Dear Friends of Verfassungsblog
Before this year comes to an end, I want to send you a personal message.
This has been a crazy year for everyone, I guess, but for us in particular. Never has the demand been higher for what we do. Covid, Brexit, Trump, Poland: constitutional expertise was needed to make sense of most of the ground-shaking events and developments we have witnessed this year. And we delivered, fast and reliable. We posted more than 1100 articles and reached more than 1.2 million readers, both more than double of what we had in 2019.
This has pushed us to the edge of our capabilities, and in some cases beyond. Our team is tiny. We are not affiliated to some powerful deep-pockets institution. We are independent and beholden to none. We provide open access: what we offer is not exclusive to paying customers, but for everyone.
There is one thing, though, which hasn’t grown nearly as much as our output, our reach, and our costs. And that is our revenue.
If I extrapolate the status quo of 2020 for next year, we will be running into a deficit in the mid-five figures before long. We will of course make every effort to ensure that won’t happen. But you – our readers – must also help.
382 people are currently supporting us on Steady with a total of 2,265 € per month. That’s great. But to make ends meet in the long run, we need significantly more.
The coming year will not be easy. None of the crises of 2020 are over. We will have our work cut out for us. And we’re looking forward to that. But we will only manage if we get our number of Steady supporters to increase significantly.
We don‘t do paywalls. We don‘t do annoying online advertising. We also don’t collect your data. You don’t want that. And we don’t want that. We want to make constitutional law expertise publicly and openly available. We are there for the scholarly community and for the public. That’s what we do. And that is what you expect from us.
In light of our recent reader survey, we have adjusted the range of ways you can support us on Steady: There is now a “Students” option of 2.50 € per month for those on a tight budget, the “Support” option of 5 € (previously 4 €), the “Support Plus” option of 10 € and the “Subscribe” option of 25 € as before. If you choose one of those, we will send you a gift.
Sounds good? Then this way, please.
All the best and to a great 2021!
Max Steinbeis