S.O.S. from Open Source
Nobody but you can get Open Source out of a jam.
We’re launching a week-long appeal for support, passing the hat to sustain “the blog with a radio show.”
For Open Source these last two years, it’s taken a global community to build a conversation.
And now we need you as never before: every listener, every guest, everyone who’s ever downloaded a podcast or flavored the site with a comment.
With your encouragement and robust participation, Open Source has become one of the most talked-about experiments in public media — a civil union of online and on-air communities that trust each other to talk about pretty much anything.
So we’re in this together. And now we’re in a bit of an emergency together.
As you may know, we lost a major funder without warning late last year. The University of Massachusetts, Lowell ended a five-year sponsorship agreement in a political shuffle of chancellors.
We’re an independent, non-profit production company, and it has been no small challenge to try to replace half a million dollars a year in six months. We’ve made some progress — a grant from the MacArthur Foundation, not least — and negotiations are underway with several interesting partners.
So the rescue ships are approaching the harbor, and still the wolf is at the door.
We need your help to keep broadcasting through the summer while we try to ink a deal.
If every listener sent one dollar, we’d have more than enough. If just the registered users on our site sent $100 on average, we’d be way over the top. And if you forward this appeal to your ten best friends, we’ll have a vastly bigger base to draw on.
We hope you’ll consider a tax-deductible contribution with a credit card here:
You can also send a check, made out to Open Source Media, Inc., to:
Open Source Media, Inc.
Attn: Mary McGrath
15 Mt. Auburn St.
Cambridge, MA 02138
We love what we’ve built with you here. We need your help to keep this community alive.
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May 25th, 2007 at 6:18 pm
Done! Viva la Radio Open Source!
May 26th, 2007 at 4:56 am
I’ll be able to manage a little something in a couple weeks.
May 26th, 2007 at 7:03 am
Will pay it along with my bills this month, heavy user that I am.
May 26th, 2007 at 11:07 am
Do you take cash in an envelope? I don’t want to give private information to paypal and we don’t use checks in Japan.
May 26th, 2007 at 11:18 am
Could you post a goal graphic with the running total donations from this initiative please? Additionally, perhaps the number of individual donations? It would be interesting to see how things are going.
May 26th, 2007 at 12:59 pm
I’d like to consider my contribution “in honor” of the Comey’s Dissent at Justice show. I just listened to the podcast, and think it is incredibly important that you can keep producing programs like this.
May 26th, 2007 at 1:53 pm
God I hope you guys manage to sort something out! I can’t imagine online life without you. Make sure you keep us up to date with fund raising progress.
How about getting the listeners to canvas potential sponsors – there must be people with the right connections to help such an original organisation…
May 26th, 2007 at 3:00 pm
[...]
Radio Open Source
May 26th, 2007
Heard about Radio Open Source from Hugh and checked out the site. Good stuff. I helped, you can too. It& [...]
May 26th, 2007 at 3:53 pm
ok! count me in for something. Paypal has a MELTDOWN everytime I log in from Eastern Europe, but it’s nothing a half an hour on the phone probably won’t fix, and it’s worth it.
May 26th, 2007 at 10:40 pm
I also think it would be helpful for ROS to shed more light on the funding issue. From my experience in helping to raise money for public broadcasting, I think it would good to have a specific fundraising goal, and continuous updates on progress toward that goal. Have you considered having specific contribution levels, with recognition and/or premiums for each level? How about an honor roll of those that have contributed? How about selling ROS logo merchandise? And a mechanism for “honoring” specific programs with contributions?
May 27th, 2007 at 5:55 am
Happy to have contributed $ to this important and always interesting podcast. I listen to ROS on my iRiver several hours a week on the way to and from work.
Greets to all from Down Under.
May 27th, 2007 at 10:22 am
You guys rock! Several of you have asked for a running tally on the pledge drive. We’ve addedd an update and we’ll keep you posted.
May 27th, 2007 at 12:39 pm
Here’s 50, and another 50 next month. Without a doubt the best conversation on the radio, maybe the best in media. Thanks for all….
May 27th, 2007 at 4:43 pm
Just a warning to anyone thinking about using Paypal – it asks for your home phone number and it designates it as a required field. We never give out our home phone number to any company, and Paypal has no legitimate reason for asking – I buy stuff online all the time without giving my home phone number.
But I can send money through the mail (Sidewalker, how DO they pay for things remotely in Japan?) so I’m sending ROS a check.
BTW my accountant wanted to know if I was sure you were a legitimate 501(c)(3) organization so my donation would be deductible. I said I didn’t know and didn’t care – I’m taking it as a federal energy tax credit due to all the hot air we generate in these discussions!
May 27th, 2007 at 6:39 pm
We’re an honest to goodness legit 501C3!
