Dear Readers of the best life, family and culture news service on the Internet,
We hope many of you are learning about how LifeSiteNews functions and what is needed to not only keep it going but to also improve it.
We have had a few readers asking if we accept Paypal donations. Well, not yet, but as a response to those requests we are now working on it.
A few others have asked what our specific dollar goal is for this campaign. As mentioned before, our expenses (the types of costs noted in our Day 1 message at https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2007/nov/07112915.html) are significant.
Our total annual expenses, plus the cost of our current new development and staff expansion is approaching $300,000 per year. To some that might seem to be a excessive. Well, if we think small, limit ourselves to the usual, mostly volunteer life and family group status (not to undermine the great value of those grassroots groups), the result could not possibly be what LifeSiteNews produces every day.
We decided long ago that we had to do this professionally in order to counter the massive disinformation or negligence of the mainstream media. That takes a certain minimal amount of funding to hire and keep the type of people that can do such a job and acquire the equipment and services to make LifeSiteNews really effective.
We are gradually getting there. How far we get on that road depends entirely on how much our readers want that to happen. We have proven that you can trust us to make it happen. So, we leave it with you.
Just before this campaign began LifesiteNews had received $26,187.00 in donations from its readers this year. Since the current campaign began on Nov.29 readers have sent in $5300.00 via Internet credit card donations and two mailed in donations that totaled $31,000. It is still too early to accurately factor in mail-in donations since we only began the campaign late last Thursday and those usually take a long time to come in.
That’s it. We are short $253,587 as of today. We hope you can understand that we are a little nervous.
Whatever shortfall results is made up a bit from our new advertising program but it has normally been covered every year by our founding organization, Campaign Life Coalition. That organization is having its own funding struggles and urgently needs us to become self-financing. Hence we have incorporated as a separate organization in the United States and in Canada.
We know for certain from analysis of our server statistics (600,000 pages viewed in October alone) and mail outs that many thousands of people read LifeSiteNews every day. As well, many organizations and publications republish our stories around the world. In the end, hundreds of thousands read at least some of our reports and leaders and students frequently use our 19,000 article database for their research.
So far, that has not been translating into even minimal regular donor support from even a small percentage of those regular readers.
Why not?
Well, for one thing, we know that if we had all your addresses and mailed a fundraising letter to you the returns would be far larger. Why? That’s the power of direct mail. I’ve had years of experience with it. As for the Internet, few people think of responding to Internet appeals. It’s still too new in most people’s minds. We have to change that.
But as well, as some of our readers have told us, we have just not been asking enough. They don’t even think of donating they tell us. And so, that’s why we are having this campaign – asking and telling you why.
American readers have told us that the ability to issue a tax receipt would be an important incentive for them. We worked on that for thepast year and it is now finally available. US donors will now all receive federal income tax deductible receipts.
A donation to LifeSiteNews is really a donation to yourselves. All we do is plow it back into providing you this service and hopefully improving it even more.
A donation that came in just a few minutes ago seemed to confirm the above. The donor states, “Life Site News is completely indispensable. I love it.’ We get those types of comments all the time.
If you still haven’t contributed, please consider doing so now.
Steve Jalsevac
LifeSiteNews.com
PLEASE send a donation by mail or online by credit card. ANY amount will be appreciated.
For information about how to donate or to print out our handy donation form go to:
https://www.lifesitenews.com/contribute/
Or just send your contribution to:
LifeSiteNews.com, Inc.
PO Box 25382
Pittsburgh, PA 15220-3514
Or
LifeSiteNews.com
104 Bond St, Third Floor
Toronto, ON
M5B 1X9
Or go directly to our online credit card donation form at:
https://lifesite.securesites.com/lifesite/contribute/information.html
Thank you for you generosity,
Steve Jalsevac
Managing Director
LifeSiteNews.com
Day 1 Message
https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2007/nov/07112915.html
Day 2 message
https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2007/nov/07113012.html ;
Day 3 Message
https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2007/dec/07120313.html
Day 4 Message
https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2007/dec/07120405.html
Steve Jalsevac
Managing Director
LifeSiteNews.com