We need to be upfront about this.

5 key points to make this less harrowing, less prone to coming up short.   [Mother Jones]( MoJo Reader, Journalism is in trouble, and that's nothing new. But we learned something the hard way over the last year. We need to be more upfront with you about exactly how tough it is to keep a newsroom from falling off a cliff. Because the crisis facing journalism [is the new normal](, and Mother Jones’ existence depends on getting this right and earning enough support, [one donation]( from our community of readers at a time, to keep going strong. Something else we learned: Fundraising doesn't have to be overwrought BS. When we hit a rough patch last fall, we asked readers how we can better go about raising the money we need, and you told us loud and clear: Just give it to you straight when [asking for donations](. So that's what we'll do today. We need to raise $253,000 in [online donations]( quickly, by October 7. The in-depth journalism on underreported beats and unique perspectives on the day's news you want from us is possible only because readers [fund us](. It is also the type of hard-hitting reporting that is desperately needed to fight for democracy, justice, and the truth itself. Please pitch in, like right now, if [you’re nodding along and don’t need any more convincing](. Whether you can swing $5, $50, or $500 it all matters when added up with your fellow readers. This is a legitimately urgent fundraising moment for us. And when we say that, it isn’t paper-thin fundraising boilerplate we toss around without thought. It is a 100 percent accurate way to characterize our finances. In fact, adequately communicating the true urgency of our fundraising goals and deadlines is probably the hardest thing to accomplish in making the case for [a big haul of donations]( right now. Demonstrating the [value]( and [urgency]( of our team’s reporting given the state of…everything, and how being [funded primarily by readers]( is the thing that allows us to do it all? That’s so much easier. And Brian tackles it all head-on with you, our readers and funders and champions, in his [personal, insider account]( (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now. The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have a chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We can’t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of. All while expenses keep rising and other industry-wide pressures only increase and squeeze us in ways big and small. Getting just 10 percent of the people who care enough about our work to be reading this email to [part with a few bucks]( would be utterly transformative for us, and that's very much what we need to keep charging hard in this financially uncertain, high-stakes year. It's not just us: Everyone in the journalism field needs to find new ways to somehow make it all work. So we're trying something that might just make earning [the support we need]( less harrowing, and less prone to ending up with a bigger gap than can be filled as the budget year ends—if it works. 5 key points: - We’re starting to use quarterly fundraising goals to (hopefully) avoid falling too far behind to make up for like last year. We can’t leave it to chance. We can’t stomach needing to [trim]( any more expenses to make it all work this year. - $350,000 each quarter gets us to our $1.4 million [online donation]( goal for this fiscal year, July 1 through June 30. - We’re committed to being less in your face with fundraising, and we’re also quite committed to paying staff. But we're willing to roll the dice and see if we can [raise what we need]( in just three weeks or so as each quarter winds down. Our first quarterly goal and deadline was supposed to be in 10 days, on September 30, but it took longer to get this all figured out than anticipated, so we’re pushing it back a week to Saturday, October 7. (Kind of on-brand for an ambitious, scrappy newsroom—always pushing right to the deadline!) - The good news! Some of what we’ve learned from you is leading to better results outside of these big campaigns, and almost $100,000 has already come in this first quarter. - So that leaves the $253,000 in [online donations we need over these next few weeks](. We used to be more nonchalant about this, thinking that if fundraising struggles earlier in our fiscal year, we’ll nail the next campaign and make it up later. Not anymore. There is zero doubt that the [market]( [forces]( [decimating]( journalism, or any [other]( [number]( of [things](, will keep throwing us serious curveballs, and we can’t allow ourselves to fall behind. Being able to rally $253,000 [in donations]( over these next few weeks is so damn important simply because it is the number that keeps us right on track and helps us avoid any significant (and knowable) cash-flow crunches for now. [Laying it all out for you](, and hitting that number, is our best answer to the age-old question: How the hell are we going to raise all that money? $253,000 in short order is also more than we can often rally this time of year, and we're going to need more help than normal getting there. [Please give if you can](. Here's our big concern. The encouraging results we've seen since taking your advice to just [matter-of-factly explain]( our inner workings, our challenges and realities, when we need to come knocking for [donations]( have mostly been during a hair-on-fire moment for us—when we were staring down the end of a fiscal year with a sizeable hole to fill. People get that. Just three months into our new budget, we can’t (in good conscience) lay on the “these next few weeks are truly make-or-break” or “it’s all coming down to the wire and we have to get to break even” language that communicates how legitimately dire it is when the year winds down. “These next few weeks are vitally important,” and “we need to stay on track so we don’t come up short later,” is absolutely true right now, but it just doesn’t have the same oomph. Will folks [pitch in]( when we’re not frantically trying to finish a fiscal year square? We freaking hope so. Because the fundamental truth is that corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you. And we need you to show up for us big time—again. If you can, please [support the journalism you get from Mother Jones with a donation at whatever amount works for you](. And please [do it now](, before moving on to whatever you're about to do next and think maybe you'll get to it later, because every gift matters and we really need to see a strong start from this email if we're going to raise the $253,000 we need in less than three weeks. Thanks for reading, and for everything you do to make Mother Jones what it is. There's more [here](, where you can also [give us feedback](, ask any questions, or share what draws you to Mother Jones because we have to get this right. Onward, Monika Bauerlein CEO Brian Hiatt Online Membership Director [Donate](   [Mother Jones]( [Donate]( [Donate Monthly]( [Subscribe]( This message was sent to {EMAIL}. 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