Be a Part of Autostraddle’s Next Chapter. Support Indie Queer Media.
We’re raising money to fund our work through January 2022. We have a lot to hope for and a lot to fund, especially as we're deep in the hiring and search process for three new roles, and the plans we’ve carefully worked to safeguard through the pandemic finally starting to show results! As always, we remain an independent publication with no corporate overlords or parent companies, no faceless straight people at the top dictating terms or censoring our writers. We're a space run entirely by lesbians and queer and trans people. As an indie queer publication, we rely on reader support in everything we do. As part of our commitment to you for placing your trust in us, we pledge to keep your dollars 100% gay, every day. Will you contribute to our fundraiser to close the gap in our funding through January 2022, help us pursue the Gay Agenda, and help set our three future hires up for success?
We're about to be in a more sustainable place than ever before. At the start of the pandemic, we saw what we always knew to be the case: advertising dollars are fickle and the floor can easily fall out. We saw advertising sales drop by 90% from 2019 to 2020, and our ad revenue in 2021 is still 85% lower than 2019. Thanks to the support of people like you, we've made it through. You've grown our community of A+ members by thousands of new people over the last two years. We are in a more stable place than ever thanks to the stalwart support of our 6,500+ members, and that stability is key.
We’re approaching our sustainability from two areas. The first is in continuing to grow our A+ membership base. Autostraddle is only here right now because over 6,500 A+ members have chosen to keep us here. We have a truly attainable goal of welcoming 500 new members during this fundraiser — over 417 people signed up during our member drive this past June!
That's still a relatively small number compared to the over 99% of our readers who are not A+ members. We’re committed to staying primarily free for every gay, lesbian, bisexual, queer and trans person to read, regardless of whether or not they can afford to subscribe. Our members aren’t just subscribing for themselves. They’re contributing so that everybody can have Autostraddle. If that sounds like something you’d be into and that you can afford, we’re asking you to consider joining those 6,500+ people who've decided we're worth investing in.
Our second area of growth toward sustainability is via our hiring process. We're hiring two new full-time editors who will take on producing and editing more content for the website, helping to spread around what's been a deluge of work. In addition, we're hiring someone who'll be focused entirely and solely on ad sales. We're hopeful that by dedicating more queer human resources to these key areas, we'll see real and continuous growth, and maybe someday soon, a need to fundraise less often or for lower amounts. The dream!
We are so grateful for your support, and grateful to you for reading. At Autostraddle, we understand that we aren’t just a publication, that our words and our lives intertwine with yours in countless ways, that we are a community. We try our best to take care of you, and throughout the years, you have done the same for us. Thank you for being there, even in the toughest times. Together, we know that we can continue the work of creating and growing something truly special. Together, we're building queer futures that excite us, inspire us and are, above all, for us.
Will you join us? You can support by joining A+, by visiting our fundraiser store and getting yourself some cute perks, or by giving directly via this form. During our last fundraiser the majority of gifts were $50 or less. That’s how we know that every person makes a difference and every dollar counts. Thank you for anything you can do.