Dear LifeSiteNews Readers,
Every so often we receive reader inquiries regarding this question, to which we issue personal replies explaining LSN's annual costs. In fact, we were just informed by one reader that no donation would be coming our way if we did not explain how we could spend $500,000 per year on LifeSiteNews.
So let me give a brief overview of our costs. After reading this, I hope more readers will consider making a donation today to help us cover the necessary expenses of operating this critically needed international news service.
The salaries and fees paid to our twelve staff in four nations make up the largest portion of our costs. The senior, salaried staff members are Managing Director Steve Jalsevac, Editor-in-Chief John-Henry Westen, Assistant Editor John Jalsevac, Development Manager Tim Waggoner and US Co-ordinator Matt Anderson. Most of our talented writers are paid on an hourly basis but work nearly full-time hours.
The income paid to these wonderful staff, some of whom work well over 60 hours every week, will likely reach and exceed $350,000 in 2010 – less than $30,000 per year on average.
From this figure alone, you can see why leaders of other influential life and family issues organizations are always amazed when we explain our budget – they do not understand how we can possibly we do all that we do on such a small amount. And even then, most of us are run off our feet every day.
And we haven't even touched on the costs of improving and maintaining a major website that must always very reliably reach around the globe. For those of you who do not know, this is a costly outlay for any business. We serve up a database of over 26,000 accumulated LifeSiteNews articles on that server to nearly five million unique visitors per year.
If you can find quality web developers, designers and administrators for under $40 an hour, you are doing very well! Last year we spent $45,000 on these fees, which are in addition to our staff salaries. With the recent improvements to the website (three home page editions – US, Canada and International), as well as the soon to be released HTML emails, the 2010 web development and maintenance expense will likely exceed that of 2009.
To recap, staff salaries and web expenses account for $400,000 of our total annual costs. And I haven't even touched on the cost of travel and accommodation for covering major events and stories, as well as advertising, legal, accounting and insurance fees, communications equipment and charges, Internet, laptops and desktops, overhead, printing and many other expenses. You can now see why we estimate 2010 expenses to reach at least $500,000.
I could say that this is what it costs to operate a professional international news service, with writers in multiple nations covering five continents, but really, it should be costing a lot more.
When you consider the literally multi-billion dollar budgets of those who oppose life and family, and directly oppose the work of LifeSiteNews, we should barely be a blip on the radar screen.
But time and again we have proven to pack a punch much greater than our weight.
Like the time when we forced the New York Times to publicly apologize for publishing blatant lies about an abortion case in El Salvador, and how almost every major news service in El Salvador reported LSN's uncovering of the scandal on their front page.
Or when LifeSiteNews played a key role in having Pope Benedict XVI order a key clarification in the Vatican newspaper reinforcing the Catholic Church's uncompromising stand on abortion.
Those were just two of many victories LSN has won for life and family. While we know LSN has directly saved lives and caused conversions, it is accomplishments like the ones above that have the greatest effect on our culture. As we have said before, until our society at large opens up to the Truth on life and family, widespread cultural and governmental change will not occur.
For whatever reason, many in this movement believe that organizations such as our own should operate on the most minuscule and constraining of budgets while working against giant opponents. Potential major benefactors do not yet see this work as the most important work on earth, as we know it is, and so it seems that we have more convincing to do in that area. (If you have not yet read Life Versus Death; Beggars Versus Giants, I encourage you to do so.)
Well, I can tell you first hand that without the means, our collective goal to change this culture will be very hard to achieve. While I trust in God's providence, I also believe He has called us to support one another, entrusting us all with the good of humanity.
On that note, I want to sincerely thank those incredibly loyal readers who continually give LSN more than they can afford – you are the people that keep this critical news service afloat year after year. You are the people that allow the LSN staff to earn a somewhat reasonable living and raise families while working full-time to defend life, family and truth.
For those of you who have not joined this group in sharing the burden, but understand the dire need for fearless and truthful reporting, please contribute today.
So far we have received $6624 this campaign – money that we are truly thankful for. But it is certainly very little compared to our need at this time. We realize that this is always the toughest time of the year to fundraise but, you know, we have no choice.
All we can do is tell you our genuine need, ask for your support and then leave the rest up to you.
Tim Waggoner
Development Manager
LifeSiteNews.com
P.S. Donate securely online, by phone (888-678-6008 ext 923) or by mail.
Canadian Readers can mail donations to:
LifeSiteNews.com
104 Bond St, Third Floor
Toronto ON M5B 1X9
Canada
US and International Readers can mail donations to:
LifeSiteNews.com, Inc.
4 Family Life Lane
Front Royal, VA 22630
USA