The creation of the Kamloops Chronicle newspaper has been a great experience in active community development. As both a life-long volunteer and retired CEO in the nonprofit world, it has been gratifying to work with a small group of volunteers determined to pool their skills and bring a newspaper back to the city.

We started this summer by registering the non-profit society name on Aug. 8, 2024. Over the next weeks a Board of Directors was created, a constitution and bylaws developed, and on Sep. 25, 2024, we received confirmation of registration.

In the interim the new Board expanded from three to a group of seven and we contracted with an acting executive director to help with fundraising and administration and with an editor to develop the format, content and name of this new venture.

The working group has been developing policy and structures to ensure sustainable ongoing success. As a non-profit we believe full disclosure is critical to maintaining public trust. To that end, it is important to us that we are open and transparent with the fact that some portion of the money raised as a non-profit will be directed towards paying for the people who are doing the hard work of producing the paper. That includes the acting executive director and editor, as well as potential other positions as the paper continues to grow.

To date our administration and fundraising costs from donations and our supporters have been at the very low end of accepted nonprofit standards and we continue to monitor the financial reality as we move forward. We are grateful for the positive feedback from the first edition and thank everyone who has made it possible.

Submitted by Lois Hollstedt, C.M. She is a member of the Kamloops Local News Society Board of Directors.