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Dear Readers,

VTDigger’s reporters are dogged in their pursuit of truth.

They file public records requests so you know who is trying to influence our government. They spend hours in public meetings and hours on the phone talking to source after source. They analyze data to see if what people are saying lines up with the numbers.

Our reporters use every tool at their disposal in the fact-gathering process for one reason: To use the moral force of journalism to spur real-world change.

— After VTDigger investigated the murder of Anoka Lumumba, who was unable to obtain a protective order against her abusive boyfriend, the Vermont Attorney General and lawmakers called for a change in statute that would give victims of domestic abuse legal representation.

— Our reporting on mental health patients who have been handcuffed, tased and punched in local hospital emergency rooms has spurred questions about the lack of access to acute mental health treatment in Vermont.

— Lawmakers and Gov. Phil Scott called for a change in protocol for the selection of the new adjutant general of the Vermont National Guard after VTDigger published allegations of sexual misconduct and alcohol abuse at the air base in Burlington.

— And the federal government shut down the state-run EB-5 center this summer, in the wake of four years of VTDigger reporting on the $200 million fraud at Jay Peak Resort and the role of state officials in promoting the projects when they knew of financial improprieties.

Our daily reporting is the foundation for our investigations. Every day, we shine a light on the health care industry, public education, environmental enforcement and energy policy.

We keep tabs on politics in the Statehouse and beyond – making sure you know what your representatives in Vermont and DC are up to. And our election guide helped 50,000 readers get access to information about House, Senate and statewide candidates.

Thanks to our donors, we’re able to stick with a story as long as it takes for wrongs to be righted.

Much of the revenue that supports this work comes from donations from readers just like you. Today, I’m asking you to join them, and us, by making a year-end donation to VTDigger. Any amount makes you a member, and any amount counts toward our big fundraising goal before the month ends.

There are thousands of readers in Vermont and from across the country standing behind our reporters, cheering them on, funding their work, and demanding the kind of reporting that can produce real, lasting change. I hope you will join them today.