2013 Open Media Boston Winter Appeal

We know that non-profits typically do lots of fundraising before the December holidays to attempt to catch people in a giving mood. But here at Open Media Boston, our strategy has been like "yeah, we know we're not going to compete with the Humane Society and the Children's Hospital while people are sober and dieting to be able to blow their Jenny Craig points at holiday parties - we need to catch people when they're bloated, logy, hungover and willing to toss us their pocket change to make us go away." Which is why we always make our main funding pitch to them in early January.

All kidding aside, 2012 was our best fundraising year yet. So much so that, in addition to funding our still very modest publication costs and your faithful editor/publisher's similarly modest stipend, we've been able to bring on three new reporters over the last several weeks - Sarah Betancourt, Andrew Jeromski and Tate Williams. All of whom have been producing top flight journalism out of the gate for just $50 per article.

I bring this up, not because we want to pat ourselves on the back for matching the woefully low sum that all too many larger news outlets are currently willing to pay experienced journalists who are forced to freelance because there aren't enough steady jobs in the industry. Rather, I wanted to give OMB viewers an easy way to think about where the money you donate will go.

It remains the case that any money people donate to us will help us keep publishing week in and week out. That's a given. But to make it even simpler, think about this way: every $50 that one of our viewers donates to Open Media Boston translates to us putting one of our crack reporters in the field and producing a news article.

And not just any news article ... a news article that typically covers the good work done by any one of dozens of progressive non-profits, unions and community organizations. Organizations fighting for peace, social justice and equality in the Boston area that get very little coverage in the ever-shrinking mainstream news media. A news article which then gets read by thousands of people. Spreading word of local social movements to an ever-expanding audience, and hopefully helping to win some hearts and minds - and growing those movements in the process.

That's our pitch. Simple and to the point. Fifty bucks equals one news piece in Open Media Boston - your street-level, independent, progressive metro news publication. If you can afford to give more, great. We'd like to pay at least $100 per story as soon as we can. Heck, we'd really like to pay a full-time editorial staff. But that said, no donation is too small.

If you can't afford $50, then give less, but keep thinking about your donation in terms of how many news articles get produced. For example, twenty-five dollars is half of a news piece.

Donating to Open Media Boston is easy as pie (mmmm, pie). Just click on the big red "Donate to OMB" button in the upper left corner of every page on our website. Or go to http://www.openmediaboston.org/donate/. If you'd like to donate by check, drop us an email at info [at] openmediaboston [dot] org and we'll walk you through that process.

Thanks very much for any help you can give. The entire Open Media Boston staff wishes you a pleasant and productive new year.

Jason Pramas is Editor/Publisher of Open Media Boston