Dear LifeSiteNews supporters,
It is difficult for me to have to write this letter. But it is also necessary, for the truth is that we are in a tough financial situation and we need your help.
Over the last thirteen years, I have very rarely written a letter like this. I have always been determined to save the emergency appeals for when there really is an emergency. Well, right now we are in such a situation.
When we launched this Christmas campaign on December 1, we had nothing left in our Canadian branch bank account and just enough funds for two weeks in our Front Royal, Virginia office account.
Now we find that our Christmas campaign is off to a very slow start. After the first week of the campaign, we’ve only reached about $10,000 or 7% of our goal. Admittedly, campaigns usually start off slow, but with the need to raise $150,000 this time, we are really concerned.
In the years since LifeSiteNews.com launched, we have been heavily dependent upon a pro-life organization to subsidize our costs, and to make up for any financial shortfalls we have experienced. However, in the last three years, we have been forced by necessity to become financially independent, because that supportive pro-life organization is experiencing its own financial difficulties. We simply cannot ask them for more, because they have very little to give or to even lend us.
We therefore really need your help at this time.
(Click here to donate )
It may seem odd that we are issuing an appeal like this right after having launched the beautiful new LifeSiteNews website with its many associated huge functional improvements, which cost quite a bit to develop.
But as we explained in the launch video for the new site, a full two-thirds of the cost of developing the site was paid for by a single generous donor who donated the money specifically for that purpose.
Without that donor, we would never have even considered undertaking such a project – it’s difficult enough for us to raise enough just to keep going on a day-to-day basis! As for the final third of the cost of developing the site, we decided to trust in Divine Providence and give the go-ahead, trusting that our supporters would be able to make up the difference.
The new website is THE most exciting thing that has happened to LifeSiteNews since it began in 1997. It would be very disappointing if at this crucial juncture, when we have just taken ten steps forward technologically, when we are poised for enormous growth and to be able to exert significantly more influence for the good, to have to cut back our mission, and the very thing for which we are best known – professional, uncompromising and truthful pro-life and pro-family news reporting.
It is always humbling to have to ask for money from those who we know in many cases are struggling financially themselves. It is sobering to call to mind the fact that everything we have is thanks completely to the generosity of our readers.
And yet, at the same time, we are filled with a profound conviction that what we are doing is critical for the restoration of a culture of life. Without LifeSiteNews, where else could people go to find the unique type of reporting that LifeSiteNews produces on life, family, faith and cultural issues?
LifeSiteNews provides a very different perspective from the giant mainstream networks.
We simply cannot let them win.
The battle for our nations, our culture, and for our souls and the souls of our family and friends, is being fought in the media.
News agencies like ours are the strongest and most effective response to the crisis in our media – to the callous disregard for life, to the assaults on the natural family, to the depravity, sensationalism, dishonesty, nihilism, and disdain for even the most basic standards of decency that increasingly fills our airwaves and our newspapers, and consequently, our minds.
I know that our entire staff shares this conviction with me. I wish that each and every one of you could meet and talk with them. They are a very special group of people.
No one who works for LifeSiteNews does so for financial gain or for personal glory, for no such thing is to be found in this work. They are involved in this work for one reason only – they believe in our mission. They are, without exception, God-fearing, humble, hard-working servants. They are doing this work for you, for your children and grandchildren, and for our culture.
And so we ask you to consider supporting LifeSiteNews.com during this Christmas campaign with whatever you are able to spare, even if it is only $5.
And if you have friends and family who you think might be interested in supporting our pro-life and pro-family mission, talk to them, and ask them to consider making a donation as well.
We also encourage you to consider setting up an automatic monthly donation, even if you contribute just $5 a month. Some readers even contribute as much as $100 to $500 per month. Recurring donations help LifeSiteNews stay afloat from one campaign to the next, and we would not be able to survive if it weren’t for the generosity of our loyal monthly donors.
For this Christmas fundraiser, the most important of the year, we have set a goal of $150,000 to be reached by the end of the month.
Our current annual expenditure is about $500,000. The Christmas goal is what what we have left to raise in this year’s campaigns to meet that total cost for the year. $150,000 is also the absolute minimum that we need just to continue functioning.
When you consider that nearly three million people visited our site in the past year alone, this is a very reasonable goal. If only a small percentage of our readership were to step up and help, we could even far exceed our goal.
Please send a donation of $5, $50, $100, $1,000, $5,000 or even more to LifeSiteNews today.
And finally, we ask for your prayers. And we aren’t just saying that. Money is the worldly fuel that keeps LifeSiteNews running, but we know beyond any shadow of a doubt, in the depths of our being, that without the daily prayers of so many, we would have closed up shop years ago. Without God we can accomplish nothing. With God we can accomplish everything.
Thank you for your continued support of LifeSiteNews. God bless.
For Life and Family,
Steve Jalsevac
Managing Director and Co-Founder
LifeSiteNews
PS: U.S. donors can donate to LifeSiteNews to reduce taxable income for 2010 when you itemize your tax deductions. So don’t forget to donate before the year’s end!
U.S. and International Donors
Call our office at (888) 678-6008 x. 923 between 9:00 a.m. and 5 p.m. EST.
To donate by mail, print out and fill in one of our Adobe Acrobat PDF format mail-in forms (Click here). Then mail it with your check, money order, or credit card information to the address below. Please note that you can set up an automatic recurring donation using your bank account or credit card by indicating your intention to do so on the check or mail-in form.
LifeSiteNews.com, Inc.
4 Family Life Lane
Front Royal, VA 22630
USA
Canadian donors
Click here to donate online .
Call our office at (888) 678-6008 x. 923 between 9:00 a.m. and 5 p.m. EST.
To donate by mail, print out and fill in one of our Adobe Acrobat PDF format mail-in forms (Click here). Then mail it with your check, money order, or credit card information to the address below. Please note that you can set up an automatic recurring donation using your bank account or credit card by indicating your intention to do so on the check or mail-in form.
LifeSiteNews.com
104 Bond St.
Toronto, ON
M5B 1X9
*If the donation is towards a certain promotion or campaign, (i.e. Christmas Campaign 2010) please indicate this on the mail-in form and check.