Small Wars Journal has kicked off our
first fundraising campaign. During June 2010, or more precisely through the 4th of July, we have a goal of raising $50,000 for Small Wars Foundation,
the 501(c)(3) that operates Small Wars Journal. While we dearly appreciate the donations so far - our community of interest and practice needs to do more here to help us keep the lights on - seriously. For many this site has been a free ride, for others a serious investment in time and money that can no longer sustain itself with pats on the back.
When we reflect back on where we are now, damn, we're thankful. We are
where we are now, first and foremost, because of the quality of thought and writing
by our content contributors (all volunteers), the substantive participation of commenters
on the Journal and SWJ Blog, and the richness of discussion in the Small Wars Council.
We have benefitted immensely from the early endorsement and continued participation
of some of the greats in the field. We have received some individual contributions
and we have efforts underway enabled by some generous grants. We are humbled by
the way the community has embraced Small Wars Journal.
Even more humbling is the amount of work we need to do to keep up with your interest
and continue to be worthy of the value you seem to place in us. We have a
criminal backlog of good content submissions that we need to be able to work through
faster, since timeliness in so important to our dialog. We have a lot to do to update
and expand the site's other content, particularly to exploit the potential of an
upcoming platform and usability upgrade made possible by a grant. We are doing a
lot, we can do a lot more, and we need some resources help to close the gap. Call
it capacity building.
So to better serve you, the small wars community of interest, we are in the unpleasant
but necessary position of coming to you, hat in hand, in an NPR-like scenario. We
are counting on your contributions, coupled with support from grants and foundations,
collateral income (advertising and referrals), and volunteer contributions of effort
and content, to help us do more of what you seem to value and want us to do.
Please see our Support
pages for more ways you can help. Here are the most blunt ones:
| Mail checks payable to: Small Wars Foundation 4938 Hampden Ln, #560 Bethesda, MD 20814 |
campaign's progress here.
Comments
I'm gonna repost this here...My words are not as nice as Dave D.
For the rest of y'all that have learned something from this blog, pay up. Donate some dinars. Ok, scratch that. No dinars. Donate some Dollars to help out Dave D. et al. Particularly those of you that have made money from book, newspaper, and magazines sales from the free work here on SWJ.
This is the place where you hear from the current observations from the practitioners such as Jim Gant, Nate Springer, Neil Smith, Schmedlap, and myself.
This is the place where you hear the analysis and recommendations of "Mac" McCallister, Gian Gentile, and Joshua Foust.
This is the place where you relive the history that Ken White, Dr. John T. Fischel, Steve Blair, and others provide.
This is the place where you learn of strategy and inter-disciplinary work from Bob Jones, William Owen, and Marc Tyrell.
I'm dropping 500 bones tomorrow, and I contribute for free. If I ever have a best selling memoir, then the first check will be $10,000 towards SWJ. What say you? Please don't make me invoke the shame.
If need be, then I will post every citation and reference from your SWJ that made you money. If you doubt my ability to research and investigate, then please reread my first published article, The Break Point. Some of yall used it for your best selling books.
http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/journal/docs-temp/50-few.pdf
Just make it easy. Give a little back.
Mike