Vermont Political Blog Seeks Donations, Plans Expansion

Tweet

Visitors to the left-leaning blog Green Mountain Daily were greeted with a pop-up window this morning with the opening line: "GMD needs your help."

No, the site's existence isn't being threatened or held hostage by some corporate web-hosting service. Instead, GMD is urging its fans to donate money to the five-year-old blog as a way to support its ongoing work and potentially fuel its "big plans and ideas."

The pop-up plea kicks off a two-week contribution drive — no mention of tote bags or GMD mugs as thank you gifts for your contribution like they have over at Vermont Public Radio. In a note to readers, the GMD crew said they plan to use the drive to "not only support our ongoing work, but to gauge support for doing more."

In an email to Seven Days, GMD Publisher John Odum said the request for donations is an effort to make the site better and to provide some token compensation for the work of its community of bloggers. Odum said the decision to ask for money has less to do with him leaving his full-time job at the Vermont Natural Resources Council last year than it does with trying to make the site better, and expand its reach.

"I can't afford to put in the time to make it what it needs to be. Also, it kills me never to even be able to give the other front pagers some modest, if even token, compensation. There's a need to semi-professionalize to keep away stagnation," Odum noted. "But mainly, I have plans for two other related sites that will take time and some subcontracting to develop. There's also the recurring idea of a communications internship. Several things to make the site better, in other words, that are always stymied for lack of time and money. It seems like it was time to change that, or at least make the effort to."

In a profile last year, Odum broached the subject of expansion with Seven Days' Cathy Resmer in a profile of several new media operations in Vermont.

Will GMD ever become more than just a place for like-minded activists to share the latest buzz? “One day I like the idea of it getting bigger and bigger and bigger,” says Odum, “and another day I feel more my blog roots, like, ‘Who cares if it gets bigger?’ ... It’s certainly got enough of a branding identification now that if I wanted to, I might be able to take the plunge and professionalize it. But it’s the kind of thing I would never take the plunge on, given that I have a family. Maybe if I was still 20 years old, and I could live in a box on cat food for a month, I wouldn’t sweat it.”

At the time, Odum said the site brought in enough advertising dollars to pay for a delivery of fuel oil to his home.

But now GMD appears to be turning up the heat. In recent weeks, GMD front-page blogger Julie Waters has covered a health care rally at the State House and sat in on a conference call with U.S. Rep. Peter Welch.

A sign of things to come?

As noted in our update of stories from the past year, GMD survived the past year while other sites went off the grid — including Jon Margolis' VermontNewsGuy.com and Alden Pellett's Vermont Daily News.

Here's the complete note that greets GMD readers:

"GMD needs your help.

"For 5 years, Green Mountain Daily has been doing its thing - informing, enlivening, infuriating, enriching and even organizing. But maintaining this with volunteer labor, caffeine and pocket lint is getting harder. That's why, to keep doing what we've been doing, we're asking you for something we've never asked before.

"For the next 2 weeks, we'll be mounting a contribution drive. We have a lot of big plans and ideas, and we'll use this drive to not only support our ongoing work, but to gauge support for doing more. If you are one of the many readers who have come to lean on GMD and all its craziness, now's your change to step up and help us keep doing what we do - and make the changes we need to make to do it better."

Comments

[Srat123]

What are readers entreated to for those "big plans and ideas"?

1) two other related sites;
2) a communications internship.

Can't understand why my wallet didn't fly open in the gust of inspiration....

[steve-o]

The few times I've ever checked out GMD I've found it to be an echo chamber for left wing bleeding heart ideology. Does VT really need that? There's already Seven Days . . . and the VDP website . . . and the VPP website . . . and the Addison Independent editorial page . . . and . . . and . . . and . . .

[Haik Bedrosian]

John Odum, et al run a wonderful website at GMD, but they may end up disappointed with their fundraising effort.

My blog is also five years old, and it has had a a donation button on it for almost all of that time. To date, of the 124,762 vistors my site has welcomed, exactly zero of them have made a donation.

I realized a long time ago that I'm not going to be Steve Benen. The new media experience allows almost anyone to jump in the game and start publishing. As a result, there is more free content on the web than you can shake a stick at. Few people are going to voluntarily pay for any of it.

For most of us the blogging is a labor of love, and will have to suffice as its own reward per se, not as a means to a financial end.

[Haik Bedrosian]

Arrg. 2 links in my preceding comment fail. Sorry about that. Technical problems: Another frustration of the not-very-lucrative labor of love.

[matt Trottley]

I think 7 Days does the job.

[Haik Bedrosian]

"I think 7 Days does the job."

It's a nice compliment for 7D, but they don't do "the job" all by themselves. All media help each other.

[Jcarter]

GMD is a blog for the antithesis of the Tea Party. Its the extreme of the left and the blogging is for the "looney left." Why donate and associate yourself with a group of crazies.

Maybe a middle of the road moderate blog could actually be financially successful but catering to the few extremist doesn't work. In part because you can't alienate the other 95% of the readers.

[Cathy Resmer]

Please, folks, keep it civil. No false and/or defamatory comments.

[Tim]

Since I've never read the blog I think it only in keeping with the best traditions of the internet that I rise to trash it, and anybody associated with it.

[Jsanchez]

Are sites like GMD and even Front Porch Forum businesses or are they charities? Businesses know how to make money without asking for handouts. I was sad when FPF asked for handouts last fall. Thus was after they got a huge grant to expant the site. You can't have it both ways. Businesses don't ask for handouts.

[John Walsh]

I hop on to GMD two or three times a week to check out the buzz. I feel like there are often legitimate postings, but also a lot of knee-jerk moaning and grumbling.

Anyway, I noticed that they had a banner ad for sale for a few weeks before the donation pitch: Were there no takers?

[Curtis Hier]

Must be it really is "for like-minded activists." Because every time I make a comment that approaches one of their topics from a different perspective, I get called all sorts of names.

"Toning down the rhetoric" has now become an annoying cliche. But if ever a site needed to do that, it would be GMD.

[Matt Breuer]

GMD has been a great platform for discussion in the years that I've been reading and posting. There are posts I agree with and those that I do not, but it has served as a platform for a wide array of work. I think the reality is that the call for "moderate" opinions comes from the fact that a lot of people with moderate views might not feel as compelled to comment on every article that is posted.

[Jimmy]

Best local comedy site out there. That bit where they took credit for Shumlin's win - hilarious!

[Jcarter]

Heck you can't even register on that site. Every user name is taken and I mean every single one. Heck with all those registered users and Odum will be moving up to one of the Mansions on Spear St....