While many daily college newspapers operate on privately donated endowment funds, the majority run on college funds including The Oberlin Review, which counts on Student Finance Committee allotments for much of its operational costs.
In hopes of making the Review a completely self-supporting entity, efforts have been directed towards establishing an endowment and already this fall the student- initiated ‘Friends of The Oberlin Review Endowment Fund’ has raised $3,000.
“The endowment would, in essence, enable extended excellence and betterment of The Oberlin Review as a journalistic enterprise,” the Review’s Long Term Business Manager, senior Ireta Kraal said. Kraal began working on creating the endowment this past summer. With the increased funding, Kraal hopes to sponsor media-related guest speakers, public discussions and conferences as well as intensify staff training and education. Updated equipment could also come out of the endowment funds.
Additionally, the Review now depends on approximately one- tenth of the SFC budget for its weekly publication, meaning that its endowment would send a ripple through student organizations. “The success of this endowment would in particular ease the pressure on the SFC to finance The Review. This in turn would generate money that may be devoted to the efforts of other Student related organizations that are dependent on the Student Finance Committee,” Kraal said.
The establishment of an endowment for The Oberlin Review has taken on considerable importance in the past years as funding for the college newspaper has decreased “In the 1970s, the Review was getting about $20,000 annually. In 1998-99 that figure slid and this year, we are at about $10,000,” Kraal said.
Besides collecting outright gifts and grants, there have also been arrangements made for five year payments on an annual basis that would encourage individual donations, typically amounting to $100 to 200 yearly. Endowment funds would be invested according to College guidelines. While the Endowment is an effort generally supported by the college community the next step of finding potential backers has proven more irksome.
“We’re hoping to find alumni who have worked for the Review and are interested in the paper, current campus community and parents; recipients of the Oberlin Review subscriptions, those who read The Oberlin Review online, and major ‘feeder’ newspapers, [newspapers that receive a considerable supply of journalistically inclined Oberlin College Graduates] Cleveland Plain Dealer, Akron Beacon Journal,” Kraal said.
The interest on the endowment would be about 4 to 5 percent a year, yielding an amount of $1,250 annually from the 25,000 goal. Combined with the income that The Oberlin Review generates predominantly from its advertisement, the endowment would ease the paper’s financial stress.
In addition, continued maintenance of the equipment and gradual digitalization of newspaper technology would enable The Review’s long term ambition of becoming an independently run organization, as well as save printing costs and time.