October 29, 2008

Spreading the Wealth

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SPREADING THE WEALTH….It seems as if shortly before every election someone starts pushing a story about how congressional Democrats are being stingy in sharing their personal warchests for the common good. Tom Edsall has this year’s version:

While sitting on more than $100 million in donations and most facing no contest this year, the Senate’s 51 Democrats have given the party’s key Senatorial Campaign Committee, the DSCC — headed by Chuck Schumer (D-NY) this year — $11.3 million, or just over $220,000 apiece on average.

….New York Senator Hillary Clinton, who is not up for election until 2012 and who has $6.68 million cash on hand, gave a total of $115,000 to the DSCC. Indiana’s Evan Bayh, who has $11.3 million on hand and is up in 2010, gave $15,000. Barbara Boxer who has an even $4 million in the bank in preparation for her re-election bid in 2010, donated $30,000.

Come on, fat cat senators. Spread the wealth! Wouldn’t it make your collective day to kick Mitch McConnell out of the Senate?

WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

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So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

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WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

payment methods

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