December 19, 2006

Everyone Needs A Little Irony For Christmas

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20,000 “Christmas Packs,” available for a donation of $29, have been sold. 508,000 buttons, 125,000 bumper stickers, and 100,000 magnets have been sold. 12,000 legal memos have been sold. The buttons bear the message, Merry Christmas: It’s Worth Saying, and the packs include two lapel pins and a 3-page legal memo.

All of this merchandise is moving as a result of the non-existent “war on Christmas,”. The Christmas packs are valued at $4 each; however, the seller, the Alliance Defense Fund, says that most of them are going for less than the suggested $29 donation. There is also a “Help Save Christmas” action pack, sold by Liberty Counsel, for $25. This pack includes buttons, bumper stickers and legal advice on celebrating the holidays at work and at school.

Liberty Counsel president Anita Staver says: “When it’s an issue affecting Christmas people will sit up and take notice. Then they may look at the other issues we’re involved in.”

THE FACTS SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES.

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It’s the most important month of the year for our fundraising, with upward of 15 percent of our annual online total coming in during the final week—and there’s a lot to say about why Mother Jones’ journalism, and thus hitting that big number, matters tremendously right now.

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The upshot? Mother Jones does journalism you don’t find elsewhere: in-depth, time-intensive, ahead-of-the-curve reporting on underreported beats. We operate on razor-thin margins in an unfathomably hard news business, and can’t afford to come up short on these online goals. And given everything, reporting like ours is vital right now.

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THE FACTS SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES.

At least we hope they will, because that’s our approach to raising the $350,000 in online donations we need right now—during our high-stakes December fundraising push.

It’s the most important month of the year for our fundraising, with upward of 15 percent of our annual online total coming in during the final week—and there’s a lot to say about why Mother Jones’ journalism, and thus hitting that big number, matters tremendously right now.

But you told us fundraising is annoying—with the gimmicks, overwrought tone, manipulative language, and sheer volume of urgent URGENT URGENT!!! content we’re all bombarded with. It sure can be.

So we’re going to try making this as un-annoying as possible. In “Let the Facts Speak for Themselves” we give it our best shot, answering three questions that most any fundraising should try to speak to: Why us, why now, why does it matter?

The upshot? Mother Jones does journalism you don’t find elsewhere: in-depth, time-intensive, ahead-of-the-curve reporting on underreported beats. We operate on razor-thin margins in an unfathomably hard news business, and can’t afford to come up short on these online goals. And given everything, reporting like ours is vital right now.

If you can afford to part with a few bucks, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones with a much-needed year-end donation. And please do it now, while you’re thinking about it—with fewer people paying attention to the news like you are, we need everyone with us to get there.

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