For just over a year and a half, I have been running The Langley Union as a labour of love.
Every story you've read here, every council meeting summary I've combed through, every late-night edit, every morning roundup has come out of hours I have donated and money I have spent without expecting anything back. That was the plan when I started, and I don't regret a single piece of it.
But the math has caught up. To keep doing this, and to keep doing it well, I need help.
Today I am launching three paid membership tiers at The Langley Union, alongside a Tip Jar for readers who would rather support without a recurring commitment.
Both are voluntary.
Nothing on this site is going behind a paywall, and the daily work will keep arriving in your inbox and on the homepage whether you pay or not.
The publication exists for the community first.
What changes today is that I am finally asking the community to help carry it.
What the past year and a half has actually cost
When you read a story here, what you don't see is what sits behind it.
Liability insurance for an independent news outlet.
Hosting and software costs that recur month after month.
The legal exposure that comes with covering municipal officials, accountability journalism, and litigation-adjacent subjects.
The unpaid hours, which are the biggest line item by a wide margin and the easiest one to ignore until you can't.
To run The Langley Union the way I want to run it, with the depth, frequency, and seriousness it deserves, all-in operating costs land in the tens of thousands of dollars per year. So far, I have been absorbing all of these costs personally.
That arrangement worked for a while. It no longer does.
The choice in front of me
I want to be honest about what is actually at stake, because vague gestures at "supporting local news" don't help anyone decide what to do.
This is not a question of whether The Langley Union continues. I intend to keep running it.
I am, however, at the point where I need to choose between two versions of what comes next.
One version is the publication you have been reading: ambitious coverage, daily attention, deeper investigations, real follow-up on stories that other outlets drop after one news cycle.
The other version is a slower, thinner, more reluctant version of the same site. The kind that becomes a chore for me (which gradually becomes obvious to you). Stale, predictable, missing the meetings and records that make local journalism worth reading in the first place.
I am not interested in running the second version. So I am asking for help to keep running the first.
What reader support unlocks
The honest answer to "where does my money go" is that it covers the operating costs above first. Insurance, hosting, the basics that keep the lights on. Anything beyond that goes directly into more and better work.
If reader support grows past the floor, the things sitting on my desk include a Langley-focused podcast that has been in notes for months, expansion into regional sports coverage for the Lower Mainland (Vancouver FC, the Bandits, the Rise, the Goldeneyes), and a dedicated labour and social justice commentary outlet that I currently can't make room for on a daily news beat.
None of those are promises today.
They are what becomes possible when there is a budget for them rather than a single person trying to do everything at once.
The three tiers
I have built the membership tiers around the work, not around access.
Nothing here paywalls the news you would otherwise read for free.
What paid members get is recognition, a window into how the work gets made, and a closer relationship with the publication.
Spark: $7 per month or $70 per year. Spark members chip in what they can to keep The Langley Union free for every reader in town.
- Members-only commenting on articles
- Personalized welcome email from the editor
- Name listed on the public supporter wall
Lantern: $15 per month or $150 per year. Lantern members carry the work forward. Their steady support lets us sit through council meetings, chase records, and dig into the stories that matter.
- Everything in Spark
- The Editor's Notebook, delivered to your inbox and posted to the site for paying members: behind-the-scenes notes on coverage decisions, source documents, deleted scenes, and what is coming up on the beat
- Longform investigations sent to your inbox 24 to 48 hours before they go live publicly
Beacon: $35 per month or $350 per year. Beacon members hold the line, anchoring the work for readers who treat local journalism like the civic infrastructure it is.
- Everything in Lantern
- Named spot in the masthead or About page, opt-in
- Quarterly Beacon Briefing, a longer analytical newsletter on the arc of our coverage
- Annual digital anthology of the year's best longform work
- Direct email line for tips and story ideas
What you see at each tier today is a starting point, not a finish line.
The perks are built to grow alongside the publication's capacity, which is directly tied to how much support comes in.
The more readers who back the work, the more I can offer back: physical merchandise, members-only events and editor Q&As, a print zine, gift and group subscriptions, a private members space online.
Every new supporter pushes the ceiling higher for everyone.
If you already have a free account, here is how to upgrade
Most of you reading this are already on The Langley Union's free subscriber list, with a free account on the site. Upgrading takes about two minutes. Here is the walk-through.
- Go to https://www.langleyunion.ca/#/portal/account/plans/. The Portal window will open and prompt you to sign in.
- Enter your email address. Use the address where you currently receive emails from The Langley Union, since that is the one tied to your account.
- Check your inbox. A confirmation code will be sent to that address. Grab it.
- Enter the code. Paste it back into the Portal window to sign in.
- Select the plan that matches what you can give. Spark, Lantern, or Beacon, monthly or annually. Stripe handles the checkout securely, and your account switches over the moment payment goes through.
If you hit any trouble, reply to this article or any newsletter from The Langley Union and I will personally walk you through it.
If recurring billing is not right for you
I know not everyone is in a position to commit to a monthly charge, and I am not interested in making support a class barrier.
The Langley Union tip jar is live at https://langleyunion.ca/tip-jar and accepts one-time contributions of any amount.
If five bucks is what works for you, five bucks is what works for me.
Tip jar contributions go to the same place subscription revenue goes, which is the cost of keeping this publication on its feet.
A note to close
I started The Langley Union because I believed Langley needed a paper that asked harder questions, treated working-class and marginalized residents as the primary audience, and did not soften the edges of accountability journalism to keep anyone comfortable.
I still believe that.
The fact that I am asking for your help today is not a sign that the model is broken. It is a sign that it is working, and that the next step is on us collectively rather than on me alone.
Whatever you can do, whether that is a paid subscription, a tip, sharing a story with a neighbour, or simply continuing to read, it matters.
Thank you for being here.
Rainer