The Month in Review - January 2024

A Record Breaking Month for Civic Capacity

January was an amazing month for our project!

As much as I might be the one producing and creating this publication, this is certainly by no means a “one man show”. There are scores of folks that have invested time, money, suggestions, and perhaps most importantly, encouragement, into this endeavour.

One of the activities I want to undertake in this newsletter is to take time to look back at the growth of this project and bring forward new ways you can help support this effort.

Civic Capacity is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Subscribed

If there is one thing I have learned about growing this newsletter, it is that this project is filling an unmet need; good, honest and quality analysis of the events that are shaping our local civic life. The growth of this project has exceeded expectations and while that growth is good — getting new people in the conversation isn’t a bad thing — it does mean we are all looking at this project from a different perspective.

One of these different perspectives is that we have all learned about this newsletter at different times, so whether this is your first time interacting with Civic Capacity, or your 100th, we are going to take a look back at the month and go over some great ways you can interact with this effort.

In his book, Good to Great, Jim Collins talks about how organizations often through hard work and discipline achieve the “flywheel effect”. Through painstaking hard work, things start to become easier and the tangible results are clearer to see. Is this project at the point where the “flywheel effect” is starting to be seen? Well, I am not completely sure; it’s probably easy to determine that when it is in the rearview mirror. But, there are certainly some promising signs.

Last month, Civic Capacity had 27 separate editions go out, which is by far the most we have ever had. In return, our subscriber numbers grew as well. Our free subscriber list grew by 10% and those generous individuals who make a financial contribution to our effort grew by 11% — two straight months of double digit growth in paid subscribers! Our publication also had 19,390 separate views throughout the month, which again is a record. In other words, more and more individuals are finding value in this project and that is heartwarming! Thank you! If you have not become a paid subscriber to our effort, please consider it. With your paid subscription, you have access to all back issues of our newsletter.

Our Most Popular Post from January

Our most read post from last month was about the Troy Planning Commission’s upcoming vote on approving the Liberty Meadows Subdivision in the city’s northeast side.

Sponsorship Packages Available for Civic Capacity

Looking at the readership of Civic Capacity, it is clear that we are creating a community of loyal readers that are becoming more engaged with their community; over the past month we have averaged over 300 readers a day to our newsletter. If you own or are part of a small business and would like to become a sponor of Civic Capacity, we have developed a month-long sponorship package. If you are interested, please send me an email at william.lutz17@gmail.com and we can get the conversation started.

Help Grow our Newsletter

One of the things I am really impressed with about the Substack platform is that they are always developing new tools to help grow newsletters. The good people at Substack have recently developed a referral program. Individuals that are sucessfully referring new subscribers to the newsletter are elgible to earn rewards. You can learn more here. Of course, one of the easiest actions you can take to grow this effort is simply share it with your friends and neighbors.

Thanks for reading!

September was an amazingly successful month for the Civic Capacity Newsletter and I am grateful for all of your support! If you ever have any comments or questions, please feel free to drop me a note at william.lutz17@gmail.com.