Many thanks to the 300-plus who have joined and renewed their annual Memberships to Crosscut. It is the last day of the Fall drive and we are down to just a baker's dozen new members short of our goal. Plus, we just got a great pull toward the finish line.
Bill and Jill Ruckelshaus today pledged a $1,000 gift — Thank you very much — to match all new and renewing memberships of more than $100. All donations above $100 will be matched, dollar-for-dollar, so if you join at that premium level, your gift will be doubled.
Please help if you can. You can easily donate online, or learn from the Donate Page how to send in a check. Annual Memberships are tax-deductible.
The timing could hardly be better. Generous donors had just met the goal another generous $1,000 challenge match from Doug and Kathie Raff.
We have a special thank-you to all our current Members at a party and panel discussion on the current election tonight (Oct. 13). You must be a Member to attend, and the event is free to Members. The event is in the south portion of the old Elliott Bay Bookstore, First Ave. S. and S. Main St. in Seattle's Pioneer Square; enter off First Ave. (Our new offices are just upstairs.)
Tonight's Members event is a Pundits-Free-For-All with two of Crosscut's regular writers, Knute Berger and Chris Vance, joined on the panel about the current electionand wider political issues by Anne Fennessey, a longtime public affairs expert, and Tim Ceis, former Seattle Deputy Mayor and now plying the public-affairs trade himself. The panel will kick around observations, hear from the audience, and generally take (and give) guff. Drinks and food provided as well. Doors open at 7 pm, with the panel starting at 7:30 pm. You'll have lots of time to mingle with fellow Members, meet the panelists, and talk with lots of Crosscut writers and editors who will be on hand. (You always want to talk back to the media, so here's a good chance!)
There are many and continuing benefits to Members, such as parties, forums, and discounted tickets, but I hope you will also benefit by knowing that you are helping to do something positive about the endangered state of media in our region. Crosscut is a nonprofit organization (meaning your donations are tax-deductible) and has been able to attract significant support from three large foundations for the next two years (the Gates Foundation, the Knight Foundation, and The Seattle Foundation). We need your help to make sure we provide the Crosscut match to these grants.
Donations from Members are a principal means of support for this kind of "journalism in the public interest," free from commercial constraints. We can't do this kind of public-good journalism without your support as an annual Member.
Thanks very much for your support, your attentive readership, your comments and suggestions. Thanks also to our writers who have kindly expressed their reasons for supporting and writing for Crosscut.com. You Members help us at Crosscut to feel much more connected to the community, much more a part of a common civic undertaking.
Please donate today, and please tell a friend or two to join up as well.
