Update: As of Jan. 1, our total stood at $83,607. We will be processing additional late-arriving paper checks in the days to come, and will update again in a few days when we make our regular quarterly financial report.
Thanks to all who made year-end donations. Your gifts will make it possible for us to do more to hold politicians accountable in 2012.
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This promises to be an exciting election year and we here at FactCheck.org have been doing a lot to prepare for it.
With help from your donations, we have redesigned our website and improved our mobile app. We have added new features – including the 2012 Players Guide, which is your guide to political organizations seeking to influence the 2012 campaigns, particularly through TV ads. We have entered into cooperative agreements with major news organizations – including Yahoo! News and USA Today – to increase our reach and help inform more potential voters. And we have beefed up our staffing by hiring veteran journalist and fact-checker Robert Farley – who was part of the team at Politifact that won the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting.
We have more projects planned, but we can use your help. We have established a goal to raise $100,000 in individual, tax-deductible contributions to help defray the cost of 2012 projects. As of Dec. 21, we had raised $14,300 in donations during our fiscal year, which started July 1. We hope to push that total up with the help of our 87,000 subscribers and other friends.
In 2011, we were able with your financial support to send FactCheck.org Managing Editor Lori Robertson to Massachusetts for an in-depth article on the health care plan signed into law by then-Gov. Mitt Romney. The result was her article, “‘RomneyCare’ Facts and Falsehoods.” We also have used your donations to defray the expense of hosting our website and giving it a top-to-bottom overhaul to create the fresh, new look that we launched in September.
This year, we would like to send reporters to the national conventions to cut through the spin and bring you the facts from Charlotte, N.C. and Tampa, Fla. We also plan to undertake a new project that will give readers like you the chance to submit campaign materials directly to us for our review. But these additional projects bring additional costs, and that’s where you can help with a tax-deductible donation to the University of Pennsylvania with the express purpose of supporting FactCheck.org.
FactCheck.org is a project of the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg Public Policy Center. The University of Pennsylvania is a 501c 3 organization and your contribution is deductible from U.S. federal income taxes to the full extent allowed by law.
We accept only individual donations. We do not accept donations from business corporations, labor unions, political parties or advocacy groups. You can find our annual and quarterly financial disclosure reports on our About Us page.
We thank you for your past support and look forward to serving you in 2012. Have a safe and happy holiday.
— Brooks Jackson
P.S. We’ll update this post periodically to keep you posted on how we’re doing toward reaching our $100,000 goal.