By Tim Covi
2010 was another record-breaking year for the VOICE, and we want to thank everyone who helped us along the way. In August we were in the red, struggling to find the funds to keep our vendors in papers and our papers in print. I guess all conflict comes with resolution; non-profit management is no exception. Thanks to our avid fans, loyal readers and the hard work of our benefactors, we managed to pull out of the red and we’re back in the black as of mid-December. We have turned a corner, but we have a lot of hard work ahead.
A particular thanks goes to two Denver businesses that helped us immensely by generously hosting fundraisers for us. The law firm Ridley, McGreevy, Winocur & Weisz held their annual Parade of Lights holiday party in our honor, raising nearly $1,000 in an evening for the paper. Shortly after, Marlowe’s closed their restaurant for an evening and hosted a year-end celebration for us with an amazing spread of food and wine. They raised $14,000 for us that night!
Our annual budget is $300,000, and with that money our vendors collectively earn $360,000 or more each year. We put more money into the community than it costs us to operate.
In 2010, our vendors broke their sales records yet again. With your help, we distributed nearly 16,700 papers in September, our highest sales yet. Vendors report earning an average of $2 per paper, so in September you helped put more than $33,000 directly into the hands of the poorest members of our community.
We’ve also continued to sharpen our journalism throughout the year, providing you a combination of intelligent local journalism and literary journalism from around the globe. Our reports included direct coverage of the worst oil spill in history from renowned photojournalist Zoriah Miller, as well as coverage of critical regional and local issues. We were lucky to bring on a few more talented local freelance reporters, giving us the ability to bring you more Colorado news more frequently.
In 2011, we’re going to build on the foundation you have helped to fund. We’re becoming even more locally focused, and plan to create a “community page,” a section of the paper dedicated to exploring your local community. From significant organizations to individuals working to improve our city and state, the community page will educate readers about what’s happening and how you can be involved.
Once again, we’re grateful for all of your support and to your commitment while we’ve grown and gone through changes. Please help our vendors stay in business throughout 2011 by continuing to buy a paper each month. Your support is a crucial part of helping people work their way out of homelessness.
Thursday, June 2, 2011 at 10:50PM 
Hello! My name is Herb Angle, Jr., the new Executive Director of the Denver VOICE newsmagazine. Like all non-profits, we struggle to make ends meet each month. We have a dedicated staff that works here because they believe that providing a quality product that creates a job for a homeless person is a worthy effort. We provide this paper to homeless vendors for $.25 and have done so since 2006 in order to ensure that they can earn enough money vending the paper to increase their chances of renting a decent place to reside. 
