Good News Shared is turning Two!

‘Mutant rats Easter plague!’

‘Ukraine on the brink as troops fire on rebels’

‘Britain’s youngest parents’

These were some of the headlines on the front pages of UK newspapers on April 16^th 2014. On the same day, the Good News Shared website went live, featuring stories including:

• Study on Music Therapy Gives Hope To The Future Treatment of Dementia
• “My Life Begins Today”: Lives Transformed Through Medical Training in Ethiopia
• Lives of ‘Untouchable’ Women Changed Thanks to Crowdfunder Success

Since we went live we have featured more than 550 uplifting charitable stories from around the world. We have also given more than 40 volunteers the chance to share their story and experiences in their own words via the Good News Shared podcast.

Our three most read stories over the past two years are:

• Russell Brand opens ‘Trew Era’, a social enterprise café in London. All of our social enterprise café articles have been popular but this one took off after Russell Brand retweeted our tweet about it (thanks Russell!).

• Have A Pint, Change The World: The Worlds First Non-Profit Pub Celebrates 1 Year Anniversary. This pub in Oregon sounds great, and it captured the interest of beer-lovers when the article was shared a lot on Reddit.

• 8 Inspirational People Making a Positive Impact on the World. When Good News Shared turned one I wrote this piece about 8 inspirational people I’d love to meet. The list is just as valid now – I still haven’t met any of the eight people but would absolutely love to if I had the chance!

Our future

Over the last two years we have built up an active community of ambassadors, volunteers and readers. We know two things now:

1) Good News Shared should continue for a long time. People want to read about the good stuff and we want to continue finding and writing about it.

2) We need to make Good News Shared self-sustaining for this to work. The “fund Good News Shared with savings + freelance work” plan was fine for the first two years, but it’s not sustainable. Good News Shared deserves to be the priority, rather than being something we fit in around ‘rent-paying work’. Our writers and other team members deserve to be paid for their work, plus this is necessary if Good News Shared is to grow. If Good News Shared is going to go on for a long time, it has to be able to support itself. The good news is that we don’t need a huge amount each month in order to become sustainable. Click here to read about our costs.

In order to become sustainable we are asking our readers and supporters to pledge $1 a month (about 70 pence) via Patreon, a simple website that helps creators to become sustainable.

So, if you would like to help Good News Shared be around for years to come please CLICK HERE and pledge your support.