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Going into our sixth year, a look at organizations and initiatives that we sponsor

As our team celebrated our 5th birthday this weekend during a celebration at Grandview Lanes, it got me to reflecting on just how much we actually do around here to trigger and support good happening in your city.

As our team celebrated our 5th birthday this weekend during a celebration at Grandview Lanes, it got me to reflecting on just how much we actually do around here to trigger and support good happening in your city. I thought perhaps it's time to toot our horn and remind you of the main purpose of this media company (web site, print magazine, social media channels).

We're powered by a team of 50-or-so volunteers who take on weekly or monthly columns, I do a lot of posts myself and sometimes we partner to bring you messaging about campaigns. Beyond that, we're a community supporter, partnering with non-profits and other organizations and offering them either FREE advertising or unprecedented FREE exposure on our blog, as in-kind donations from us. I'm not talking about making blog posts about charity stuff and cool projects (which we do a bunch of as well), I'm talking actual sponsorship deals where we support things that make your city more awesome.

In the past 3 months as media sponsors we've provided tens of thousands of dollars worth of exposure, banner campaigns and social media attention to...

Vancouver Heritage Foundation - We partnered with the VHF last year and every week they use V.I.A. as an outlet to share super interesting stories about preservation of heritage buildings in Vancouver, mostly from their Places That Matter series. We also support through Twitter.

PuSh Festival - during this year's festival we ran a free banner campaign for them, tweeted a ton of love AND gave them the keys to our blog so that they could write blog posts showing you a behind-the-secenes look at this staple of Vancouver performing arts.

St James Music Academy - every year we partner on helping to promote Sing It Forward in support of the St James Music Academy. Tons of blog posts, tweets, and Christine McAvoy goes above and beyond shooting it and producing content to promote it beforehand.

Creative Mornings - We've been a supporter from day one and are an official media partner, delivering the talks to you as blog posts when they go up on Vimeo and of course reminding you how awesome this speaker series is through social media, encouraging you to attend and support (like when they needed a video camera, and we helped tweet the importance of donating). I also personally worked for a few months on crafting a talk that I gave as volunteer speaker for one of them, delivering a talk about conservation and how creativity ties into it.

Vancouver Farmers Markets Society - As a longtime supporter of the Vancouver Farmer's Markets (going back to when Vancity credit union and V.I.A> were the only listed partners) we tweet a lot of love and attention to the markets, helping raise attendance, as well as letting them have a voice on our blog to make posts about their vendors, giving you an inside look.

HUB - We've got a similar relationship with HUB, where they have the keys to our blog to make posts promoting what they're doing, and we support on social media as well.

Pacific Salmon Foundation - And another similar relationship with the Pacific Salmon Foundation where they are blogging on V.I.A. and raising awareness about salmon conservation and their specific fundraising efforts. I am also personally a sustaining donor and I wear my pin proudly.

SCARP - We recently partnered with SCARP students for their Symposium, offering free banner ads as well as the keys to our blog to write about it, and of course promoted through twitter.

Megaphone Magazine - We've always supported on Twitter but recently had a chance to support Megaphone as an official media sponsor for their appreciation day, making blog posts about it and physically getting out and pounding the pavement the day of, handing out fliers and raising awareness.

BC Parks - Since last year we've been a partner of BC Parks, promoting the awesomeness of this natural resource that you own.

Small Business BC - We very recently gave SMBC a boost by giving them a free banner campaign to promote their upcoming event.

Sam Sullivan's Public Salon - Last year we partners with Global Civic to offer them ongoing free banner campaigns as well as Twitter support to help get the word out about this fantastic speaker series.

BC SPCA, VOKRA, Katie’s Place and Home Finders are all shown love on a regular basis with our regular VAN CITY KITTY editions where we change the spotlight from YOUR cats to cats that need homes, raising awareness about adoptable felines.

That's some of the official partnerships and sponsorships we have in place right now. Straight up reporting of awesomeness in tons of different categories across the city is at our core and as that's helped us build a following we're able to help redirect some of that light onto these other organizations (and many other) doing good.

Here's to another 5 years. Hell, to another 20!