Where Do Your Donations Go?

We know you have questions about our structure, our funding, and what we do your donations at The Wild Hunt. So, here it is.

Where does the money go? 

It’s easy really. The Wild Hunt is basically a corporation in the State of Florida and a project of Independent Arts and Media (IAM) in San Francisco. IAM serves as our non-profit fiscal sponsor which helps us be an independent voice; no company or individual outside of TWH controls what, how, who, when we cover stories.

Independent Arts and Media oversees our financial activity and offers us access to other revenue opportunities, such as grants when they are available, and discounts for services to help with our work.

IAM also offers training and support not only in managing funds but in marketing, legal affairs, and promotion as well. This structure helps to assure that we always remain an independent community-based voice. IAM’s service and sponsorship cost 8% of revenue.

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Another part of the funding goes to technology, which includes site hosting, email services, and annual domain renewals. That total runs about $7,000 per year.

The bulk of our funds goes to the team for their work. We pay our contributors: writers, editors, columnists, and support personnel.  It is not a lot, but it is what we can afford.

Here is the breakdown:

  • Editors and our technology director earn about $100 per month.
  • Writers and columnists earn $25 per article.

Several individuals – the editor-in-chief and some writers-   choose to donate their time and pay, but not everyone can.

What is important it that we made a decisive commitment to pay individuals for their work. This ideal was part of The Wild Hunt‘s original mission. We strongly believe that it is only fair to pay people for their work and to thank them for the time and expertise they offer.

Our yearly cost for everything is about $23,000. That is our sustainable minimum.

Where do we want to go?

In a perfect world, our personnel would be earning more for their time – something that looks like a living wage. Our writers and columnists wouldn’t have to pay their own gas to cover events and we could reimburse their calls, technology use, and maybe even an occasional lunch during interviews. In other words, we aspire to a budget that provides for the usual professional expenses covered by other media outlets. We’re not there yet.

And that’s where you come in.

You can help us get there. Join us as a Sustainer. You can make a one-time donation or become a monthly sustainer, donating each month.

If all of our followers donated just $1 each month,  it would transform our ability to get the job done.  But we also know not everyone can afford that.

We’re grateful for what you can give. But, please give. We know The Wild hunt is important to you. And we’re committed to keeping our news service, for Pagans by Pagans, around for good.