May 28th, 2007 at 11:17 am
Will send check for a hundred bucks. I also think it is so important that your work continue. Who else will do it? Or do it so well. I have been listening since the connection days and donated to BUR as a result. I also forwarded Chris’s email to friends so maybe there will be more.
Thanks again and good luck!
May 28th, 2007 at 11:40 am
ROS is in my pile of ‘end of the month’ bills. Not to get too biblical about it, but my offering may seem the “widow’s mite”. For me, making it from paycheck to paycheck is just a lofty goal. In case it isn’t obvious though by my constant comments I do very much enjoy my participation in the blog. If for no other reason than to annoy the hell out of the aitheists I will keep you in my prayers.
May 28th, 2007 at 11:55 am
I agree with Bill Phelps. In addition to our cash contributions, is there anything we listeners can do to help? I’d be happy to write a paean to ROS for any potential funder who’d care to listen.
The quality of writing on the blog speaks for itself, but there are probably a lot of folks out there like myself too – dedicated listeners, who maybe visit the site every once in a while, but don’t blog (I guess this is my first post). I don’t feel like I have the time to post often, but with the possibility of losing ROS hanging over, I’d make the time to write a letter if it would help secure substantial funding for the program.
May 28th, 2007 at 4:02 pm
Why not just use a fake phone number for PayPal?
May 29th, 2007 at 12:28 pm
As soon as I get paid this week, I’ll send you something. I wish it could be more. All of you mean so much to me. And, like peggysue, I’ll say a few prayers.
May 29th, 2007 at 12:47 pm
Why not just use a fake phone number for PayPal?
Because I have no good way to know that it’s not someone else’s real phone number!
Anyway, they have no legitimate need to know anyone’s phone number, so I regard Paypal to be a sleazeball outfit just for demanding it. The US mail is good enough for me.
May 29th, 2007 at 2:09 pm
PayPal is pretty invasive and takes its fair share for the service, but it works really well in a pinch. For managing ongoing needs there are good donation management software packages and gateway services out there, many of them are open sourced and pretty reasonable on entry costs. Hopefully ROS can get on board with another provider soon – those nickels add up. Every little bit helps, and there is a lot of goodwill out there for the show – best of luck in the drive!
May 29th, 2007 at 2:27 pm
555-0100 through 555-0199 are specifically reserved for fictional use.
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/555_telephone_number
May 30th, 2007 at 10:25 am
You guys should never be shy about posting solicitations–Public Broadcasting and NPR do this religiously (and your pitch was much more effective!) ROS is worth much more to me than I could ever express in dollars. In any case, pay day is Friday so the check will be in the mail shortly! Hang in there! –Andrew
May 30th, 2007 at 10:32 am
555-0100 through 555-0199 are specifically reserved for fictional use.
. . . so I assume their sw checks for 555 exchanges.
Anyway, your proposal raises larger ethical issues. If I represented “555-” as my phone number then I’d be lying. We live in a society where people lie about things all the time and somebody has to resist that!
The rationalization that lying is OK because Paypal are sleazeballs who are asking questions that are none of their business is EXACTLY the same rationalization that Bush&Co. use when lying to the public or in testimony to Congress: “I don’t like them or their questions so why should I tell them the truth?”. If Gonzales was a man he’d tell Congress, “I’m not going to tell you why we fired those attorneys” rather than lying and saying he forgot. He’d be fired in a day, as well he should be, but at least he’d be honest.
From an ethical standpoint, if someone asks me a question and I don’t want to answer it then all I have to say is “I’m not going to tell you anything about that”. That’s perfectly honest. If I have a statutory requirement to reveal certain information then I need to be prepared to accept my punishment (e.g., as when a reporter goes to jail for not revealing his sources), but in this case that doesn’t apply.
Dishonesty in government, corporate, oand personal life is rampant and I don’t want to be part of it.
May 30th, 2007 at 12:18 pm
Instead of just assuming, why not find out? Making negative assumptions and disparaging PayPal over this only serves to weaken your case (with me at least), and I personally doubt that PayPal is actually checking those numbers in any event.
Hanlon’s Razor: “Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.”
I routinely use fake or throwaway email addresses when an Internet site insists on an email address — that’s simple prudence.
Am I lying or being dishonest? Sorry, but I don’t think so — I’m under no obligation to give correct information, express or implied, and your Bush analogy is fatally flawed in my opinion, since I’m not a member of government. Websites are free to ask for whatever they want, and I am free to tell them whatever I want. If they care about accuracy, then they should check, as responsible sites do with email addresses.
Are you also upset by authors publishing under pseudonyms?
June 4th, 2007 at 6:16 am
done. Blogged it too
June 9th, 2007 at 3:02 pm
Count me in! How about an update? How many late contributors like me? Still making progress?