BC Fundraising Update – A Long Way To Go By Peter Gamble, BC Publisher

It’s hard times all around, and here at BC, things are no different. We have a budget for 2008 that will keep us up and running, albeit on our usual shoe string.

And there are two ways we can meet expenses:

increase the money coming in

decrease the money going out

Addressing the latter – decreasing spending – is something we take very seriously. We’ve hit what we consider to be big ticket items by changing our hardware provider, and by learning to do more of our own programming but we’ve also found ways to save $20 here, $50 there, and will continue to look for savings in the cost of bringing BC to you each week.

As to the former – increasing revenue – we’ve done two things:

We have a less-than-half-price, “Winter Special” on a BC Paid Subscription, which will continue until the 1st week of spring

On January 28, 2008, we sent out a fundraising email to everyone on our Weekly Notification of Publication Email List

This list includes BC Paid Subscribers, Complimentary BC Paid Subscribers and readers who are not members, but who have signed up to receive the weekly email. This list represents about 6% of the total weekly readership of BlackCommentator.com as determined by the weekly activity of unique visitors to BC.

Here are the results of our fundraising drive:

About 4.7% of the email recipients responded with financial support

This brings us to a little over 5.1% of the yearly revenue we need to support BC

This being the 7th week of the year, that 5.1% should be at 13.5%, which means we have 2008 revenue of only 38% of where we should be right now

That’s actually not a bad start, considering that only about 6% of our readership is on the Weekly Notification of Publication Email List. Clearly, it would be nice to get contact information from more of our readers, and it would be especially good if more readers would become BC members by purchasing a subscription.

Here’s a link to get on the Weekly Notification of Publication Email List (it’s free), and here’s a link to become a BC Member by purchasing a BC Paid Subscription (either online or by check) or by requesting a Complimentary BC Paid Subscription. As always, the current issue is free to everyone.

So to all of you who responded to our plea, thank you – thank you. Whether you sent in $1 or $300, thank you. We realize you have other ways to spend your money, and truly appreciate the support you continue to show for BlackCommentator.com.

If you didn’t receive our fundraising letter, it’s printed below. All you need to help out, though, is this link to the Contributions Page, or send a check or money order for any amount to:

Fundraising

(New address as of Nov 2009)