Today, on Giving Tuesday, an internationally recognized day for giving to charity, please consider donating to our nonprofit newsroom at The Sick Times. We aim to raise $75,000 as we build a full news website in 2024.
The Sick Times chose to launch as a nonprofit organization because we consider our work a public service for the Long Covid and post-infectious chronic disease communities. We aim to empower people with Long Covid and related diseases by providing crucial information that can improve our readers’ quality of life.
To this end, we will prioritize covering the latest scientific research, healthcare developments, and the actions of government agencies and other powerful institutions. We also aim to provide a platform for people most impacted by these diseases by publishing essays and commentary. We’re committed to accurate reporting that captures the nuances of Long Covid research and experiences — without minimizing or gaslighting.
Nuanced, accurate reporting doesn’t happen for free. Our small team needs resources to seek out the latest news, interview experts, correspond with government officials, write and edit stories, and share our work through our newsletter and social media. Resources are vital for investigative stories — like Betsy’s reporting on the RECOVER initiative — that delve into how institutions have failed the Long Covid community; these stories require many hours of interviews, reading public records, compiling and analyzing data, and checking facts against multiple sources.
The Sick Times has yet to receive outside funding that would support our staff and the other resources required to maintain our website and newsletter (though we do have grant applications under review). So far, 100% of the financial support we’ve received is from you, our readers.
While we are a reader-supported newsroom, payment will never be required to read our stories: we’ll never put our work behind a paywall. In fact, all of our work is published under Creative Commons licenses, meaning other news organizations can republish stories for free. We also aim to partner with other news organizations to improve Long Covid coverage across the media industry.
To support this newsletter and build to a full news website in 2024, we are currently seeking to raise $75,000 from our readers. We’re about 2% of the way to that goal due to initial donations since our launch two weeks ago. Donations are tax-deductible thanks to our fiscal sponsor, MuckRock.
Our fundraising goal would cover six months of publication in our current newsletter format at a budget of $12,650 per month. It would allow us to report on the most pressing issues in the Long Covid community, compensate freelance writers for their contributions, and demonstrate our potential impact to other funders.
Here are the costs we aim to cover with this $75,000 goal:
- Staff salaries, $7,200 per month: This would compensate our two editors, Miles and Betsy, for 10–15 hours of work per week each. Their (currently unpaid) work includes writing and editing stories, newsletter production, collecting feedback from the Long Covid community, applying to other funding sources, and developing the website for full launch.
- Freelance budget, $4,000 per month: We aim to publish at least two articles from freelance writers each month, including news stories, features, and commentary. This budget would cover 2–4 articles per month at an industry-standard rate of $1/word.
- Website, publishing, and other tech tools, $300 per month: This includes costs for WordPress (which hosts our website), Mailchimp (which hosts our newsletter), and additional tools that we would use to produce audio versions of stories and other multimedia.
- Fiscal sponsor fee, $1,150 per month: Our fiscal sponsor takes 10% of donations in exchange for managing our legal and financial infrastructure.
After reaching this goal, we aim to continue fundraising from our readers. Additional funding priorities include:
- Adding more part-time staff: We aim to grow our current two-person team with additional writers and editors, a podcast producer, and an online events manager.
- Increasing our freelance budget: This funding will go back to the Long Covid community as we compensate writers, artists, and other kinds of creators for their work.
- Improving our website: We aim to hire a web developer who could design an upgraded version of our website, focused on accessibility features for our readers.
- Producing a weekly podcast and other multimedia content: We aim to produce a weekly podcast that will explain the latest Long Covid news, along with news in other formats.
Along with fundraising from readers, we are seeking funding from philanthropic organizations and eventually aim to offer sponsorship opportunities to companies. But reader donations will continue to be critical, as they will help us maintain editorial independence from advertisers and large donors. Above all, we will publish what you, our readers, want to read.
If you’re able, we encourage you to make your donation monthly. As we know many in our community will be unable to donate, we also ask you to share this post with friends, family members, and colleagues: let them know that this is one way they can support the Long Covid community during this holiday season.
If you’re interested in making a larger donation or sponsoring a newsletter issue, article, event, or other form of content, please reach out to betsy@thesicktimes.org.
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