a local police or fire department; 2 percent of revenue from the Winter Sports tab will go to each school’s athletic programs or booster clubs; 2 percent of the FFA sections will go to each school’s FFA programs; 2 percent of revenue from Trout Times will go to the Roaring River Nature Center; 2 percent of revenue from Progress can go to any number of local civic groups like the Rotary Club, Soroptimists or Cassville Community Foundation; 2 percent of Easter special sections can go to the same; and on and on.
While 2 percent may not seem like much, it can add up quickly, especially when some sections (like our sports previews) have the same beneficiaries.
We are tracking these amounts and will put ink to paper at the end of the year, aiming to make as many impactful donations as possible.
The Cassville and Barry County community is giving us so much, we want to give “Back 2 You.”
Kyle Troutman has served as the editor of the Cassville Democrat since 2014. In 2017, he was named William E. James/Missouri Outstanding Young Journalist for daily newspapers, and in 2022, he won a Golden Dozen Award from ISWINE. He may be reached at 417-847-2610 or ktroutman@cassville-democrat.com.
