Thanks! Met Our Third Goal, on to the Fourth!

This is Naked Capitalism fundraising week. 659 donors have already invested in our efforts to combat corruption and predatory conduct, particularly in financial realm. Please join us and participate via our Tip Jar, which shows how to give via check, credit card, debit card, or PayPal. Read about why we’re doing this fundraiser and, what we’ve accomplished in the last year.

Thanks to your speedy and generous responses, we’ve met our first three targets: funding for more site improvements, particularly for the user experience; travel/conference expenses and coverage, and ex-post-facto payments to site writers like Lambert and Dave Dayen. And we are more than half way towards our original goal of 1000 contributors for this fundraiser. We’re raising the donor target to 1250. We are grateful to have gotten not only some big contributions, but we’ve also had a large number of smaller donations. Those are often particularly meaningful, since those donors often tell us they are on limited budgets but appreciate our work and want to do what they can to promote it. And remember, if you aren’t in a position to provide financial support, you can help by sharing what you’ve learned here with the people you know.

We are on our way to meeting our fourth target, which is selfish but also necessary: support for extra manpower so we can keep the site going on a 365 day a year, just about 24/7 basis. Long-standing readers may remember the gnashing of teeth and rending of garments that take place in the past when I would try taking vacations but still kept the blog going. One painful incident was summer 2011, when I was in Maine and the Internet ranged from sucky to non-existent (coastal Maine ex Portland is pretty much one big cell phone dead zone, so if your DSL/cable connection goes down, you are stuck). That necessitated near daily 40 minute round-trip drives to the nearest Starbucks. Other readers may recall past Internet woes when on semi holiday trips (for instance, drafting Chapter 8 of ECONNED and still blogging while in Germany in 2009).

Thus I joke that we run the site with 1.3 people, which is remarkable when you think about it, given the level of output and the consistency of coverage, but we need to have more than one person operating the site if you are to get consistent coverage. That means a certain level of weekend and holiday support, as well as some slack for “shit happens” where for some unexpected reason I can’t post and I need to call on Lambert or Dave Dayen on an emergency basis.

There are multiple ways to give. The first is here on the blog, the Tip Jar, which takes you to PayPal. There you can use a debit card, a credit card or a PayPal account (the charge will be in the name of Aurora Advisors).

You can also send a check (or multiple post dated checks, if you want to spread out payments) in the name of Aurora Advisors Incorporated to

Aurora Advisors Incorporated
903 Park Avenue, 8th Floor
New York, NY 10075

Please also send an e-mail to yves@nakedcapitalism.com with the headline “Check is in the mail” (and just the $ en route in the message) so we can count your contribution in the total number of donations.

Our sick days, every other weekend coverage and vacation coverage target is $19,000, and we are already over $4,115 towards that goal. Thanks SO much for your generous support!