Works in Progress (WIP) is a community newspaper based in Olympia, Washington that was established by people associated with the Thurston County Rainbow Coalition in 1990. It was incorporated as a nonprofit under Washington law and written, produced and distributed by volunteers on a monthly or quarterly basis through October 2023.
As of November 2023, the paper will become the province of a new group of volunteers with their own policies and practices, posting only online for the foreseeable future.
Through its 33 years as a print paper, the mission of WIP was “to confront injustice and encourage a participatory democracy based on justice in the economic, political, environmental and social realms and across classes, races and genders.” The paper focused on stories ignored or misrepresented by the corporate media, especially those that related to WIP’s mission.
Ove the years, WIP depended entirely on volunteers, sometimes members of a collective but in its last 7 years guided by a Publishing Committee. Along with a managing editor and talented volunteers who handled bookkeeping, layout, website, subscriptions and distribution, they saw to the accomplishment of nearly all organizational, administrative and editorial tasks.
WIP depended for survival on the contributions and participation of writers, activists, students, organizers, and other members of the community, broadly defined. Essential expenses were covered donations, subscriptions and a few generous advertisers. The paper also received a series of grants from the Workers’ Defense Fund whose purpose is to strengthen organizations that engage in against the powerful for the empowerment of the powerless.
Some back issues after 2012 can be searched on this site. The whole of WIP’s issues through 2023 are archived at the University of Washington Library.