By Brad Friedman on 2/25/2013, 4:05pm PT  

My thanks to those of you who answered my recent call for support on the heels of our 9th Anniversary announcement. A little more than 100 of you answered that call which, while seemingly a very small number of the thousands who visit here each day, is amongst the largest responses we've had to any of our attempted fundraisers over the years, in terms of number of people giving.

So my great thanks for that. If you had purchased our premium offer for a signed copy of Marta Steele's new book, Grassroots, Geeks, Pros, and Pols: The Election Integrity Movement's Rise and Nonstop Battle to Win Back the People's Vote, 2000 - 2008, it's on its way or already there, or we'll need a few more days to get a few of them out, since we oversold our limited number of available copies and Marta's been kind enough to help us get a few more to cover all of those who purchased. If you didn't get one through our premium offer, you can (and should!) get one via the Columbus Free Press website right here.

All of that said, I'm still facing difficult questions about how to sustainably keep going here as we begin our 10th(!) year of trouble-making, muckraking and journalism regarding many topics that most in the media would prefer to ignore. I hate --- and am not very good at --- constantly haranging you all for contributions, even if it's just a few times a year. So, for the short term, a quick question for those who have time to offer some feedback to me here...

While a good number of you were generously willing to help out with one-time donations during the recent drive, what, if anything, might help to encourage you in the future to become a monthly sustaining contributor? I'm open to any and all ideas. While I don't usually directly request feedback of this sort, I am doing so now, as I search for a more reliable way to try and keep things afloat here as we move forward.

I know there's a lot of "competition" for your eyeballs and web support dollars these days. And so much free content is available out here that I appreciate how difficult it is to contemplate paying anything for stuff on the web.

But is there additional or a different type of coverage you'd like to see here that might help? More quick news items? Fewer items, but more longer investigative reports? More and varied guest blog voices? A "subscriber's only" area of some sort?

I'm just tossing out a few thoughts to give you an idea. I don't want to prejudice the imagination of the jury here, and I may or may not be able to accomplish any particular changes given our limited resources. Also, I want to make sure that we continue to offer original reporting or analysis, rather than simply re-post stuff from elsewhere, as so many sites do these days.

But I'd be very interested to hear your thoughts on what, if anything, might help encourage some of you --- beyond those few who have already done so (thank you!) --- to be more inclined to sign up for a monthly sustaining contribution (of any particular amount).

Please let me know in comments. Or, if you feel more comfortable responding via email, I'm happy to hear from you that way as well.

And, again, my thanks to all of you who contributed to help us try to keep going in our most recent fund drive, as well as those who have done so in previous years. The support truly means the world.

* * *

P.S. If you'd like to sign up for one of those monthly sustaining contributions I'm referring to, you can do so anytime, for any amount you like, in the light-blue box about halfway down the right-sidebar on any page here at The BRAD BLOG. Or, you can select from one of the pre-determined monthly amounts in the dropdown link below.


Choose monthly amount...




P.P.S. Of course, a regular old one-time donation is always appreciated as well! (Even by snail mail to "Brad Friedman, 7095 Hollywood Blvd., #594 Los Angeles, CA 90028")





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