Hey, True Texans,

Story time!  It's the end of a long year, and I wanted to share a story with you.  I've been told not to, but I'll get to that later.

You've probably heard that we started 2025 in the red.  Ooo...it was dark red.  We were in the hole to the tune of $175,000!  The phrase I kept sharing with everyone is, "It was like a punch in the gut."  

The other phrase I shared with everyone was, "God didn't bring us this far and give us this much influence and spread us all across the state to simply say, 'Sorry, I don't have $175,000 -- I guess it's time to close up shop.'"  My God is bigger than that!

So I sat back this year and watched.  What I wanted was for God to do a BIG thing.  Maybe some wonderful, rich person would leave us in his will or something.  I just had no idea how we were going to come up with all that money, but I knew God would pull it off.

That didn't happen.  

Instead, all year long Fran and I worked.  We worked hard.  We asked people for money everywhere we went and in every way imaginable.  We attended local meetings and shared the need.  We put it in newsletters and on videos.  We posted on social media.  We held gatherings small and large.  We made umpteen-million calls and texts. We even started a new patriot-owned-business sponsorship program.

Sadly, we also asked our tiny staff to take pay cuts.  They agreed to do that because they are just as passionate about what they do as Fran and I are.  We want to save Texas.  Their salaries were already lower than competitive wages, and they were cut anywhere from 10-20%.  Can we all just stop and take a moment to thank our incredibly dedicated employees???

(This is a good time to mention that TTP has a budget of just $500,000/year, which can be compared to other similar organizations at $2 million/year.  We do a LOT with a little because it has to be done.)

Lo and behold, by Fall we were getting reports back from our bookkeeper that we were making progress!  Maybe we wouldn't reach our goal and be in the black by year's end, but we'd bought ourselves time. Yay!

Oh... but... time to what?  Well, apparently time to keep working and keep asking for money!  Ugh. Not exactly the big miracle I'd expected from a big God. He so rarely does things my way!  Ha!

So into the Fall we kept going.  More meetings.  More asks.  As you can imagine, this is NOT the favorite part of the work Fran and I do.  We signed on to change Texas -- to help elect good representatives -- to hold them accountable in Austin and locally -- and most importantly to train an army of Texans to do it with us.  

We didn't stop doing all that.  We just had to add a lot of fundraising calls to our to-do lists. Blech. Does anyone like doing that???

And finally mid-November we got the good news.  Assuming our year-end projections hit the mark, we will break even by year's end!  

Wow!  Do you have any idea how many True Texans had to step up to raise an extra $175,000 through the grassroots?  Keep in mind, our average donor contributes $35/month.  That's a lot of patriots!!!  

I was really excited about that until one thing occurred to me.  When we cut the salaries of our employees, I truly believed in the BIG thing God was gonna do, and I felt ok about asking them to take a pay cut because I planned to surprise them at the end of the year with a nice bonus to make up what they sacrificed.  That just didn't happen.  They got big thank yous and Amazon gift cards instead. 

This is the part I'm not supposed to tell you...

Every professional fundraiser has explained to me that you can't raise money for salaries.  People don't want to pay it.  I can only tell you about the wonderful trainings we offer and meetings we hold and elections we win... and hope that inspires you to donate enough to cover the salaries that make it all happen.

Frankly, that hurts.  Our team works really, really hard.  We are straight-up honest about our finances and how we spend it. Nobody is more frugal or does more with so little! Probably 99% of the causes conservatives donate to - yes, conservative causes - are full of waste, extravagant salaries, and even fraud, but people just flood money into their efforts.  Meanwhile, we're constantly being told how great the work we do is, yet we aren't allowed to tell you our staff is bearing the weight of it???  

I guess that ends today!  I want you to be fully informed on where we stand, what we do, and how we get there.  That's how it's been from day one, and I don't know how to do it any other way. 

We - you who are reading this plus our staff and all our volunteers - are ALL just everyday, grassroots activists doing this work together. We aren't wealthy.  We never planned to do what we do. We don't even always want to! We aren't professional politicians or lobbyists.  We have no special connections or power or sugar daddy.  Knowing all that, why wouldn't I tell you???  It's the only way we can all play our part.

When you know the situation, which now you do, you can step up as able and inspired, and, hopefully, help us out.  

We met our goal and made it into the black by the year's end.  My hope and prayer is that we will recover the $50,000 in salary cuts so that we can restore pay to all our employees.  

*If we don't, True Texas Project will still continue.* 

We will keep doing what we do and we will be happy warriors doing it because we love it!  But man, it sure would be nice going into 2026 knowing Fran and I will not have to spend so many extra hours trying to keep us afloat.  What a blessing that would be.  

I started this off saying I was looking for God to do something big.  He did.  Through you guys.  It is no small feat what we accomplished together this year. 

I just want to see a little bit more.  Feels strange to ask for more, but God can do it!  We aren't asking you to write some big ol' check.  We're asking you to join the other grassroots activists who are chipping in with $35/month or whatever amount, larger or smaller, they can handle.  

Thank you.  

Thank you for reading this far.  Thank you for being involved.  Thanks for caring about Texas.  Thanks for doing what you can. You truly make this job awesome and make Texas a better place for everyone.

For the love of Texans,
Julie McCarty, CEO
True Texas Project

PS.  Whatever happens, I am so proud of the way True Texans stepped up this year! Raising $175,000 is unbelievable!  You rock.