Chris Graham delivers his weekly sermon/plea for funds to keep New Matilda alive.
There’s a bus coming down the road to hit New Matilda, and it’s called Christmas. Indeed, it’s also called ‘most of December and virtually all of January’. That’s the time when we get virtually no income, as readers shoot off for a well earned break.
We’d like our two full-time staff – Max and Thom – and our part-time guru of all things admin (Ange) to have one too, and in particular I’d like to be able to pay them for it (albeit wages that don’t reflect their ability or effort). But our coffers are bare, the bills are still piling up (aren’t they always… that legal bill we inherited in July defending readers’ comments still has a little sting in its tail) and, to put it frankly, we’re all pretty burnt out after a very long year.
To get through, we need to raise at least $25,000 for wages, rent and bills between now and mid-January. Broken down, that’s just 150 or so new subscribers (from a site that gets well over 1 million readers a month). It’s by no means impossible. If just 1% of our traffic contribute, we’re there.
So we need our readers who haven’t yet subscribed but intend to, to do so today. I know from first hand experience how some things we mean to do never quite get done – I have a ‘to do list’ as long as Tony Abbott’s public brain snaps. Unfortunately, NM is, for a lot of readers, one of those things that they ‘intend to subscribe to’… at some point… down the track… but never really get around to doing.
We really, really need you to get around to doing it. Today. You can click here to subscribe.
All the editorial and traffic signs for NM are very good – we’re still climbing in the global web rankings (we’re now in the top 0.05 % of websites on earth), and our traffic is booming. But the financial signs, particularly in the lead-up to Christmas, bear no resemblance to the popularity of our site.
We have big dreams at New Matilda – an independent media site that punches above its weight; that fights to keep the bastards honest; that doesn’t promote hatred and division; that doesn’t seek to exploit fear in the community; that operates the way media was supposed to – without fear or favour and for the betterment of society.
I have big dreams too… that one day, I’ll draw a wage from New Matilda, as opposed to pouring money into a big independent media hole. I also dream of a free weekend some day – I’ve heard it’s quite a lot of fun!
Our subscription goal is very humble – we need 10,000 subscribers, from a population of almost 24 million. It’s not a big ask, but it’s not going to happen if readers don’t get on board. At the moment, we have about one quarter of that number – nowhere near enough to sustain the site in the long-term.
New Matilda is still free to everyone, and that’s a great thing. We hope to keep it that way. But we can’t keep relying on the generosity of a small band of stalwart supporters (and to you good folk, you have my ever-lasting gratitude). In short, we need more people to pitch in and share the load.
With that in mind, we need some champions to get out there and sing our praises, and push friends and family to support us as well. We published a story recently that went viral, and it’s had more than 1.3 million reads. We need our many dedicated readers to help that happen with our subscriptions as well.
We also need advertising support – if you work for an organisation that needs to promote itself (and every organisation does), our advertising rates are ridiculously competitive, and our traffic is pretty impressive (so is our reader demographic). You can get all those details here – please consider pushing our advertising to your own organisation, and to others as well.
You can also help by sharing our copy on social media (that’s really important); encourage friends and family to subscribe; encourage them to tweet and post our stories and subscription link; tell people why independent media is important and what will happen if they ignore it.
And if you can’t afford the price of a subscription, or you already have and you want to do more to help, then please consider our current Pozible campaign – we’re trying to raise $30,000 before the end of next week to employ a young Aboriginal cadet in our newsroom. We’re halfway there (hallelujah!) and you can support the campaign here. Every little bit helps.
In short… if you’re intending to subscribe and support us, please don’t put it off… click here to subscribe. Packages start from just $6 a month, but yearly subs will see us through Christmas.
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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.
