Locals Wanted: Share Your Knowledge As A Contributor

Montana Samuels,Patch Staff

Patch may be the place you go to for information on school board meetings, business openings and weekend planning, but did you know you can add to our local news coverage?

Community contributors play a vital role in Patch's mission of sharing reliable, factual and consistent local news. The program is growing, and you can be a part of it.

Here's how to do it, and what we're looking for:

What's a community contributor?

Community contributors can be anyone with a connection to the place they live and information to share. If you've got unique, local insights into your hometown, you could be a fit.

Patch welcomes vetted contributors interested in sharing their expertise and reporting on their communities more deeply. While this is a volunteer role, there are some perks. Your work will be featured more prominently on Patch and be seen by a larger audience.

Got news about baseball tryouts this spring? The latest scoop on the new ice cream shop around the corner? All of the above could qualify you for the role.

So how do I become a community contributor?

Create a Patch account and start posting. Sharing updates and insights on your local community not only helps your neighbors stay informed, but it helps Patch verify that you qualify for the status.

Once you've started posting, apply here to become a verified community contributor.

Who can post on Patch?

Your local knowledge is more valuable than you think! Local news is shrinking, causing gaps in coverage for things like culture, arts and food. Patch does our best to cover all those bases, but if any of these sounds like areas of expertise for you, we'd love to have you:

• You're a local food connoisseur who is consistently trying new restaurants
• You're involved in the local music scene as a fan, musician, concert promoter or anything in between
• You belong to your building's tenant association or a neighborhood group
• You know about services offered by your local church, food bank, etc.
• You often attend city council or school district meetings
• You love the outdoors, and constantly monitor the status of trails nearby (while enjoying them as a patron, too)
• You take long walks or drives around your neighborhood and sometimes catch stuff on camera

All of these are valuable to Patch, whether as a neighbor or a community contributor. Your local community deserves high-quality local news coverage, and you can be part of the solution.

Already posting on Patch?

Great news! We appreciate you, and your commitment to sharing factual local news with your neighbors. If you haven't yet applied to be a verified community contributor, click here.

Looking for new post ideas? Check out a few suggestions here.

Before posting on Patch, make sure to review our community guidelines and see the Patch posting instructions for more information about what to post where.