Front Page Contact Us Donate

The other day, I received a phone call from a colleague in the area who was trying to reach Alaina. We had a conversation about the situation unfolding: No, I wasn't screening Alaina's calls. No, I wasn't picking up her phone, and no, we weren't next to each other in the office. We don't have an office. We don't even have a phone. But by the magic of the Internet, we have a phone number, which rings my phone.

BSR doesn't have physical infrastructure in the ways many people assume we do (we find ourselves explaining this a lot to people who assume BSR has a newsroom or a suite of desks). While other media organizations and cultural institutions in our region have high-six-figure CEO or director salaries, BSR has a low-six-figure annual budget.

In other words, we do a lot with a little. When you give to BSR, you are not funding fancy offices or executive salaries. Your gift has a huge immediate impact on our freelance staff and writers: 85 percent of our budget goes toward paying them.

BSR team members Kyle, Neil, and Alaina meet up at Indy Hall. (Photo by Adam Teterus.)

We may be low on physical infrastructure, but BSR is the real deal. We've been covering Philly's world-class cultural scene on a shoestring for 20 years. This year, our stories are on track to reach 300,000 readers around the world. That's not bad for no office. When you give to BSR, you know that you are giving to an organization with a great track record.

But our future is more and more uncertain, as prices rise across the board, from our writers' cost of living to the software models that are now on an annual subscription, with fees creeping up every year. It's getting harder to fund nonprofit journalism, especially when American leaders call us the enemy.

BSR's team, including our editors, has to work extra gigs on nights and weekends to make ends meet. We could double our budget and bring both editors on full-time, and BSR's total annual budget would still be less than one third the amount that a single CEO makes in a year at many of the organizations BSR covers.

Give $10 a month starting today, and you'll ensure our future.