Reason's Webathon 2014: Help Us Raise $200,000 by Dec. 9!
Reason's annual Webathon kicks off today and will run through next Tuesday, December 9. This is the one time of the year when we go PBS on our most loyal readers at Reason.com and ask them to consider making a tax-deductible donation in support of our award-winning journalism.
This year—the year The New York Times asked "Has the Libertarian Moment Finally Arrived?"—we're hoping to raise $200,000 from readers who dig what we do at the country's (and planet's!) only website devoted to exploring, analyzing, and promoting "Free Minds and Free Markets."
Your (tax-deductible!) gift will help us publish the print edition of Reason ("a kick-ass, no-holds-barred political magazine," according to The New York Post); grow the reach of Reason.com (now pulling over 4 million visits a month!), and produce more great Reason TV videos (like this one and this one).
We're your voice for individual liberty and freedom in discussions about politics, culture, and ideas—and with your help, that voice will continue to command more and more of the national conversation. Reason.com's audience has doubled in size over the past few years and Reason TV's has grown even faster than that. Matt Welch is co-host of Fox Business' The Independents, where he and Kennedy and Kmele Foster are bringing a hard-core libertarian perspective to cable news. Jacob Sullum writes about drug policy at Forbes.com and I'm preaching the Reason message of horrible horrible freedom in all areas of human activity at The Daily Beast and Time.
Damon Root is redefining the ideological discussion over the Supreme Court in his hot-off-the-presses new book Overruled and Jesse Walker's The United States of Paranoia (2013) is still winning plaudits. As a New America Foundation fellow, Katherine Mangu-Ward is representing school choice and educational innovation in a space dominated by teachers-union-friendly traditionalists. Recent hires such as Elizabeth Nolan Brown and Robby Soave are building massive audiences by writing about feminism and higher education from a libertarian POV.
So, "Has the Libertarian Moment Finally Arrived?" Well, no, not completely. But when you look at the rise of the marijuana legalization movement, the push for marriage equality, the long-overdue debate over the militarization of police, and the growing recognition that U.S. foreign policy needs a total reboot—all topics that Reason has been harping on for decades—there's no question that Reason-style libertarianism is on the march. All but partisan dead-enders on the right and the left are recognizing that their gods have failed them. Folks want something different, an intellectual and ideological framework that allows them to engage the world in a spirit that is both serious and fun, idealistic and practical, forward-looking yet informed by the lessons of the past.
In print, online, in video—Reason seeks to be your guide to a complicated world, your conversation pit for hashing out arguments among like-minded people, and your home base as you travel through life.
We need your help to reach our goal of $200,000!
To show our thanks, Webathon donors at every level of giving will pick up sweet giveaways. Depending on how large a (tax-deductible!) gift you make, you'll be able to send a year's worth of Reason magazine to a friend (or, better yet, an enemy!), strut around town in a classic black Reason t-shirt, enjoy a private lunch in D.C. with Reason editors, and much more. For a full listing of giving levels and associated swag, go here.
Your gift is essential to our success. So please, put your money where our mouth is. For your convenience, we accept donations via credit card, Paypal, Amazon Payments and (of course) Bitcoins. We also accept donations of appreciated stock.
Over the next week-plus, Matt Welch and I will be asking you to cough up your hard-earned money to help us keep doing what we're doing on a bigger and bigger scale. And we'll be talking about all the ways big and small that we're pushing for a world that is relentlessly interesting, innovative, and respectful of individual rights, capitalism, and peace. And we'll be thanking you for reading—and for your support.
