Since we launched Ghion Journal nearly 6 years ago, we have been operating on a shoestring budget where we bled money on a year-over-year basis in order to keep this website operational.
From the outset, my wife and I were not interested in turning the Ghion Journal into a cash cow, that is why we disavowed corporate contributions of any sort and we decided to make this website ad-free other than the couple of ads we give away to local/regional businesses who can prove that they are doing good for the communities they live in.
Our "business model", if you can call it that, was inspired by a restaurant in Fort Collins I used to eat at on numerous occasions when I was homeless. Instead of charging fixed prices, they let diners contribute as they are able. Some gave a lot, others gave nothing at all.
We have been using that same model to keep offset some of the costs of maintaining this website and marketing our articles (email, text messages and an occasional spend on social media). However, even with the decision to minimize the sources of revenue coming into the Ghion Journal, I have been very sporadic in terms of asking people to contribute.
My hesitancy goes back to the time I was a child and would accompany my mom to church only to see priests and people of the church asking for money when the person they worshipped explicitly stated that money should not be traded in "his father's house". My aversion to money only grew as I grew older and realized just how much of this world's evils is rooted in currency.
The events of the past week have collided with my hate/love relationship with money. Three days ago, Lt. Col. Stuart Scheller, a man whom I was having back channel conversations with about faith, family and love of country, got locked up for speaking his mind. This morning, I received an email from my job that lets me know that it's a matter of time before they start firing people like me who are "unvaccinated".
That is when it hit me, I face the prospects of leaving my wife and my child out on the cold if something happens to me or face the possibility of enduring homelessness yet again, this time with people who depend on me in tow.
Beyond personal motives, which I had to express in the interest of openness, I realize that my idealism is keeping the Ghion Journal from growing and becoming a serious source of news for a wider audience. We live in time where serious journalism is needed more than ever, to that end, our hope is to fill a vacuum that has been created by mainstream media's clownish acts.
To this end, though we are not going to take a penny from corporations and we will continue to be ad-free other than the ads we give away for free, I am going to be a bit more explicit in asking people to contribute to the Ghion Journal. Ideally our readers can become subscribers so we can have a reliable source of revenue in order to hire staff and put structure to our organization, but any contribution would further our aims.
The motto is the same, give as you are able so we can give back as best we can. I thank you for being a continued supporter of our noble experiment.
Respectfully,
Teodrose Fikremariam