Welsh Books Council support is another big boost for Nation.Cymru

Ifan Morgan Jones, Nation.Cymru Editor

Nation.Cymru has today taken another step towards developing a national news service for the people of Wales, with an offer of funding by the Welsh Books Council.

From the Spring onwards, we will receive £20,000 pounds a year to invest in expanding the site.

We’re extremely thankful to the Welsh Books Council for their generosity in finding funding for a new online news service in an extremely competitive field.

We’re also very grateful to them for their kind words about Nation.Cymru:

“The awarding panel were impressed with the website’s mission to raise awareness of devolved politics and Wales-specific news and its impressive performance over a short period of time,” they said.

So far Nation.Cymru has been run as an unpaid venture with voluntary contributions. This new investment will allow us to fund investigative journalism and commission articles from a wider pool of experts.

It will allow us to develop a wider range of multimedia content, bringing news about Wales to those who like to watch or listen as well as read their news.

But of course, we don’t plan to stand still – this money is rocket fuel to get where we want to go, not a comfortable houseboat in which to rest on our oars.

Mission

Firstly, this investment will allow us to develop the commercial side of the website further, making us less dependent on funding as time goes on.

But as a website by the people of Wales, and for the people of Wales, we will continue to depend heavily on our readers’ support – sharing our content, writing for our site, and contributing funds towards our efforts to expand our service yet further.

Through our readers’ small monthly contributions – most giving around 50p a week – we are so far raising in the region of £1000 a month, money that will be sorely needed to continue to develop the site.

If just a few hundred people do this, our readers can more than double the investment the Welsh Books Council is putting into the site.

If you’re already a subscriber, we thank you and ask for your continued support.

But if you aren’t and want to support the development of a Welsh national news service, please sign up to make a small monthly contribution to our work.

Wales has never had a national English language news service – but Nation.Cymru now has a real chance of making it happen.

Over the last year and a half, we have shown that the demand for such a service is there and that we have the capability to deliver it.

We’ve shown that the people of Wales needn’t be dependent on a London-based media that barely informs them about what is going on in their own country.

But Nation.Cymru, as it stands, isn’t the end-product – it is only the beginning. It isn’t yet 1/100th of what we want it to be. And we have no intention of standing still.

Our goal has always been to develop a national news service worthy of the name, that reaches all of the people of Wales, and we will continue to strive towards that goal.

Today, the Welsh Books Council has given us the investment we need to realise this mission.

But only the continued and increasing support of the people of Wales will eventually make it happen.