A report out—and an admission.

I am perennially a glass half full person.   [Mother Jones]( MoJo Reader, March to May used to be my favorite time of the year. I was born in March and there’s something about the season that makes me feel randomly giddy (and also prone to breaking into tears for no reason, like when catching a snatch of a song like [this](). Turns out there may be science behind this—people born in the spring and summer are more likely, according to [one study](, to have hyperthymic temperament, aka “a tendency to be excessively positive.” And oddly, for someone who works in an organization focused on exposing what’s wrong, I am indeed that perennially glass half full person. Brian, who works with me on our online fundraising and was born in September, is less so. Why am I talking about this, you might be wondering? Because we just wrapped up our spring fundraising drive, and ever since I've become CEO of Mother Jones, this time of year has also been when the stress and nerves really start to blossom. It's when, across the organization, we look at Mother Jones’ bottom line as our fiscal year winds down. And we all have different ways of dealing with this tough fact: Every single year, the amount of money we can truly count on bringing in is pretty dramatically out of whack with the amount we need to pay our team, keep the lights on, and get our reporting out there to the millions of people who depend on it. Our fiscal year begins every July 1, and that means a new intimidating number to hit, and a marathon-slash-mad-dash for our team to somehow bring in enough by the time June 30 rolls around. Can our amazingly hardworking fundraisers commit to leaping across tall buildings in a single bound raising a couple of million dollars that we don’t quite know where it might ultimately come from? Can our sales team, knowing that advertising is in a tailspin across the industry, make a Hail Mary pass and somehow bring in as much this year as they did last year? Can we bet that various moody billionaires will forget to ban or suppress our journalism, so that millions of people will continue finding our stories on their platform, and perhaps decide to support it? And then, finally, we get to this: Will our readers, the people who have carried Mother Jones through thick and thin, step up and somehow close the gap as they’ve done last year, and the year before that, and the time the federal government [came after us](, and the time a right-wing billionaire [sued us](, and pretty much every year since our founding in 1976? The answer? A resounding YES…WE HOPE SO! Like what just happened with our shorter-than-normal spring fundraising push. Even though we didn't get all the way to our $300,000 goal, and thanks to a strong finish, the roughly $45,000 gap we ended up with is more manageable than it looked like it might be. Thank you. No, thank you thank you thank you, to everyone who pitched in over these last three-plus weeks. Thank you to those support our work each and every month with [recurring donations](. Thank you to those who [subscribe to our magazine]( or David Corn's [Our Land]( that help keep the lights on. Thank you to those who talk us up and introduce us to new readers. And thank you to those who do none of that and, in industry terms, don't get "monetized" at all: Doing journalism that you find valuable and helps readers fight for accountability and change—whether you can pitch in or not—is our mission. It's just that it is so damn hard to pay for it that it's often what I need to focus on when writing to you. [Billionaires]( or "[the animal spirits of capitalism](" ain't going fund our work. See, I'm already back to the mad dash to get to break-even by June 30. Like we've been [harping on so much on lately](, we have zero cushion to absorb any shortfall. And the truth is, we're still going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30. And beyond then, next year and the years after, we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way. It's the one area we can see realistically growing to help counter the downward spiral of advertising and other forces that are decimating journalism. And we're incredibly fortunate to have such a strong foundation to build from. This is where Brian, who's responsible for the online donation line in our budget, starts to light up and see the glass as a little fuller (if not all the way to half), because he knows the potential of the Mother Jones community first-hand. The short-term goals and always-aggressive budgets are tough and can be anxiety-inducing for him, and everyone on our team. So even though our campaign ended last Wednesday and we didn't plan to keep on making a big deal about it, I'm going to make [one final, unabashed ask for the donations we need to keep Mother Jones charging hard](. Brian's out starting today to decompress a little, and to recharge before we plunge into figuring out how we can best get to where we need to be by June 30. I can think of nothing better than him seeing [an unexpected spike in donations]( when he's back. So I hope you don't mind me asking today, on behalf of him and everyone here who's really feeling the crunch to hit their numbers. Thanks for reading, and for everything you do to make Mother Jones what it is. We appreciate the folks who read these emails more than you could ever know, whether or not you'll ever pitch in. Onward, [Monika Bauerlein, CEO] Monika Bauerlein, CEO Mother Jones P.S. I started this email with springtime in mind, and it wouldn’t be Mother Jones if I didn’t also mention that “May Day” refers both to an SOS (which in a way this email is), and to one of the most significant labor actions in American history. The May 1, 1886 strike was so important that the rest of the world (but not the US, of course) celebrates the International Day of Labor in its honor. One of the participants was Mary Harris “Mother” Jones, who from that day forward claimed May 1 as her birthday. So maybe spring is one more thing—a season of renewal of the fighting spirit, which feels fitting for the collective action that created and has always sustained our journalism and the work ahead. [Donate](   [Mother Jones]( [Donate]( [Donate Monthly]( [Subscribe]( This message was sent to {EMAIL}. 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