Dear readers,
Hold onto your hats: New Matilda will be online in 2011! Hooray!
We’ve done the maths and we’re prepared to head into the new year with an interest-free loan to help us make up our budget shortfall. We’ll have to pay it back, of course, so we’ll continue to seek donations in the new year.
Some people have asked why we delayed our decision from Wednesday.
Those of you who were watching our budget target soar on Wednesday morning might have an idea. We raised a whopping $15,000 in the last day of our campaign. Before the surge of the last few days we were hopeful — but we also knew we were on shaky ground. It wasn’t until we had received a critical mass of donations that we could even consider accepting a loan. Thank you to everybody who donated to our campaign.
Today will be our last day of publishing for the year. We will be taking a break (yes — it will be unpaid!) and will take time in January to plan a bumper year before we start publishing at full steam again on February 1.
In addition to the work of NM’s regular cohort of writers, you can expect more data-driven journalism in 2011. We’re lining up longer view investigative projects too. There’s a shiny site redesign to implement as well which will help you access articles on the site more easily. The NSW state election will be on our immediate horizon when we return. It will be hard to top 2010 for federal political drama but we suspect that the changeover in the Senate, combined with the PM’s big recent policy promises will provide plenty of fodder.
We’ve got a lot of people to thank for their help in getting the site back online and conducting the fundraising campaign. Many people gave time and advice freely. We knew plenty about running a website when we kicked off our campaign with Fundbreak — but not a whole lot about fundraising.
We’d like to thank Dave Gravina at Digital Eskimo for drumming up industry support; Phil Rutherford, New Matilda’s off-site advertising manager, for donating his time; Glen Fuller for organising events, including our quiz night (look out for more events in 2011), and Deborah Kelly for donating artwork; Stephen Steneker at Grox and Tom Cameron at Mooball for tech support; Ben Pobjie, Ben Eltham, Jennifer Mills, Mustafa Qadri, Zoe Krupka and Fiona Katauskas for their loyalty; Alex Kelly for spreading the word; Tanja Kovac for approaching progressive organisations; and Xavier Rizos for business advice. Many more people gave us advice, moral support and encouragement. We needed it: thank you all!
Thanks are also due to the many writers, cartoonists and photographers who gave their work to the site for free as well as to the people who talked up NM on and offline. On the home front, our friends and family have soaked up a fair bit of drama too.
Our fundraising partners at Fundbreak worked tirelessly to keep the campaign online. Without their expertise, Australia’s most successful crowdfunding experiment might have tanked!
And of course, thank you to everyone who signed up to become a financial supporter. We know this campaign was watched closely by people in the industry who were curious as to whether an Australian audience would pay for online content. New Matilda readers have shown that they value independent media and are prepared to pay for it.
It’s not too late to get on the bandwagon either. If you missed out on donating via Fundbreak and would like to support NM safe in the knowledge that we will actually stay online next year, you can do so by making a direct transfer to Cordell Media Pty Ltd (BSB: 062033; Account: 10448257) or by sending a cheque made out to Cordell Media Pty Ltd to Locked Bag 2000/152 Surry Hills NSW 2010.
Thanks everyone! Have a great summer break and see you all in 2011.
Marni and Catri
Donate To New Matilda
New Matilda is a small, independent media outlet. We survive through reader contributions, and never losing a lawsuit. If you got something from this article, giving something back helps us to continue speaking truth to power. Every little bit counts.
