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.”

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WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: 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 hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

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