To do what must be done, NR needs our generous friends and readers.
We have a goal. I’m referring to that financial, institutional one. It’s to raise $210,000 for NR in this 2018 Spring Webathon, for which our donation page is here.
Reminisce with me a moment: When Bill Buckley created National Review in 1955 — and a few decades later (in 1996) gave Rich Lowry the thumbs-up to launch an NR website — it wasn’t so much for the purpose of publishing jolly good material, scintillating analysis, and brilliant commentary for the sake of such.
Nope, this extended and broad WFB undertaking was about so much more than paper and ink and bytes. Bill did these things, Rich too, because they wanted, and want still, to change the world.
How to do that? Two ways.
The first: by advocating and defending conservatism’s inherent and unalienable principles and truths — the very things that our Founding Fathers brilliantly articulated in the Declaration of Independence.
The second: by calling out the liberal and leftist insanities that pose a wounding and harmful threat to liberty and to the traditions that are Western civilization’s underpinnings. Bill (seen here with Maggie Thatcher, a great fan of his) was on to multiculturalism and the insatiable, aggrandized state (it grows at the expense of our freedoms) way before our current generation. And Bill was determined to never ever loosen his grip around the throat of Soviet Communism, not until it wheezed its final stale and foul breath.
So yep, as part of that effort to change the world — if we need to say “for the better,” then, well, for the better! — this here website, and it is an amazing website, cranks out, day in and out, bucket loads of superior journalism and analysis of the current scene. In doing that, it calls out the Left, progressives, social engineers, and any and all misanthropic blankety-blanks intent on warping our culture and destroying any and all who disagree with, and dare not grovel before, the doctrines of the proletariat’s self-appointed vanguard.
We say, on our behalf — on your behalf — blank them. And the horses they rode in on. (Although Bill might have put it, “And the horses upon which they rode in.” Anyway . . .)
We are here to fight — and in these parts we do such with keyboards (not with guns, sure, but tell me — what journalistic entity is more front-and-center in protecting the Second Amendment than National Review? Let me answer that for you — there ain’t one) — on behalf of all we (you plus us!) believe, all we need to propagate, all we need to defend and advance.
Given NRO’s recent socko rebuild, we remain confident that we’ll be able to fund this conservative fount, for the first time in some six decades, through the kind of standard business practices that have always proven elusive to opinion magazines and websites not blessed with a sugar daddy. That’s a long-winded way of saying: We intend to make money the old-fashioned way. By earning it! And we will.
In the meantime, until the red ink dissipates from NR’s bottom line, we need you to . . . invest. Again if it means again. In this special entity. For the purposes of our — our — vital and mutual mission.
So begins this first webathon of 2018. Our goal over the next six weeks is to raise $210,000, and more if possible. The things we will use these generous funds for are as follows:
• $100,000 toward the costs of this recent website rebuild. Many in the previous year contributed to this, and we hope (and from the near-universal feedback, we know) that the new NRO meets with your approval. It cost a lot more to pull this off than budgeted. Frankly that overrun is closer to $150,000. But we’ll figure this way: If we raise $100,000, it will go to this as a line item.
• $50,000 to finance a “content provider.” That’s a fancy-pants way of saying “reporter.” Hey, that’s already been spent (as well as twice more!) — we have recently hired two young writers (Jack and Mairead) who are workhorses. Not for real, of course. But mamma mia, are they productive and diligent. They crank out numerous news-reporting pieces (from a truthful and conservative perspective) daily. It’s been great, because that type of content — in addition to giving you the news minus any MSM twist — has proven instantly beneficial to NRO’s growth in traffic, and in advertising revenue. In other words, it is a smart investment. So again, for budgeting purposes, the first to the fifty-thousandth dollar that comes in via this webathon (after we top $100,000) will go toward the financing of one of these positions.
• Next up — $60,000 to a create a new position: a financial reporter. The markets are 24/7 critical to all of us, and not only the news about their daily, hourly ping-ponging but information about the policies and related debates that have a profound influence on everything from Wall Street to the House Ways and Means Committee to the trade-and-tariff tweets of the president. This broad area has been a hole, if you will, in the NR news operation. We want to remedy that. Indeed, we really must remedy it, and for a long-term side benefit: This kind of writing is certain to more (much more!) than pay for itself in advertising revenue. And if that happens, well, it will mean we won’t have to seek your cooperation and contributions to keep NR firing on all the cylinders needed to stand athwart history from sunup to sundown and during the wee hours in between.
Let’s say we reach $210,000 and then surpass it: We’re committed to dedicating every additional dollar to ensuring that this website is everything it needs to be for the purposes of beating the tar out of the pronoun-detesting academics and Right-suppressing media mouthpieces and leftist hoodlum bureaucrats who are ashamed of America and its heritage and its exceptionalism.
We know we (this time it doesn’t include you) have not one iota of any moral claim on your kindness and generosity.
We are counting on a couple of big-time donations to make this happen, and on several thousand little ones. Can you do $10 or $25? What if some of you, just this once, add a zero (right before the decimal point) to those numbers? Let the mood strike you: Add another zero — if you’re capable of contributing $2,500, or maybe even dare I say $25,000 (hey, it’s happened). There is no time like the present.
And no place like NR.
From crumbs and leftovers found on a billionaire’s table, to the change between the couch cushions of the multi-millionaire, to the incalculable value of the Widow’s Mite, any contribution to National Review, Inc. (which is not tax-deductible — those kind of donations go to National Review Institute) is deeply appreciated. Why? Because we know we (this time it doesn’t include you) have not one iota of any moral claim on your kindness and generosity.
Please give today, here. The cause is so right, so just. And so . . . us. The payoff is the very thing your heart and soul seeks for this country, for those you love, and for our civilization.
(If you would like to discuss our appeal and how you can help, do email me at jfowler@nationalreview.com.)