Courtesy Photo / James Canup
Seventeen employees at the Texas Observer would have lost their jobs had the magazine folded.
The board of the nonprofit Texas Democracy Foundation, which runs 68-year-old progressive magazine, announced plans Monday to fire its staff and stop publication, citing ongoing financial problems. The following day, James Canup — the Observer's chief fundraiser — set up a GoFundMe campaign to keep it afloat.
By Wednesday afternoon, Laura Hernandez Holmes, the board president, sent an email to subscribers letting them know the campaign had averted disaster, saving the jobs of the Observer's 17 staffers. She also revealed that she'll step down from the board but remain a donor.
“Today, upon receiving significant financial pledges over the past few days, the Texas Observer board gathered to vote to reconsider previous board actions,” Hernandez Holmes said. “The vote to rescind layoffs was unanimous, and the board is eager to move the publication to its next phase.”
Hernandez Holmes said the board took its drastic action after people within the Observer organization spent $200,000 without board approval, wiping out savings intended to serve as a reserve account. The planned shutdown was a bid to allow the magazine to be "reconstituted, and reimagined in a more sustainable form," she added.
In an interview with the Texas Tribune, funding campaign creator Canup said the Observer's problems are "structural. He also said mistrust had developed between staffers and the board.
He outlined a series of reforms needed to keep the publication financially healthy. Among those are adding a CEO to oversee both the business and editorial side of the Observer, finding new board members with media and technology experience and altering bylaws to improve board governance.
Canup also told the Tribune that the Observer's current board had been too consumed with overseeing day-to-day operations to "pull their heads up, look into the distance, and think strategically."
Disclosure: The San Antonio Current has periodically run articles reported by the Texas Observer.
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