So hey, you guys are stuck with me today for our Friday Ask Me Anything feature. Fun!
Today, I want to kick things off with a pitch for our end-of-year fundraiser, because in this brave new media world, Daily Kos will only succeed if you, the community, chips in to make it succeed.
Two years ago, Daily Kos got 95 percent of its revenue via advertising. Today, it's less than a third. In fact, advertising as a percentage of revenue is coming down so much, that we may soon be at a place where we can get rid of most site advertising. Wouldn't that be cool? We're not quite there yet, but it's where we're headed.
Our community support has been stellar this year (mostly spillover from candidate fundraising on ActBlue), and now meets and might even exceed advertising revenue by the time we close the books at the end of the month. In fact, I'm rooting for that to happen. I feel better about being funded by you guys than generic (and sometimes nefarious) advertisers.
We currently have 22 staff members, with another two in the wings. One of them will be particularly exciting for you guys. We're still working out the details, but I can hopefully announce that one sooner rather than later.
2013 was a banner year, and SIX MILLION unique visitors on a November of a non-election year? Seriously? It was our third best month ever on a month in which a whole week was lost to the Thanksgiving holiday.
Traffic was nuts this year. And so was our email action list -- we essentially doubled it in size and it's now over 1 million members and still growing. And if you think that "signing petitions" thing is a waste of time, the 800,000 signatures we gathered for filibuster reform had a real impact in pushing Senate Democrats to kill the judicial and executive nominee filibusters.
We also raised $1.6 million for candidates in an off-off year election year. And a big chunk of that went to state legislative candidates as we, for the first time, started targeting seats in key state legislatures.
So now we're getting ready for next year, and it'll be a crazy eventful year. We'll be rolling out DK5 in the first half of the year, and it'll blow you away. We'll be working to get Nancy Pelosi her gavel back. We'll be fighting to keep the Senate, and as bonus, also rid it of Mitch McConnell. We'll be engaging in even more state legislative battles as we tilt the playing field back in our direction ahead of the 2020 redistricting. We'll do stuff to make the best online community on the web even happier. And we'll continue to be the go-to place for progressives when shit happens. (Hey, I should trademark that!) But we can only do what our finances allow us to do, and you're now a big part of that.
All we're asking for is $5. If you can swing it, maybe a buck or three in a monthly subscription. Buy gift subscriptions for your favorite writers! Or one for yourself! I know I'll certainly be handing out some gift subscriptions here soon.
Thanks for everything you have done and continue to do for the site, not just the donations and subscriptions, but your engagement. I couldn't ask for a better set of friends and allies as we fight for a better, more awesome America.
Now ask away.