The Swellesley Report is a for-profit small business. This is our actual job.

Many of you have supported our independent news venture over the years by making non-tax deductible contributions or by becoming advertising partners. Now, thanks to the partnership we entered in March with Tiny News Collective, you can make tax deductible contributions to support our work.

Tiny News Collective is a non-profit whose mission is to support new and early stage local news founders like ourselves. When you donate through Tiny News Collective, they will in turn pass the money through to us as a grant, minus a small cut to support their operations.

We’ve been part of this program from March, and it’s working out great. One thing it allows is for supporters to donate via their donor-advised funds. That’s been a new thing for us, and we really appreciate those who have done this.

We’ll be able to use funds to support everything from technology updates to intern stipends. We have lots of behind-the-scenes costs, such as web hosting and newsletter distribution software, plus as small business owners, we have various insurance and other expenses.

Swellesley today generates revenue through advertising partnerships as well as other publishing agreements, such as through Google News Showcase. Our partnership with Tiny New Collective has been encouraging more readers to support us, and opens up grant opportunities from organizations that have wanted to back us, but haven’t been able to because we’re not a non-profit.

Thanks for your past and future support. We love doing what we do for the community.

Questions? Let us know: theswellesleyreport@gmail.com

Hello! I’m Zoe Chen, and I’ll be interning at Swellesley this summer. I come to Wellesley from the nation’s other coast, from a town just outside of Los Angeles that is similar in size and feel to Wellesley. I’m a rising high school junior, and I often spend my summers over in Needham with family. 

I’ve been a staff writer and photographer on my high school newspaper since freshman year and will serve as a Managing Editor this coming year. I wanted a chance to continue reporting over the summer while my school newspaper’s on pause, so here I am at Swellesley. Journalism (sports and photojournalism in particular) is something I’m really passionate about, and I’d love to pursue it in college and beyond. 

This summer, I can’t wait to contribute to Swellesley and provide accurate local news from hopefully interesting angles. My greatest thanks to Truly’s and to readers for sponsoring Swellesley’s internship program. Feel free to reach me at zoelchen12@gmail.com. 

The Swellesley Report is a for profit small business. Many of you have supported our independent news venture over the years by making non-tax deductible contributions or by becoming advertising partners.

Now, thanks to a partnership with Tiny News Collective, you can make tax deductible contributions to support our work.

Tiny News Collective is a non-profit whose mission is to support new and early stage local news founders like ourselves. When you donate through Tiny News Collective, they will in turn pass the money through to us as a grant, minus a small cut to support their operations.

We’ll be able to use funds to support everything from technology updates to intern stipends. We have lots of behind-the-scenes costs, such as web hosting and newsletter distribution software, plus as small business owners, we have various insurance and other expenses.

Swellesley today generates revenue through advertising partnerships as well as other publishing agreements, such as through Google News Showcase. We’re hoping that our partnership with Tiny New Collective will encourage more readers to support us, and open up grant opportunities from organizations that have wanted to back us, but haven’t been able to because we’re not a non-profit.

We’re now entering a transition period in adopting the Tiny News Collective system. We’ll be reaching out to current contributors who make recurring payments to allow them to switch over to the Tiny News Collective system.

Thanks for your past and future support. We love doing what we do for the community.

Questions? Let us know: theswellesleyreport@gmail.com

We started The Swellesley Report in December of 2005, which means our independent online news site is now 19 years old. It was one of the area’s first such sites to emerge with the rise of the internet and the demise of traditional newspapers (other local ones that started around then were Universal Hub in Boston and H2OTown in Watertown).

I started Swellesley as a side project, initially to learn about blogging and to offer a community service after moving to town. Over the years it became a small business, and in recent years it has become a full-time job for myself and my wife, Deborah. Our site now attracts well over 1 million views annually, has thousands of weekday email subscribers, and thousands of social media followers, including on Instagram.

We’ve had plenty of help along the way, including from:

• Business partners, including local advertisers as well as national ones (e.g., Google News Showcase)
• Readers who generously contribute money to help us cover operational costs, plus those who send news tips, photographs/videos, and articles (special thanks to Jen Bonniwell for school coverage and Darren Bovie for sports photos)
• Everyone who has helped us with stories, from town and school employees and volunteers to residents to local organizations
• The tireless team at Wellesley Media, whose recording of town meetings and events is an invaluable resource for us and others in town

Among our new features in 2024 were the addition of residential property sales data from Warren Group and weekly summaries of upcoming town government meetings with highlighted agenda items. Meteorologist Matthew Moll of  New England Weather Consulting now provides weekly forecasts for Wellesley.

We thank the many families as well who trusted us to run obituaries for their loved ones.

We have exciting plans for 2025, including on the fundraising front (more on this soon). We’ve also been accepted into a Boston University program through which we’ll be working with a student journalist for expanded coverage.

Thank you to everyone for supporting our work and for making Wellesley such a great place to live and work in, and to visit. We look forward to Year #20.

As summer winds down, we want to publicly thank our Swellesley summer interns, Bella Gonzalez and Hannah Langenfeld.

We’ve heard things are quiet in Wellesley during the summer, but Bella and Hannah both found lots to write about and did it in style.

We really threw Hannah into the fire at the start, as she covered an emotional meeting about what was then known as the 8 Cliff Rd., housing development and was able to follow up on it in a later piece. Bella covered a wide range of topics, even having the chance to join a young birder for an outing at Longfellow Pond and connect with a victim of mail fishing.

See all of the posts we ran from Bella and Hannah.

We learned a lot from working with the pair as well, as they provided us with a fresh perspective on what has become so familiar to us. We wish both the best as they continue their studies—and journalistic pursuits—at college.

Thanks so much to all who have made financial contributions to our internship program, including lead sponsor Truly’s.