By Jessica Weible
Our 2023 Membership Drive has come to an end. The Membership Drive represents our organizations most concerted efforts at fundraising and momentum-building to carry us through another year of empowering and elevating regional authorship and readership. Some of our Members have been with us since 2019. Some are finding us for the first time. Some live right around the corner from Watershed Books. Some live states away. But all of our Members are connected to this shared belief in representing the voices of our region.
Our overall number of memberships this year increased, which indicates a growing number of individuals who want to be a part of supporting our literary community. TWJ is growing in other ways. There are more literary events, more patrons and visitors at Watershed Books, and many more regional author books than ever before! In an effort to meet that growth with more event-planning, improved communications, and high quality resources, we have been working harder than ever to pursue grant funding and corporate sponsorships.
So far, we have received great news about two corporate sponsors. Masterclass, an online education platform, has donated 50 subscriptions that we can distribute to individuals within our region who might not otherwise have the resources to access high quality educational tools. We also received $500 sponsorship from National Fuel that will support our next edition of our literary magazine.
As for grants, we also have some great news to share. Last year, thanks to Robert Bonnet, the Pittsburgh Foundation generously awarded TWJ an operational grant in the amount of $5,000, funding that proved to be the linchpin to our sustainability. I’m thrilled to announce that we have been awarded this grant again this year.
I want to thank our TWJ Grant Committee members – Greg Clary, Jerry Cichocki, Adrianna Rubino, and Karen Weyant for their work to support ongoing grant and sponsorship opportunities. I also want to thank Fred Wilbur for his guidance and expertise. We have a phenomenal team!