October 28, 2016

Donald Trump Lights $10 Million on Fire

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With only 11 days left in this year’s presidential campaign, Hillary Clinton has vastly more money in the bank than Donald Trump. It’s not even close. So Trump has finally decided to pitch in a few dollars of his own money:

Donald Trump, seeking to boost momentum in the last days of the presidential election, wired $10 million of his own money into his presidential campaign Friday morning, two advisers said….Mr. Trump’s cash infusion brings his total contributions to his campaign to $66 million….Mr. Trump’s latest donation to his cause still falls $34 million short of the $100 million he has repeatedly said he will give to his campaign—a pledge he reiterated as recently as Wednesday.

Well, I guess he’s still got another week to light his final $34 million on fire. In the meantime, consider this: Election Day can fall between November 2 and November 8. This year, just to add to our pain, it falls on the last possible day. If, instead, it fell on November 2, we’d have only four days of hell left. They say that whatever doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, and I sure hope that’s true.

WE CAME UP SHORT.

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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.

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