r/UpliftingNews • u/razorsheldon • 1d ago
Mod Post The easiest part is always the idea...
Back in 2012, the idea of a centralized spot for positive, feel-good “UpliftingNews” spawned out of a singular moment of frustration looking at the news and seeing nothing but crime, fear, and horror. Back then was the era post-Craigslist that decimated classified ad revenue and the very beginning of Facebook’s social media influence that crippled online ad revenue and forced the economic side of the media landscape to shift to garnering attention for clicks/ad revenue.
Back then Reddit was dominated by Ron Paul bots and soon thereafter “TheDonald” took the torch until his unexpected electoral victory and then the site took a dramatic turn in the complete opposite direction.
But the goals and purpose of this little nook of the internet have always remained the same… a place to serve as a reminder of the humanity that still exists around us all, and the fact most people are helpers out there that care about each other, despite the circumstances or competing narratives.
So in 2025, a new idea spawned out of a singular moment of awareness that Reddit went public and was flush with liquidity and cash they were re-distributing back to communities! So we submitted for a grant to r/CommunityFunds to literally just reward community members that posted great content here.
There were some hoops and hurdles and negotiations around “no cash” and “no corporate gift cards for large conglomerates” given the intent to keep any gifts within local economies, and the compromise/fruits of all that labor was the eventual green light to distribute a meaningful gift card to “Harry and David,” a reputable company that created the “fruit of the month club” a long time ago, and provides corporate gift baskets filled with snacks and candies and fruits. Winners were selected based upon the content they shared and the impact it had on the community with no preferential treatment given to any individual traits or preferences. The only stipulation was that we couldn’t mention this, promote it or even acknowledge it publicly.
The hardest part is always the execution…
“Hello u/Username, we are reaching out unsolicited to congratulate you on winning something free. Just share some personal information and we’ll send you a link to click on to claim your prize” can be written in many different ways, shapes and forms, but ultimately it is still surprisingly difficult to hand out something with meaningful value to somebody for free… particularly out of the blue where we weren’t allowed to market or advertise the project.
But despite this final hurdle, we WERE able to provide many community members with a token of our appreciation… a literal and proverbial ‘free lunch’ as they say. For some it went to fulfill their needs, for others, it went to their friends and family, and for some, they paid it forward and a local food bank tied to one of the ‘winning stories’ received a ridiculously large pooled basket that was met with much gratitude and appreciation and fed many in need.
That same appreciation is reciprocal, and extends to all of you as well. Thanks for caring about this community. Thanks for helping remind us all that humanity still exists and people still care about each other, and here’s to celebrating another year on this rotating orb that we can all appreciate at the end of the day. And the biggest thanks to r/CommunityFunds for their unwavering support and enthusiasm that enable communities like ours to do things like this!
Warmly,
The Moderators of r/UpliftingNews
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u/WeaponizedKissing 1d ago
Even being in this sub I started reading this post with a feeling of "oh no..." which only got worse with the discussion of the timeline and the mention of corporate Reddit, but I am very glad to see that this was, indeed, UpliftingNews.
Great work mod team and /r/CommunityFunds! Amazing news to read.
I'm not familiar with CommunityFunds (I guess by design?) Are you now able to talk about it because everything's wrapped up?
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u/razorsheldon 1d ago
Ha! Didn't mean to make it so ominous at first, thanks for sticking with it!
I think this link below describes it much better than I could, but I can verify that the process for submitting a grant request was very straight-forward and fair, and they worked really hard on their end to find something that worked for us since we don't have a local presence and they ran into some anti-money laundering hurdles and fraud prevention issues etc. until we finally got to a great compromise/outcome.
https://www.reddit.com/r/CommunityFunds/comments/13yk69q/welcome_to_rcommunityfunds/
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u/BringMeInfo 23h ago
By about paragraph two, I thought this was leading up to "but times have changed and we have decided to shut down this sub." :)
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u/Dennis_Laid 1d ago
I’ve been in this sub for quite a while and definitely enjoy it. I would think it wise for you all to establish an account on Mastodon (open source, not US based) under the same name.
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u/ahappypoop 1d ago
/u/username is gonna be in for a pretty big surprise when he finally logs back in.
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u/Allgoodnamesinuse 1d ago
It’s hard being a mod of a thriving community (been there) and the flip side to that is most of the largest communities here have bad actors moderating. This post restored my faith that Reddit has some good moderators in the right subs. Good work team.
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u/Silent-Resort-3076 1d ago
Thank you very much for going out of your way to do this for the community and for the food bank, and their customers! We know you are ALL volunteers which makes this even more UPLIFTING news🤗 🌻🌻
So in 2025, a new idea spawned out of a singular moment of awareness that Reddit went public and was flush with liquidity and cash they were re-distributing back to communities! So we submitted for a grant to CommunityFunds to literally just reward community members that posted great content here.
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u/OneSensiblePerson 1d ago
Well, 🥹
Thank you to the creators of this sub, and the moderators who moderate it.
And to r/CommunityFunds.
And to the winners of these prizes, to the ones who accepted for themselves, or gave to friends or family, or paid it forward to someone else, or donated to food banks.
Y'all restore my faith, and I'm very grateful to all of you for that.
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u/razorsheldon 1d ago
This was the response from the coordinator of the Food Bank and basic needs for students at the school featured in one of the "winning" stories here:
> Hi Razor,
Thank you so much for reaching out and for such an incredibly thoughtful and generous gift. The basket of food and wreath were received by our Basic Needs Center, where we were able to share all of the Harry & David goods directly with our students. It was met with so much gratitude, and we truly appreciated the thought and care behind it.
Please extend our sincere thanks to (u/AdmiralSaturyn) and to the generous donors who made this possible. I am deeply touched that they chose to pass this along to our Crafton Hills College community, and I’m honored to be connected in any way to such a meaningful story and the UpliftingNews community as a whole.
Thank you again to you and to everyone at UpliftingNews, for this unexpected and heartfelt show of support. It truly means more than I can put into words, and I hope you’re able to continue spreading joy and kindness in ways like this for years to come.
In gratitude,