• by Sara Guaglione , August 29, 2018

Texas Monthly and Frost Bank are teaming up on a sponsored digital initiative called “The Texas Optimism Project.” It lives on a page on the Texas Monthly website.

One interview features Mikaila Ulmer, a young woman who created a lemonade business called Me & The Bees Lemonade, founded on the mission to save honeybees, after she was stung by the insects when she was 4 years old.

“Figuring out how to forgive, and then research and understand how important bees are to us, was hard,” she says in the conversation.
Another installment features Gilbert Tuhabonye, a runner, philanthropist and survivor of genocidal violence in Burundi.

The stories are shared on Texas Monthly's social platforms as well.

The sponsored project includes a brief quiz for readers to find out how optimistic they are. Plus, they can sign up for a biweekly email newsletter with positive content called "Good Newsletter."

Readers can also sign up on the page to Frost Bank’s “30-Day Optimism Challenge,” which delivers daily challenges for 30 acts of optimism to users’ inbox.

Last month, the regional magazine launched a campaign to get readers to whitelist the publication or sign up for its email newsletter. 
When readers using ad blockers land on Texas Monthly’s homepage, an interstitial pops up with a call to action: “To support our work and bypass this message, consider signing up for our weekly newsletter below or whitelisting texasmonthly.com

Texas Monthly redesigned its site in January and reorganized its editorial team to cover new, specific verticals, including News & Politics, Being Texan, The Culture, Style & Design, Food & Drink, BBQ and Travel & Outdoors.