There’s nothing pleasant about asking people for money. Over the last six months, we’ve experimented with various types of revenue streams to see what could help propel this site to more people. In a society dominated by fake news and leftist media, getting a foothold as a limited-government conservative news outlet is challenging.
Unfortunately, there seem to be only three options. The first one is a non-starter – corporate sponsorships. There are very few organizations, PACs, and companies we trust enough to allow to be corporate sponsors, and while we may someday work with the few that we trust, we don’t have the luxury of waiting for them. We’ve had some corporate sponsorship offers, but invariably they want a say in the editorial component. Some want all-positive Republican coverage. Others want more positive Democratic coverage. Our goal has been and always will be to present the news, opinions, and quotes from a pro-American perspective. That means we call it how we see it.
Option two has been a disaster for multiple reasons. Most websites are driven by advertising, which is fine as long as it both pays the bills and doesn’t flood the site with spam. We’ve used Google, Amazon, and a handful of smaller ad networks to try to generate enough revenue, but it’s challenging when we have limited control over what’s being served. I’d get emails regularly saying we were advertising for Planned Parenthood or Ashley Madison or other websites that didn’t match our values at the site. This may be the easiest way for the site to pay its bills, but it’s not worth the trade-off.
Option three is the tough one. It’s the way that requires me to do what doesn’t come naturally – asking for money. We want to be 100% crowdfunded. That means we need you, the readers, to donate whenever possible. It can be single donations to give us a boost. It can be a recurring donation to help us plan for the future. Literally anything and everything helps.
We have tiers of $10, $50, $5000, and everything in between. Of course, there’s an option for supporters to name their donation amount, so there really isn’t a limit to how much or how little you contribute. Every penny makes a difference.
Here are some of the upcoming expenditures we need covered in order to keep the site moving forward:
- $25/article – Paid writers and expenses. Currently, all of our writers are volunteers. We appreciate their efforts and we want to reward them. We also need to hire more freelance writers in order to expand the perspectives. Eventually, we will need to budget around $12,000 per month for full-time staff writers, but just getting started with around 1/5th that amount will be a wonderful down payment.
- $3000/mo – Editors. For the last six months, I have put my time and effort into editing the site. I don’t mind working for free as it’s a labor of love, but it’s unsustainable. I’ll either need to hire editors so I can work full time again or I’ll need to start paying myself. Either way, this is a top priority.
- $350/mo – Facebook promotions. It’s amazing how much attention we can drive to the site with every little money spent. $10 per day gets the message out to several thousand additional people on Facebook. Add in a little in Facebook reserve to push harder on some of the more important stories and we can start boosting exposure dramatically.
- $625/mo – Graphics. Whether for videos or articles, the need for help from a graphic design perspective is ongoing.
- $2000/mo – Advertising. Like-minded conservatives, classical liberals, and limited-government federalists need to know about NOQ Report. By advertising on other sites, we not only get to reach more people, but we also get to support sites that can also use financial help.
- $200/mo – Stock photos. Using the royalty-free sites limits what we can use as artwork and photos for our articles.
- $525/mo – Stronger server. There have been a few occasions where the site has gone down because we have a good but not great server. To have a server that should be able to handle the load of daily activity plus the occasional story going viral is a bare minimum around $525 per month. Thankfully, this also includes service, so it alleviates the need for an IT person as well.
This started out as a labor of love, but over the last year we’ve been accepted into Google News and have strong followings sharing the content on social media. It’s time for this site to branch out and start making more of an impact on American society, presenting conservative, Christian ideas that this world needs now more than every.
We appreciate all who have helped. It is our hope that our mission of spreading proper conservative and Christian messages to the masses is one our readers share. Please consider donating today.
