Dear Readers,
It’s that time of year again, and we’ve got a hefty goal to reach once again. We need your help.
As you know, VTDigger has grown tremendously over the years — both in terms of the size of our readership and the number of news stories we produce.
Here’s the constant: over time, donor support hovers at or below 1 percent of our readership. The graph above represents our average monthly readers, compared to the number donors who support the reporting we produce.
In some ways, this is to be expected. Why pay for a service that’s free? It’s just human nature not think in terms of payment when you don’t have to.
In economics, after all, it’s a thing: the term “freerider” is a known type of market failure. It’s that situation where public goods are either under-provided or not provided at all, because individuals are able to consume them without having to pay for them.
Our reporting makes no money. It costs money to produce. Sadly, it all comes down to money. We have to find the money somewhere, because VTDigger is a nonprofit. There are no subscriptions to sell here, and no near-certainties to budget for.
But budget we must, done with a leap of faith in our readership and our track record of news production. We have a $1 million budget this year, and 14 staff. Our spring fundraising goal is $150,000. Thanks to the generosity of 400 readers so far, we’ve raised $42,000 toward this goal. We are grateful for this support.
We don’t like having to ask. (We hate it, actually.) Please suffer through the pop-ups and the asks we must continue to make — and help us march closer toward the goal we need to meet to keep our reporting strong.
If you read us, if you value our contribution to journalism and public discourse, we are asking you to support us.
