July 18, 2009

Dumbledore’s Army

Harry Potter Alliance of Hampton Roads

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I confess. When the seventh and final Harry Potter book was released I donned a Gryffindor scarf and was in line to get my copy at midnight. Any book that can move readers of all ages to devour tomes 600-800 pages long gets my respect. But, it seems the Harry Potter series has spurred fans to do more than organize wizarding conventions and start wrock bands (aka: “wizard rock“). The books have also inspired a philanthropic organization, The Harry Potter Alliance.
 
With over 100,000 members world wide, The Harry Potter Alliance models itself on the themes of human rights (and that of house-elves and warewolves) and social justice within the series, asking “What would Dumbledore do?” Chapters across the globe raise funds for aid in Darfur and Burma, book drives, voter registration and other “magical acts of kindness.”

The organization’s founder, 29-year-old Andrew Slack, began the registered nonprofit because he believes that, just as in the Harry Potter world, we are living in “dark and dangerous times.”  The organization seeks to overcome the “Muggle” mindset by working to fight genocide, poverty, torture, global warming, and discrimination, including marriage inequality—and not just because (spoiler alert?) Dumbledore is gay.

The HP Alliance also asserts that just as the wizarding media and government ignored the return of Lord Voldemort in the books, our institutions choose to ignore the existence of the Dark Arts in our world. Hopefully they think Mother Jones is doing better than the rest of the Muggle media.

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THE FACTS SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES.

At least we hope they will, because that’s our approach to raising the $350,000 in online donations we need right now—during our high-stakes December fundraising push.

It’s the most important month of the year for our fundraising, with upward of 15 percent of our annual online total coming in during the final week—and there’s a lot to say about why Mother Jones’ journalism, and thus hitting that big number, matters tremendously right now.

But you told us fundraising is annoying—with the gimmicks, overwrought tone, manipulative language, and sheer volume of urgent URGENT URGENT!!! content we’re all bombarded with. It sure can be.

So we’re going to try making this as un-annoying as possible. In “Let the Facts Speak for Themselves” we give it our best shot, answering three questions that most any fundraising should try to speak to: Why us, why now, why does it matter?

The upshot? Mother Jones does journalism you don’t find elsewhere: in-depth, time-intensive, ahead-of-the-curve reporting on underreported beats. We operate on razor-thin margins in an unfathomably hard news business, and can’t afford to come up short on these online goals. And given everything, reporting like ours is vital right now.

If you can afford to part with a few bucks, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones with a much-needed year-end donation. And please do it now, while you’re thinking about it—with fewer people paying attention to the news like you are, we need everyone with us to get there.

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