Thanks to so many generous and prompt responses, we have now reached our first five goals: funding important technical pipelines, bonuses for our loyal guest writers, increasing the number of employees to continue expanding links; support the comment section; and providing our 24/7 cover staff without burning out the writing team. Let me emphasize again: your contributions have and continue to make all these critical things possible.
Your support for our “minimum donation” challenge has pushed us to the top of our fifth goal, so we are now on a new path, to expand our reach, such as taking steps to attract new students.
But we are still not where we should be! We are behind when we should have enough money in the till for next year. So please head over to the Tip Jar to do your part.
Our average per donation is very healthy, but the total number of donations lags far behind. That said, we are just under 1000 contributions from our initial goal of 1100 and we are increasing that goal to 1250. But over the years, we’ve reached that donor goal before.
So if you haven’t donated yet, please go quickly to the donation page and dig deep! Anything you can contribute helps this site thrive!
As in recent years, we are putting together a fundraising goal to expand our reach. This is a hostile environment for small independent sites, so we need to spend more time bringing in new readers.
Our traffic has remained constant even though Google has taken it down several times, putting us on par with independent websites like The Intercept, Truthdig, Jacobin, WSWS, and Counterpunch. The effort to engage in message control has become more intense this year. For example, YouTube monetized MintPress’ channel, and removed former CIA analyst Larry Johnson’s channel. Meta closed The Cradle on Facebook, where it had 107,000 followers. And that’s before you get to the FBI raid on Scott Ritter’s home, on the dubious grounds that he was an unregistered foreign agent, and their arrest goes beyond what the warrant allows.
We have had several students say that this year the site keeps getting better. However traffic wise, we are working harder than ever just to stay in the area.
So what can help increase visibility? Before we get to the new things we can do, please consider sending Naked Capitalism Songbooks to friends, family, and colleagues as a funny way, especially pop music fans or those with a funny sense of humor. Get your copy of this year’s release here.
So whether you are able to contribute financially to this rally or not, spreading the word about Naked Capitalism is also very important to our success. Encouraging people who might be interested in our work to check out Naked Capitalism is very important (as we sign up through our fundraiser page if you haven’t had time to do so yet).
Students tell us how important Naked Capitalism is to them. For example, from Lynn H:
Greetings from Portugal, Yves!
As I think you know I am a long time reader and I really appreciate Naked Capitalism for the information and education you provide and the sense of community (even for people like me who are just lurkers).
With the time difference, NC is no longer the first thing I read in the morning, but it continues to be the most important thing I read. So, I wait (impatiently!) to read the Daily Links at 12pm and the afternoon Watercooler at 7pm!
Thank you again for all your hard work, and I also greatly appreciate the efforts of Lambert, Nick, Conor and your moderators and NC students who contributed their knowledge. I just don’t know where I would be without Naked Capitalism as a resource.
And Gerry Y:
I’ve been logging in with NC almost every day since +/-2007.
The best and most unique: research, reporting, and comment section available on the web!!
Here’s hoping the NC lasts as long as possible.
I would like to express my deepest gratitude to you and all your staff who help make NC a success.
And Susan R:
A check is in the mail for $500. If my husband can sign up for a paper supplement to the New York Times Art, Entertainment and Food sections, I can match that with a donation to Naked Capitalism for news and ideas we can use.
And dftbs:
Thank you for all you do with the NC team. Although I have little time to be an active member of the community, your hard work is greatly appreciated and I look forward to NC as it is now the 10th thing I do in the morning, after diapers and bottles and such.
All the best to you and the NC team.
Last year, your donations for this mission were well spent, but not as intended. One of our priorities was to re-launch our newsletter, to somehow expand the mailing list from current readers to potential media partners and make it look less cheesy. We were about 80% of the way there when the effort was interrupted by Yves confronting Google’s threat to monetize other ads, which, if not executed, would set the stage for more of the same. Even though this fundraiser is far and away our main source of income, we are not so strong that we cannot afford to lose any source of income. Although we were successful, we are very grateful for the help of Matt Taibbi, Rajiv Sethi, and our ad service.
So we would like to create and launch a new and improved newsletter.
The second way would be for Yves to take other interview requests. We also often have to turn them down because they come too close to “hit time” for me to do them and not block posting.
But we can’t be sure, even if we took all the high-quality interview opportunities that came across the transom, that they would appear often enough to increase our visibility.
The third would be a literature review. They also take more time than regular posts and therefore require more website resources but they help create more visibility with other writers, who may refer to or link to Naked Capitalism more often. And remember, we don’t mean to do favors, it’s not the NC thing to do. A sharp review against a worthy target often attracts like-minded professional writers, even if the target takes a passion. And this is something that some of our successful writers can take when they find the right book for them.
And of course our regular readers enjoy eating a wide variety of posts.
We are setting a goal of $11,000 for this goal and we are just getting started, with $985 to go. Note that we have kept this goal modest compared to others.
If we end up not spending all the funds intended to help with various external visibility efforts, they will support more real reporting. So please, help us get bigger and uglier by going to the Tip Jar and donating as generously as you can! Whether it’s $5 or $5,000. They all help us keep this site humming!
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