You may have noticed something new at the bottom of this and other staff stories today: a request for donations.
This sort of thing isn't new new, of course. Requests for donations automatically appear across a variety of news and opinion sites, and you've almost certainly seen them on the Guardian or Slate or somewhere else on the internet by now. But it is new for Daily Kos.
Many of those outlets, though, solicit contributions to access new content that is otherwise locked away. Not us. Our work—from our editorial team, elections team, email team, and everyone else is free. We don't have a paywall, we don't have a podcast or special series exclusively for insiders who give us money—everything we do is published for all to read. For free. This new feature is meant to keep it that way.
Community support—that is, small donations of a few bucks at a time from readers and activists on the site and email list—has grown over the past decade to be Daily Kos' biggest source of income. Our website is our most easily accessible feature. Daily Kos has millions of unique readers every month, and we could run operations for years without ever sending a fundraising email if everyone who stopped by the site each chipped in just $1 annually.
But not everyone donates—indeed, not everyone is in a financial position where they can donate—and we want to keep our work free and as easily accessible to everyone as much as possible. The stories that staff members publish are widely shared on social media, in our Daily Kos Recommended email newsletter, and in news apps. It only makes sense to use those stories as a place to remind people how they can support our work. In fact, it was past time that we started using it as a space to solicit donations to support our work.
I'm happy to answer questions about our fundraising program and elfling will be lurking about to answer any technical questions you may have about it. But let me preempt what I expect will be the most urgent question for many of you: Yes, this new feature will only appear at the bottom of staff stories. No, it will not appear at the bottom of community stories.
One last thing. As senior campaign director here at Daily Kos, I am responsible for our fundraising efforts, and so it would be remiss of me to sign off without making one direct ask: Can you please donate $5 right now to help us meet our monthly goal? We are coming up short this month, and at the time of this writing we need to raise another $147,714.
Thanks. I look forward to your comments.
