There's No Such Thing as Free Op-Ed Outreach

As I note at the Garrison Center site:

The Garrison Center is not a 501(c)(x) institution. It neither seeks nor accepts institutional financial support and such support for its authors and administrators is not tax deductible. Center administrators and authors may benefit from site monetization, such as ad placements, "tip jars," etc.

I'm planning to run quarterly fundraisers, but see the above: If you donate, you are donating to me. There is no "Garrison Center" in any organizational sense of the word. And yes, I'll use any money you donate for whatever I want to use it for. But, here are a few of the things that I will use it for before I go out and have fancy coffee on your dime, or buy myself frilly new underwear or whatever:

• So far I've written all except two of the op-eds at the Garrison Center (one op-ed written by another author has been published, the other one is coming soon). I plan to write most of the op-eds there. But I also plan to pay other authors $25 a pop for their 400-500 op-eds (including for the two already accepted/published).
• If the fundraiser makes its goal, I'll put some money back into the site. I'll pay for another year or three of domain name registration. Maybe I'll hit Fiverr and get some nice graphics done up, or join a paid site to get better photos to attach to the op-eds themselves. If the site becomes popular enough to strain the resources of my current hosting account, I may move it to its own server. That kind of thing.

As a goal, I'm thinking that $500 per quarter sounds reasonable.


That's $2,000 a year for the production of op-eds that are already, in our first month, getting picked up by "mainstream and non-libertarian political media" at a rate of more than 20 per month.


If that rate holds -- and I expect it to go up, not down! -- it comes to a cost of $8 and change to put an op-ed in front of a non-libertarian audience. That sounds like pretty cost-effective outreach to me.


So, here's the button, and I'll stick a "fundraising thermometer" in the sidebar shortly (if you want to donate using Bitcoin, etc., use the sidebar widgets and just let me know using the contact form that it was for my Garrison Center work). Thanks in advance for your support!

UPDATE: The fundraiser made its goal and then some ... so I've shut down the button. Of course, ONGOING support is welcome, appreciated, and reduces the need for holding periodic fundraisers. So if you're so inclined, see the top of the sidebar for Patreon, PayPal and cryptocurrency options!