The Beacon’s new fall fundraising campaign gets underway on October 7! That’s when our volunteer canvassers will start picking names of Andover residents who haven’t donated to the Beacon yet this year. If this is the first you’re hearing of this new initiative and why it’s vital to keeping the Beacon going, here’s a quick “guided tour” of what’s at stake and how you can help.

What’s all the fuss about? In brief, we’ve tried for nine years now to create a stable, sustainable financial plan for the Beacon. We’re not there yet, and we’re running out of time to get there. It appears that the best chance of getting there lies in increasing the number of Andover households who make an annual donation to the Beacon. For much more detail on the problem and why we think this is the right solution, see the article on the front page of the September issue or visit this page.

How does this affect me? If you’ve already donated to The Andover Beacon this year (or if you get a donation to us by Monday, October 7), the fall fundraising campaign doesn’t affect you! Otherwise, one of our volunteer canvassers will probably be contacting you to ask if you would make a donation for 2013 to help keep the Beacon going.

What’s the goal for this fall’s campaign? Since this is the first time we’ve had to resort to this approach, we haven’t set a specific goal. But the ultimate goal, which it may take a few years to reach, is to increase the number of Andover households that donate each year to the Beacon from 200 to about 650. We think that should put the Beacon on a stable and sustainable financial footing, so it can continue serving Andover into the indefinite future.

I’ve got more questions about donating to the Beacon. We’ve tried to answer every question we could think of here. But if that page doesn’t help, please contact me at Charlie@nullAndoverBeacon.com or 735-6099.