How The Bristol Cable started

The Bristol Cable was founded in 2014 by Alec Saelens, Adam Cantwell-Corn, Alon Aviram, leading a group of volunteers. On launching, they raised £3,300 in a crowdfunding campaign, £1,500 from Co-ops UK, and £1,600 from Lush. In the six months prior to the first print edition the Cable organised a series of journalistic workshops in different parts of the city. The workshops were free of charge and could be attended by everyone. They focussed on topics such as investigative journalism, filming with smartphones and police reporting. The workshops were designed to find volunteers, publicise the idea of the Cable and ensure that the participatory nature of making many different voices heard was guaranteed.

The Bristol Cable was also organised as a cooperative from the outset, in order to make a new case for the financing of local journalism. After a year and a half there were about 500 members paying £2.50 on average.

The first major grant that secured the Cable's core funding over two years was $120,000 in 2015 from the Reva & David Logan Foundation based in Chicago, USA. It was followed by another $180,000 core funding plus $75,000 match funding over three years in 2017. In 2018, Luminate (formerly Omidyar Network) decided to fund Cable with $275,000 until 2020. The funding was extended for three years in 2020 (in the amount of $450,000) and secured a large part of the Bristol Cable's budget until 2023.