Boston Review
For A Special Issue Of Boston Review And Related Book On Ethical Consumption
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Amount$45,000
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Program
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Date Awarded6/10/2011
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Term12 Months
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Type of SupportProject
Overview
Since 1997, Boston Review has been publishing the New Democracy Forum, a series of debates on issues of civic and political life that reach both specialists and general audiences. The format consists of a primary article with a set of 6-8 responses to it. This issue will focus on ethical consumption, asking how much consumers care about the labor and environmental conditions under which products are produced; whether they are willing to pay more for products produced under better conditions; whether environmental or labor concerns loom larger for consumers; whether consumers assign responsibility to brands for conditions in supplier factories; how these concerns might provide the basis for upgrading labor and environmental standards in global supply chains; and whether ethical consumption complements or substitutes for more conventional political action. With a wide readership (10,000 print readers and 100,000 online readers/month), Boston Review expects to help focus public debate about labor and environmental standards, and the responsibilities of consumers.
About the Grantee
Grantee Website
www.bostonreview.net
Address
P.O. Box 425786, Cambridge, MA, 02142, United States
Grants to this Grantee
for general operating support
Boston Review, a bimonthly political and literary magazine founded in 1975, aims to foster public discussion and thus promote a more deliberative democracy by publishing both essays by experts and unbiased investigative reporting, together with select poetry, fiction, and visual art. By the 1990s, the magazine was committed to making all its content available for free online. Today it hosts more than 150,000 readers each month online plus another 30,000 who discuss its content via social media.
for the Opportunity after Neoliberalism Project
Boston Review is a magazine of ideas, independent and nonprofit, founded on the premise that addressing the most profound contemporary social and political challenges requires serious public discussion. This project will challenge the neoliberal paradigm of meritocracy, which views individual achievement as an outcome of individual capacity and effort. While exploring new policy proposals, the goal is to rethink the philosophical foundations of ideas about opportunity, to imagine collective visions of opportunity and success, and offer alternatives to meritocracy as an idea that can deliver on the promise of equal opportunity. Through this grant, Boston Review will co-sponsor a conference on the topic with Brookings Institute and publish a series of (free) online articles, with the strongest featured in a print issue.
for a matching grant for general operating support
Boston Review, a bimonthly political and literary magazine founded in 1975, aims to foster public discussion and thus promote a more deliberative democracy by publishing both essays by experts and unbiased investigative reporting, together with select poetry, fiction, and visual art. The Foundation has supported Boston Review since 2005. Readership has continued to grow in recent years, but the Review continues to struggle financially. Earned income now represents 40 percent of the Review’s budget but is unlikely to increase dramatically in light of the organization’s mission to provide on-line content free of charge. The Review will likely thus continue to raise 60 percent of its budget from small and large donors, which it has struggled to do. A matching grant from the Hewlett Foundation would provide Boston Review with a leveraged opportunity to take the first steps in a new fundraising strategy: hiring an in-house fundraiser and, ultimately, a publisher to support both the Review's business and editorial management.
