Hooray! Met Our Second Target Quickly! On to the Third: Continuing Expanded News Coverage and Maybe Meetups

This is Naked Capitalism fundraising week. 561 donors have already invested in our efforts to combat corruption and predatory conduct, particularly in the financial realm. Please join us and participate via our donation page, 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 our first-responder readers for their prompt and generous responses! We hit our first goal in nine hours. We hit our second in less than a day. Because Lambert, the Master of the Fundraiser Thermometers, is off the grid, our thermometer is behind where we are. He will get it more current when he comes back on duty.

We’ve already well over 440 donations towards fundraiser target of 1100 donors and are getting messages of support like this one from Philip T:

As someone commented this morning, NC is my daily newspaper. I wish I had the means to donate commensurate with the value I find in the work you and your NC team perform.

Even more important, we blew past our first two goals, The first was $19,000 to provide for more technology investments in the site. We’ve had to invest heavily here in recent years due to a more hostile external environment. So good for you for helping us support mundane but absolutely critical budget items. This is our foundation for all the content we provide. The second was $17,500 for supporting the comments section. Again. you speedy donations showed how much you value those robust and information-rich discussions, just as we value the keen-eyed reactions to our posts.

But these are only our initial targets. If you haven’t had time to contribute yet, we hope you’ll go to our Tip Jar pronto, which shows you how to give by check, debit or credit card or PayPal.

Our next goal $21,500 for continuing our expanded Links section, and if we return to something dimly resembling the old normal by next summer, some meetups too. As of midnight, we already have $4,525 towards that target.

As we explained in our kickoff post, these funds proved to be very handy as the world grappled with the wide-ranging ramifications of Covid, and as the war over Trump’s presidency became more intense. We expanded our Links section from a former maximum of 45 links to now 55 to 60. This may not seem like much, but it represents a day-in, day-out commitment of additional staffing, as in an ongoing increase of manning of the site, which means more budget needs. So it takes more effort to provide your morning guide to what’s happening. As Chuck C put it:

Thanks for all your good work. I start everyday reading NC and with morning coffee.

As indicated, if the world somehow manages to get back to a more even keel once the elections are past and Covid-19 is a bit better contained, we can go back to a Links feature more fitting a calmer environment and use the remaining funds for restarting meetups. They have been popular opportunities for local members of the NC community to get to know each other. We’ve found without exception that readers really enjoy these discussions, and they always go on well after the formal session time.

Last year, we had raised funds for travel and meetups, which is a significant item since leaving my base entails not just transportation and lodging expenses but also having Lambert or Jerri-Lynn cover the site in my absence, which often equals the trip cost. As one astute reader said, we are like a single mother who can’t leave our apartment without hiring a baby sitter.

So those of you who have contributed already, thanks again for your generous support, and we look forward to those NC fans who have just found out about the fundraiser donating through the Tip Jar to help make the site more successful.