July 16, 2007

Live Earth Germany Loses Big Euros

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mojo-photo-liveearthlogo.JPGI promise I’m not jumping on the Drudge-led Live Earth-bashing “there’s no global warming” bandwagon, but this is the story: Billboard.biz reports the German edition of Live Earth on July 7th lost 1.3 million buckaroos. Ticket sales and merchandise added up to about $1.7 million, but costs added up to $2 million, not including the $1 million they paid to the Live Earth organization, for what exactly it’s not clear. Access to the Al Gore holographic projection data stream? Anyway, perhaps it was the lineup that kept ticket buyers away (only 29,000 of 45,000 were sold): the big names were Chris Cornell, Snoop Dogg, and DJ Sasha. Weird! Buried at the end of the Billboard story: news that the City of Hamburg is now stuck with the bill. Sorry, Hamburgers: that money we were going to spend on energy-efficient light bulbs, it’s, ah, being redirected.

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WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

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