The Strange Horizons fund drive has only about five days left before it ends.  (We've extended it once already, we're not extending it again.  It's over next Wednesday.)  We're currently about $2000 short of our goal.  That's not an impossible amount of money to raise in the time given, but it's a really difficult amount, given that it took us over five weeks to get the $4000 that we already have.

There's something interesting about the non-profit fund-drive model: in some ways, it's not primarily about the money.  It's about the support.  The money is important, certainly.  Our fund drive goal represents about a third of our annual operating budget.  But fund drive participation is also an indicator of community support, which is a key factor in raising the -rest- of our operating budget.  We have a lot of other indicators of community support, or at least of community appreciation--our readership numbers are good, and we're getting award nominations and critical notice.  (It was recently pointed out that four of the last five Campbell Award recipients were published in Strange Horizons before becoming Campbell winners, which sounds to me like we're doing a good job with our goal of finding and supporting talented new authors.)   But I think people don't realize the extent to which fund drives are a show of support as much as anything else.  That's partly our fault.  We talk about the lovely gifts and prizes, and we compare a Strange Horizons donation to a magazine subscription, because both of those tactics allow us to feel a little bit more comfortable with the fact that we're asking for money.  None of us are professional fundraisers, and we all hate asking for money. 

We are, in fact, asking for money.  We're asking for money as a way of asking for a demonstration that you like what we're doing.  In essence, it comes down to one simple thing: are you glad that Strange Horizons exists?  Even if you don't read us regularly, even if you don't like everything we do, even if you hate being asked for money.  Would you miss us if we were gone?  We're the longest-running online science fiction magazine, we have a proven track record of publishing quality fiction and nonfiction, we've made a web-publishing model work.  Our staff members, all of whom are making time for this work in the spaces between everything else in their lives, have been making this magazine happen, week after week after week, for almost seven years.  And we're hoping to continue, in our reviews and columns, to show how science fiction isn't dying, it's thriving, in movies and comic books and television shows and on the internet.  Even if you don't actively read the magazine, there are a lot of reasons to be happy that we exist.

Would you miss us if we were gone?

If the answer is yes, you should seriously consider coming over to our fund drive page and sending us some money.  It doesn't have to be a lot of money!  But it's the best and most tangible way to say to us, yeah, we're happy you're there, and we'd miss you if you were gone.  And to everyone who's already donated, thank you, thank you, thank you.  We can't say enough how much we appreciate you.