Dear John,

My name is Heather Lofthouse, and I’m the executive director at Inequality Media, the digital media nonprofit co-founded by Robert Reich.

You don’t usually hear from me, but I needed to reach you today, because we’re just 48 hours from the end of our fundraising drive, and we’re more than $22,000 away from our goal.

I want to be straight with you, John: if we don’t meet our $100,000 goal, we won’t be able to produce all of the vitally important videos we’re planning for 2021. 

It’s my job to determine what we can afford to do, how many staff members we can afford to hire, and which videos with Prof. Reich we can afford to make. I would hate to have to tell our followers tomorrow that we have to cut back in 2021 because we fell short today.

Please make a donation before we close the books on 2020. As Prof. Reich told you earlier today, every donation will be matched by a generous donor who has stepped up to help us hit our goal.

I get it. I really do. This was an exhausting election at the end of a devastating year. Many of us have lost jobs or taken serious financial hits, and you might not be able to give as much as you usually would, or would like to, or at all, this year.

But we don’t have corporate sponsors or take money from Big Business. Our funding comes from loyal supporters and viewers like yourself who chip in whatever they can afford to support our work. And we still have to contend with a Republican Party that is shamelessly pushing the interests of corporations and the rich, a surging flood of right-wing misinformation online, voter suppression, gerrymandering, and a Trump-packed Supreme Court that is poised to gut half a century's worth of progress.

We need to be prepared to reach our audience of 14 million viewers with accurate, compelling videos and social media content to fight the right-wing disinformation machine at every turn, but if people don’t donate between now and tomorrow night, we’ll start the year in a fundraising deficit.

So I’m asking you now, if you can, to please give whatever you possibly can to support our work. We just can’t do it without you. Every dollar counts, and whatever you can give will be matched.

Prof. Reich and I are grateful for your support. Thank you for all you do, and happy new year! 

All my best,

Heather Lofthouse
Inequality Media