I emailed this appeal to our blog subscribers. First time I’ve done that, but our blog coffers need some help. I’m pretty exhausted just thinking about all of the work to do. So I thought it was worth a try.
Over 30 people unsubscribed.
This is not free content. It comes with a price and I don’t think I should have to pay it alone. You agree, you disagree. That’s fine. But unsubscribing because I asked for help is disappointing.
| We need your support. Some of the nearly 80 political campaign Q&A’s we’ve published over the years. Thanks for subscribing to our blog! We never go off-list like this with our email list, but we need your help! 2022 was a huge year for our work. We received two national awards – a second Outstanding Blog award from GLAAD in May and being named one of 12 people of the year by The Advocate magazine in November. We supported Netroots Nation (from a COVID-19 quarantine – but still.) We published 289 blog posts, including 40 Memorial posts for trans neighbors lost to the campaign of terror sweeping our nation. We’ve supported the work of Pittsburgh LGBTQ Charities including the #ProtectTransKids projects. I was elected to a third term as co-chair of the City of Pittsburgh LGBTQIA+ Commission. What we didn’t do so well was take care of this blog’s needs. The blog is separate from any other institution I’m involved with including Pittsburgh LGBTQ Charities. We have clear protocols in place to ensure We have a plan to do a proper archival preparation so we can move the blog to a formal archive. That will require sorting through over 18 years of blog posts, images, links, draft posts, supporting materials and more. And it will require dealing with 18 years of coding mashups. We will need foundation support to make that happen and probably $20,000. In the meantime, we need to make some immediate changes. We need a better server for this massive amount of data amassed over 18 years. We need anu pgrade and refresh of the blog design and layout to reflect 2023 versus 2016 when it was last changed. Our support software is getting more expensive. We do run ads as you may know, through the SheKnowsMedia network. That covers about 50% of our monthly webhosting fees, sometimes. Part of our revamp will be developing local advertising options to be more consistent with our values. Otherwise, I pay for everything blog related out of my pocket. And there’s a lot of demand on that pocket. We receive requests for help on a regular basis – helping people with their cats, helping people enduring discrimination, helping people get connected to supports like PFLAG, responding to the media, holding the media accountable. This next week, I’m doing two interviews with researchers, a media interview, two additional interviews for my own content, attending a Commission meeting, preparing to meet with the Pirates AND City Council next week with the Commission, waiting for 14 political campaign Q&A’s to be returned, and beginning to work with GoFundMe to elevate requests for support to cover final expenses of our trans neighbors. I have to write a review of a play we saw on Saturday. And write an article for a local strike paper. I don’t get paid for any of this and that’s my decision, but I do need help to sustain this work. So I’m here to ask you to consider a recurring or one-time donation to help us with the immediate expenses and give us the breathing room to address the larger needs. All donors will be thanked with a Steel City Snowflake, If you opt for a recurring donation, I will send you a monthly behind the scenes letter via email. Someday I’ll get tee shirts and totebags and cute pins and maybe some coffeemugs … when I have time. Some options are: patreon.com Pghlesbian venmo @pghlesbian cashap $pghlesbian paypal.me Pghlesbian Thank you for your consideration! |
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