Dear readers,
What if I had to say to you today that LifeSiteNews.com will have to suddenly, drastically cut back on its new reporting? That we are unexpectedly not able to pay even small current bills – this is the real situation this very moment.
Would it make any difference to you personally? Would you feel that the world would be a better or worse place without LifeSiteNews? Would you miss receiving our daily newsletter, or reading our reports online?
We are now in the final week of our spring fundraising campaign. As of today, we are short of our absolutely necessary goal of $125,000.
Folks, I hate scare-mongering fundraising tactics as much as the rest of you, but I have to tell you the honest truth: this is getting concerning. I can’t remember a quarterly campaign in recent memory that has started off as slowly as this one. And yet, traffic to our website is higher than ever!
Huge numbers of people are reading and commenting on our news reports. So, we are scratching our heads and wondering why the response to this campaign has been so dismal.
Let me remind you, LifeSiteNews.com depends ENTIRELY on the generosity of ordinary donors like YOU!
We have no major millionaire benefactors bankrolling us. We have no large endowment. No financial emergency cushion. We have no other major sources of income. The proceeds from our quarterly fundraising campaigns make up the overwhelming bulk of our income.
YOUR sacrifice, YOUR generosity is what keeps LifeSiteNews going from day to day.
That’s why, as we enter the last six days of our spring fundraising campaign, I want you to imagine what it would be like if LifeSiteNews had to shut down or drastically cut back its reporting: if all the in-depth breaking updates on life and family suddenly stopped; if the nearly 1.5 million unique visitors who come to our website every month to learn the truth about abortion and marriage and freedom had to be turned away; if this whole experiment in providing crucially needed, alternative, gutsy pro-life and pro-family news reporting had to come to an end.
I don’t know about you, but when I imagine a world without LifeSiteNews.com, that’s when I realize just how unique LSN is, and how much, by the sheer grace of God, it has been able to contribute to the cause of promoting the Culture of Life and Family – and bringing about much needed cultural change.
Take just one example. We all know that the Mainstream Media (MSM) goes to great lengths to ignore – and in some cases blatantly misreport – the National Marches for Life in the United States, Canada, and elsewhere. If you were limited to only the MSM, you would hardly know that the Marches for Life even exist!
Well, here at LifeSiteNews.com, we view it as our mission to correct the blatant bias and balance the hostility of the MSM towards the life and family issues.
And so, that’s why this January we sent a whole team of reporters to the March for Life in Washington D.C. These exceptional reporters trudged through snow and ice, and worked from sunrise till usually past midnight to bring you exclusive reports on every aspect of the March, and the many smaller events and conferences that surround it.
Take a look at this list of stories just from the 2013 U.S. March for Life alone:
- March Vigil Mass: 13,000 faithful, 5 cardinals, 42 bishops, 395 priests, 80 deacons, 520 seminarians
- 2,000+ youth learn the nuts and bolts of pro-life activism at Students for Life conference
- Networks give 521 times more coverage to Manti Te’o than March for Life
- Healing, not scarlet letters, promoted at national pro-life prayer service before March for Life
- ‘Redemptive running’: LIFE Runners honor March for Life founder Nellie Gray with inaugural 5K run
- 30,000 teens fill DC arenas for upbeat March for Life Catholic youth rallies
- Hundreds of thousands join record-breaking U.S. March for Life (93 PHOTOS: Updated)
- ‘Know this Mr. President, we will never quit!’: Rep. Smith challenges Obama in March for Life speech
- Pro-life leaders surprise LifeSiteNews editor-in-chief with achievement award
- Pope sends letter, tweets in support for U.S. March for Life
- 'March for … ?’ Mainstream networks don’t use ‘Life’ in March for Life coverage
- ‘I survived Roe, but Roe won’t survive me!’: March for Life youth rally packed to capacity (PHOTOS)
- Abortion is about ‘raw, brute, callous power over the helpless’: Dr. Charmaine Yoest
- Top Vatican official praises U.S. Marches for Life as witness for ‘the whole world’
- 2013 U.S. March for Life – schedule of events: Updated Jan 21
There was literally no other news agency in the country that provided such in-depth, original, on-the-ground coverage of the March for Life. If LifeSiteNews’ reporters hadn't been there, where else could you have learned such details about what happened at this massive pro-life event, the largest annual pro-life event in the world?
We have also been reporting on the growing number of Marches in other nations,some of which have been instigated because of the annual LifeSiteNews coverage of the U.S. and Canadian Marches.
And when the March for Life happens in Ottawa this May, once again we will have a team of reporters there, on the ground, bringing you the news reporting that no other agency in the country will.
But it isn’t just the Marches for Life. Think of the battle over the HHS mandate; of the trial of “House of Horrors” abortionist Kermit Gosnell; of the life-saving work of groups like 40 Days for Life and pregnancy resource centers; of the fight against gay-straight alliances in schools; of the fallout of gay “marriage”; of Catholic charities with questionable connections. Or think of all the many beautiful stories of heroism and courage in difficult circumstances that we have brought to you in our “Culture of Life” feature section.
Can you think of any other news agency that has provided as in-depth, original coverage on these issues as LifeSiteNews.com?
I can’t.
LifeSiteNews.com is quite simply unique, not only in the pro-life and pro-family focus that it brings to the news, but also in the level of professionalism for which our team of reporters always aims.
So ask yourself today: What is this kind of reporting worth to you?
And once you figure out the answer, please consider making a donation to LifeSiteNews.com today to help us reach our spring fundraising goal.
For life and family,
Steve Jalsevac
Managing Director
LifeSiteNews.com
P.S. Would you miss LifeSiteNews.com if we had to drastically scale back our reporting? If so, why not consider making a gift to our spring campaign, to make sure that we can continue to bring you top-quality pro-life and pro-family news reporting until our next quarterly campaign.
Even more, if you are in a position to become a sustaining major donor to LifeSiteNews, please contact us about how we can work together to hopefully ease the total dependency that we have on only these quarterly campaigns and allow us to better plan and build for an exciting future of even greater influence for good.