Updates

see all updates at: http://rf5.org/blog/?tag=year-3-update

OUR NEW GOALS

well we met the original goal for our fundraiser / subscription drive, and can now accomplish our primary objective of hiring another Mothers News employee for the year. now we are at the part of the fundraiser where we see how much OVER our goal we can go!

why should we try to go over / why should you care? well, of course it still makes sense to contribute, for the regular reason that you want a subscription to the next year's worth of the paper, or you want to get a gift subscription for a friend, or you want the official (and limited edition) mothers news coffee mug, or to get whatever the extra mega bonus items are, and/or to just be forward-minded plus nice, and to support the thing you like to see in the world. that's the regular reason why. but the extra reason why is that from this point on, every additional $131 we get allows us to distribute a year's worth of Mothers News to a NEW TOWN or CITY in the continental united states.

isn't this an exciting prospect? people in this new town will start finding stacks of it at their record store, coffee place, book nook, show zone, friend's bathroom, or wherever, EVERY MONTH. they'll be like "what's this?". some of them will be like "huh", some like "oh". what will happen then? what are the ramifications? i don't know!!!! i want to find out!!!!!!! maybe they will be inspired to start their own newspapers, or take their art project as serious as their life (q: has this been happening already? a: yes). best case scenario, short term: kids are going to pick it up and start thinking "i guess this is how the world works".

$131 is the cost of 6 subscriptions, or 4 mugs. or one $131 donation. not a lot to mess up an entire city or town for a full year!!! what should we shoot for, 10 new cities? 20? LET'S GO!!!!!!!!

if you want to be the point person in your town, and get a box of Mothers News shipped to your house or place of business every month, and bring them to a few cool spots around town, please GET IN TOUCH with us! in addition to regular social rewards (aka "cool points"), there are special offers and opportunities for Mothers News newsies-- you could even end up making money on it! email MN@mothersnews.net. if you want to sponsor a specific town with a single donation, we will try to accomplish that, but unfortunately since we are dealing with volunteer distributors, we cannot guarantee it. but we'll really try!!!!!!

also... i'm only saying this because people have asked, but please stipulate if want to make a donation that goes towards "whatever", and not specifically postage/outreach. if you're like "i want to engender these funds strictly for pizzas" or "personal betterment / inreach" or something. not trying to be weird about this... ok, LET'S GO!!!!!!!!

and especially THANKS EVERYONE!!!!!!! this rules so far / already / still!

5000

Alright!!!! Well the Mothers News Fundraiser / Subscription Drive has reached it's goal of $5000! And guess who sent us over the edge? It was my actual mother, Louise Berendes! Incredible!!!! Thanks Mom!!!

Naturally the fundraiser is still rolling, and will be until July 1st, and the more we make over our goal the more great stuff we can do. so if you want to get a subscription to Mothers News, or you want the Official (and might I add Limited Edition) Mothers News coffee mug, or you just want to support a cool thing that is happening in the world and enable it (the thing, the world) to grow and mutate and enweirden, act now!!!

"where does the money go?"

hi, we got a few queries regarding our current fundraiser about "where does the money go", and since people love to ask about money and the newspaper, i thought i'd take some time out and address this.

the basic business model of the Mothers News is that we give it out for free and charge for ads. for the past two years this has worked out really great- we are able to pay our printing and mailing costs, make promotional materials (stickers), pay rent on the Mothers News office, and pay the Managing Editor (me) enough to buy food and (some) books. we also pay our Providence newsie JMO $50 to drive the paper around. while there have been tight times, and certainly no one has become monetarily rich, i definitely have NO COMPLAINTS. the paper is really a dream, it's my only job, i do whatever i want, we have an amazing readership, an incredible bunch of contributors, and wonderful things (known and most likely also unknown) have happened as a result of the paper, no complaints.

Anyway, in the past few months the stresses of editing the paper began to accumulate, and it became necessary to hire someone else to help out. so that's what we did. of course we were already operating extremely close to the wire, so we needed another income stream to pay them, hence the fundraiser. so: the initial $5000 goal of the fundraiser will pay for one year of administrative assistance. i should repeat- this is a necessary expenditure. making the paper is a lot of work, and while it's not too much for one person to do, it is too much for one person to do forever. in the interest of continuing the paper, we needed to hire on. and given that, we need to pay that person. the $5000 will make sure that this person is always paid (at the current budget that's $11 an hour, 8 hours a week). for the time being, my own salary will remain dependent on hustle (selling ads).

any money raised after the initial $5000 will mostly go towards the following objectives:

- new(ish) laptop computer - the first couple months of the paper were made on an EeePC 701 (current retail $25), plugged into an external monitor. after that we were gifted an older mac tower from our friends at the Participatory Culture Foundation. we would like to get a newish laptop in the $300 range. I should also say that we are currently accepting donations of newish, basically not-fucked-up laptops (email MN@mothersnews.net). this would be extremely helpful.

savings - as a business-like entity, it seems prudent to try and sock away $300. i feel like there were a lot of situations in the past two years where if we had had $300 we could've done something that would recoup the money and then some. damn we were kicking ourselves for not having a swingable $300 (or less) a bunch of times! this is for things like investing in merchandise, travel expenses to trade shows and performances, printing projects other than the paper, stuff like that. also just a general safety net, haven't had one of those in a long time!

distribution - it costs us $131 to send monthly bundles of Mothers News to a new city for a full year. so after the laptop thing and the savings thing, every extra $131 we raise could send the paper to a new city.

i guess that's it? if things really go far out then we start talking about hiring more people, which would be incredible. if you want to talk more about money, call me up, and we'll talk about money!

MOTHERS NEWS YEAR 3

Subscription Drive Day 5

Whoa!!!! Only a few days in and we're already past the halfway point to our $5000 goal (visualized here by Dan Pozniak's hair from teh cover of Seven Seconds' "Walk Together, Rock Together" LP). As of this writing we have raised $2897, thanks to the contributions of only 66 supporters! Lots of Mothers Helpers, Subscribers, Professionals, Astronauts, and even one "Executive Realness". This is incredible!!! Please remember that even if you can't support Mothers News financially at this point, it would really mean a lot if you helped us out by spreading the word, via your newspaper, your blog, your tumblr / twitter / facebook. "When you play it, say it!". http://www.mothersnews.net/year3

"Mother's News is the most reliable way I've found to make sure my brain never fuses shut."

- Lola Pellegrino

Day 2

wow! our big Mothers News Subscription Drive is going great! as of this writing, we've reached a fifth of our goal with still 46 days to go! thanks to all the MOTHERS HELPERS, SUBSCRIBERS, and especially ASTRONAUTS out there!!!!! so far no one has gone all the way into EXECUTIVE REALNESS, but there are a few people nibbling at the concept (we didn't anticipate this, but A Reid is trying to microfinance this mega-level- not sure how this would work but beep at this doggy if you want to go in but not get the tattoo).

in press news, we got interviewed by a nice young man from the Providence Phoenix the other day, look for that week after next. best quote:

PP: do you consider the Providence Journal and the Phoenix to be your competition? MN: uh, no offense but the phoenix and the projo are NO competition...