I'm going to ask you a personal favor (and forgive me for doing so through a mass mailing...).
It's important for people to appreciate how critical this campaign is to RS's future. The money is for a new site so that we can expand our editorial features to stay current and increase traffic. Also, critically, it enables us to introduce a membership program that will create a necessary new revenue stream. Moreover, the RS tech system is obsolete and teetering (as would be any web publishing system as old as ours...). RS as currently structured is not sustainable, and we're turning to the community to ensure we have a future.
We have 19 days left to reach our target of $40,000, and we're about 25% of the way there.
To date, much of the RS community has assumed that we're this fairly large, well resourced operation that doesn't require their direct financial support. But -- as they say in Oz -- don't pay attention to the man behind the curtain! We need to shift the community culture, and convince a core group to make a donation now, and become paying members later, so we can continue to make all our articles free to everyone. Of the 140,000 people who come to the site each month, I'm sure we can get a good percentage (5%!) to make this commitment. But to do so, we've got to communicate this message repeatedly and clearly so it'll be heard, since it's so different than the image people have of us.
At the same time that RS 2.0 will provide us with a sustainable business model, it also means a much improved RS experience. Reality Sandwich's next phase includes a timely blog with 10+ posts a day for news, reviews, events and opinion about all of transformational culture. With much more video, music and podcasts. And deeper community engagement.
In addition, the membership program will foster in-depth discussions about hot topics with inspiring visionaries like Dennis McKenna, Gary Lachman, Thomas B. Roberts, Ryan Hurd, and many more (maybe you!). It will be a lively cultural incubator, where participants discuss new ideas across the full horizon of consciousness culture.
We appreciate everything you do to help make this campaign a success. If you have any suggestions you'd like to share, we're all ears!
Cheers,
Ken and the RS Team
P.S. If you've already donated to RS 2.0, and have trumpeted about this campaign to the world, thank you so much!
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Ken Jordan
Publisher/Editorial Director, Reality Sandwich & Evolver.net