**UPDATE 2: We've reached the end of our 30 day push with great success, thank you! We will leave the campaign available in In Demand mode and invest all additional funds in expanding the publication. Thank you for your support, it means a lot.**

** UPDATE: We've reached our initial goal to fund the new features, but are still looking to raise additional funds. The additional funds will be used for work on three additional projects, including a Common Council Vote Monitor, Judge Tracker and marketing campaign. Thank you for your support. **

We love Milwaukee and we love our readers. And this crowdfunding campaign is about better serving both. To take our publication to the next level we need to develop new features that will enhance and expand existing coverage.

From its founding in 2008, Urban Milwaukee’s mission has been to champion the city and urban solutions and promote debate through in-depth articles and data analysis. When Bruce Murphy came aboard as editor in May, 2012, we went from a small, niche site to an award-winning, online daily that’s increased traffic by more than 1,500% in just three years. 

We want to continue growing and know that’s needed, given the dearth of city coverage by the traditional media, and the continued shrinkage of print publications like the Journal Sentinel. 

But to expand, we need more resources. Your donation will help us develop new features that will make our site a must-visit for more than just news. These will include the city’s first interactive political contribution tracker and first interactive and comprehensive presentation of city data -- reported down to the neighborhood and even block level -- including crime data and city licenses, permits and complaints that are currently inaccessible for the general public. In addition, we plan to create a uniquely comprehensive dining guide and enhanced calendar of events.

All these added features and information will be constantly available and updated, generating continuing traffic on a 24/7 basis for the publication, which will increase our pageviews and resulting revenue, which in turn will enable us to pay for and publish more new stories as well -- all while better serving the community with information that affects their daily lives.  

In short, this is not a one-time or short-term funding effort for Urban Milwaukee, but a strategy to beef up the publication and expand its reach on a long-term basis. Yet it will also make Urban Milwaukee even more local, so when you need to know what's going on in your neighborhood, you'll turn to the new and improved UrbanMilwaukee.com.

What We're Building

• Political Contributor Tracker - What links exist between local politicians, policies and special interest groups? This system will offer a visually appealing way of following the money and watchdogging politicians.
  
• Building Database - What's that new construction project on North Ave? What other buildings has this developer created? What architect designed The Moderne? Our comprehensive building database will answer all those questions and more.
  
• Crime Data Mapper - Why were there so many police officers down the block? Is my neighborhood safe? What crimes happened in the last week or last month? Our new crime data service will not only answer those questions, but integrate the data with complaints and violations from the Department of Neighborhood Services for a fully-integrated picture of what's happening.
  
• City Data Tracker - Who took out a permit for a new tavern? Has anyone reported the abandoned house two blocks over? What building violations occurred on this block? The City Data Tracker will integrate directly with cumbersome city data services to present this data in a user-friendly way.
  
• Milwaukee’s Most Comprehensive Dining Guide - The city’s first data-oriented, truly internet calibrated dining guide will give readers super-fast -- and fun -- info on all restaurants. 
  
• Events Calendar - A revamped event calendar will feature extensive filtering and crowd-sourced feedback to highlight events happening across the city and by neighborhood or type.
  

The Impact

You can’t have a great city without a great publication covering it. That’s our goal. Your contribution will not only help make Urban Milwaukee a more informative and more entertaining publication, but will benefit the community:  

• The Political Contribution Tracker will keep politicians accountable.
  
• The City Data Tracker will allow the public to be more informed. 
  
• The Dining Guide will serve both customers and restaurants and help grow a great local dining scene.
  
• The Crime Data Mapper will give residents info on crime by neighborhood, illustrate links between crimes and other violations and  provide more transparency to the work of the Milwaukee Police.
  
• The Events Calendar will allow readers better access to all entertainment, events and activities and help local arts and entertainment, community and non-profit groups reach a larger audience.
  
• The Building Database will help track new development, which is what literally helps build a great city, in more detail, while celebrating Milwaukee's rich architectural heritage and providing a vast array of information on all this to readers.
  

Risks & Challenges

Urban Milwaukee is a free publication. Free means more readers, more people served, more dialogue between people. But it also means less revenue and resources to expand our publication. 

The Journal Sentinel charges $250 annually for a subscription. The Business Journal charges $103. We are free. 

We have grown into an online daily publishing 40 news stories and 50 press releases per week. We want to expand further, both in the depth and data we provide readers, but ultimately in the number of stories published as well. But that will take additional funding. 

We know we have lots of loyal readers. Many have read us for years. What is the value of our publication to you? Is it worth 5 cents a story? That would be $100 a year. One cent a story? That would be $20 a year. If every reader simply gave a contribution equal to the value they believe Urban Milwaukee has for them annually, we would far exceed our funding goal of $20,000. 

Some readers may not be able to contribute. You can still help by letting people know about our campaign and why it’s important. We know we have thousands and thousands of readers, but don’t know their names or how to contact most of them. You can help just by getting the word out. 

Not one dollar raised from this campaign will go for raises in compensation for owners or staff. We will spend 100% of the money on designers and web developers to get the new features built.  

If we exceed our goal, we would spend the additional dollars on: 

• Adding two additional features, Judge Tracker and City Council Vote Monitor. If we meet our goal we’ll offer more details on these cool features.
  
• Promoting Urban Milwaukee. To date, all growth in readership has occurred without spending a cent promoting the publication. But there are still many people in town who haven’t heard of us, and we need to reach more readers to expand our impact on the community.
  

From the beginning, Urban Milwaukee has been more a labor of love than a revenue generator. We believe readers sense that passion, which has helped attract a growing readership. This campaign is about continuing to grow a publication whose mission is at bottom, quite simple --  to champion Milwaukee and help build a great city.

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