Look at that — in only 8 days, YOU MADE OUR 300 MEMBER GOAL!
This is great news for us and our financial sustainability — and more importantly, great news for all Autostraddle readers. The more people who join A+, the better the site is for everyone — we have more resources and stability to sustain new programs, take on new writers, and hire more queer people, and can continue to fund things like new tools and infrastructure, paid leave for illness or bereavement, and increased efforts toward accessibility. We can also ensure we’re here (along with our extensive archives!) for the next generation of queer & trans people.
We understand that many people — maybe you if you’re reading this — joined A+ because they’re in a place in their lives right now where they can support and they want Autostraddle to be around, even for people who can’t support right now.
Times are tough, but A+ is $4 a month, and of the thousands of people who tune in to read Autostraddle every hour, we have to hope that there are 50 more folks who can join and pay it forward for other gay people! Are you one of them?
But wasn’t the 300 person goal what you needed?
The 300 people who signed up have given us an incredible gift, and we are grateful down to the bottom of our lavender gay hearts. We initially set the goal of 300 people because we thought that was what we could do in two weeks; YOU ALL DID IT IN JUST ABOUT ONE. We’re in a place where we need as many new members as we can get, and since we were already planning to run the drive through the 30th, we’ve set a stretch goal.
To break down our situation right now:
- As I said in our announcement, an ideal number of A+ members for our budget right now is several thousand more than where we’re at. 50 more folks signing up gets us ever closer to that goal, and helps make us more stable in the meantime. It’s a long road but we’re walking it!
- As you might know from our last fundraiser, we had enough to be funded through July! Running this member drive helps us out with that whole thing that comes after July. Every bit, every person helps, and makes future fundraisers less frequent with lower goals.
- This stretch goal still happens to be being declared JUST before a couple of awesome A+ only events! We never put anything vital behind the paywall, but we do sometimes put some fun extras – like tonight’s Strap-On workshop and the Discord Server this weekend with BOOKSMART watch-a-long with Kayla!
At the end of the day, it’s still Pride; we’re exhausted but also working hard and full of hope, trying to be there for each other. Will you join A+ to be there for other readers?
Not sure yet? Check out our A Day of Work series to see the behind-the-scenes of the work you’ll be supporting. And again, if you’re already an A+ member, thank you.
I don’t have a name to give a gift sub to, but can I just generally give one?
Ooh like an A+ scholarship fund or something! That is a super smart idea.
I asked this on the original membership drive post but didn’t get an answer. I can gift a Cobalt membership but don’t know anyone to gift it to! I would totally contribute to a pool of scholarship/gifted A+ memberships.
PARTY PEOPLE – I’ll gift 1 Cobalt level sub, first come first serve. Reply to this if you want it.
Reply to this if you ALSO want to gift a sub but don’t know who to give it to.
If this is still available…i’d love in!
You all are great!
Sorry I missed this! I’m going to respond separately to the idea below, but the best thing for folks so far has been to run something off your social media, like a twitter or facebook contest and then tag us so we can re-post it to the AS account, and then hopefully someone sees it there!
Z – email me at soco.intl@gmail.com with the email you want on it.
I think they said that it was too logistically infeasible to run scholarships through Autostraddle. But I bet the community could figure out a way to set this up amongst ourselves!
That makes sense, I’ll email Nicole with a possibility that can be community driven.
Just posting here that I will be emailing you back soon!
The power of pride! I hope y’all reach the stretch goal
Hey, how can I upgrade my subscription. Do I need to cancel and re-subscribe on a higher tier? I’m very sorry, but I’m not sure I do understand the process :/
Looking at settings in the profile, looks like you should be able to upgrade or change your subscription. I’m not sure if that’s the official way but it seems to be the way?
It’s not super intuitive but iirc you go for the new tier and during the payment process it works out a discount based on what you’ve already paid for your current tier
Just to say i have done this twice to upgrade my tier and it has worked perfectly both times.
Thank you all for answering! If you keep having trouble, feel free to email me at nicole@autostraddle.com and I’ll help you out!
a booksmart watchalong? ideal
Is there a counter somewhere that shows the number of members, like the counter for donations during fundraisers? Would be nice if it’s not too much extra effort.