Well, it sure is May and I sure did not deliver this post to you in January or FEBRUARY AT THE LATEST as I traditionally have been known to do! You might wonder why: why on earth did it take me so long to publish this annual report? The answer is not, “it took me five months to actually create and put together.” I created it and put it together in January.
And then the days passed, as they do, as I thought about if the words in the post were correct or if perhaps I should change them. I wondered if maybe I should ask Nico if they liked the words in the post? Whenever I add a second step to the publication of a post, I have essentially ensured I will never publish it. But, then, I don’t know…. other things happened, in my life, in this website, and at some point the existence of this post simply slipped my mind entirely. Like I lost even the memory of writing it? Or the knowledge that it needed to be published at all, let alone immediately?
Then one day (when? I couldn’t tell you?), I decided — or rationalized, really, if we’re being honest AND WE ARE — that it’d be best for the annual report to go up during the fundraiser we were having in March. I expressed this thought to Nico as though it had been my intention all along, to publish this little ditty in March, as part of our overall intention to inform you (the reader) about our Difficult Financial Situation. Then I guess the fundraiser happened, which is incredibly time-consuming for us all, and once more this Annual Report fled my mind.
Why are we now, finally, on the 5th day of May, publishing this fucking post? Why are publishing this post today when every single day of the year that preceded it would have been better and when I clearly kept dropping the ball regarding publishing it at all? It is because Nico asked me if I could publish it today so they could take a week off the A+ Advice Box and we’d still have enough A+ content! So, no big story here, besides that I just want to give credit where credit is due to Nico, for giving me a reason to publish this post even though it is MAY and probably nobody cares anymore.
Anyhow! Since 2016 we’ve been providing this information to our beloved A+ members. We did it in 2017 and then I did it in 2018 then I did it in 2019 and then I did it in 2020 and in 2021 and oh boy also in 2022!
We’d like to politely request that you do not share any of these graphics outside of A+ and instead enjoy them only here on this page right now with us as a family! Okay!
Most Popular Content of 2022
Who Wrote What
Heather managed to write even more posts than she did last year! Last year I noted, “big gains from Drew, Shelli and Kayla, with experts forecasting ongoing gains from Kayla as she is now Managing Editor” and indeed, Kayla not only made big gains but contributed to knocking me down to fourth place. Dani perhaps made the most significant gain this year, from unranked in 2021 to #7 in 2022, while Darcy and Nico also aimed higher in 2022.
Money Money Money
Income & Expenses
In last year’s annual report, I wrote that we’d yet to earn approval for an SBA loan and shared that “this is also our first time doing a loan which is a whole psychological thing for me but it’s fine,” and indeed I was correct, it has indeed been a whole psychological thing for me! We took out the loan because in 2020 and 2021, we’d learned that doing multiple fundraisers a year was unsustainable and impossible for our team and our readers.
Some big wins this year: We made huge gains in advertising in 2022 thanks to our new Brand Partnerships Director Anya Richkind and our partnership with Q Digital — a 238% increase from 2021! We had an incredibly successful and very fast fundraiser in 2021! Unfortunately, we also spent $200k more than we earned in 2022 — even after the fundraiser — which’s approximately the size of that loan. As one might say: yikes!
ETA: Now that it’s May and not January when I first wrote this I would like to add that we are SO GRATEFUL for how y’all showed up big for our 2023 Fundraiser!!!!!
Merchandise
Go peaches!!
A+ Members!
Now it’s time to appreciate you — thank you, each and every one of you, for making our lives possible, for helping to get us through a pandemic, for contributing to 50% of our annual revenue.
