What makes you and your co-founders qualified to do this?
Our co-founders are made up of Elise Fitzsimmons, Kelly Lewis, and Nikki Vargas. Elise Fitzsimmons is our Publisher and comes to us from NPR where she has years of experience in working in broadcast journalism and raising money to support the Aspen Public Radio station in Colorado. Elise brings those skills to Unearth Women to help develop the forthcoming podcast.
Kelly Lewis is an entrepreneur who founded the Women's Travel Fest, Damesly Tours, and Go Girl Guides. Kelly brings her wealth of connections, experience, and knowledge of the travel industry to this company.
Nikki Vargas is our Editor-in-Chief who has a decade of editorial and journalism experience in New York City. Nikki has spoken at various travel conferences—including the NYT Travel Show and Women in Travel Summit—as well as has written for HuffPost, FOOD & WINE, VICE, and more. Nikki brings her editorial expertise and helps shape the voice of Unearth Women's magazine and digital site.
How are you sustaining Unearth Women magazine?
It goes without saying that it is a difficult time for the print industry. We made a bold choice in introducing a new magazine. We felt a magazine was necessary to both establish ourselves as a brand as well as make a dent in the male-dominated travel space. After a year of Unearth Women magazine, we have made the difficult but necessary decision to discontinue printing our magazine. As a self-funded start-up, it is very difficult to sustain the cost of printing and magazine production. Our fourth issue—the Inclusivity Issue—will likely be our last issue of Unearth Women magazine. That said, we will continue to grow as a digital media platform with a podcast, online articles, videos, trips, and a forthcoming book.
How will you use the money from this campaign?
Every penny raised from this campaign will go towards the company and helping us to grow as a digital media brand while also paying our female content creators fairly. Specifically, we are looking to raise money to grow our digital freelance base, create original videos, and finish production on our podcast.
Why is it important to you to pay female content creators?
As a journalist and editor with almost a decade of experience in the industry, it is so important to support our fellow content creators. It is a difficult time for journalists and editors across the industry. Many talented writers are being laid off and thrown into the job market where they are hunting for bylines and being severely underpaid for their work. We have a situation here where there is a saturation of talent looking for work and few opportunities available. The result is that many writers and editors are being taken advantage of and being forced to accept pay rates well below what they deserve. It is so personally important to me to support content creators today, especially women.
