Fund our Future
With your help, we raised $15,000 in 2021 and were able to continue publishing uninterrupted.
Like many publications and small businesses, Asparagus had a difficult 2020. Our ad revenue plummeted (Issues 3 and 4 combined brought in less than Issue 2), subscriber numbers shrank a bit, and we’ve had no event revenue since our birthday party over a year ago.
On the positive side, we saw an increase in readers donating and visiting our website. This tells us we’re publishing stories people want to read. Unfortunately, more people reading didn’t translate into enough money to pay for those stories.
To date, our revenue has come from readers (28%, in the form of donations, subscriptions, and event revenue), government grants (16%) and advertising sales (9%). The remaining 47% of our expenses have been covered by loans and our founder, an arrangement that can’t continue forever.
So we asked you to help fund our future! We raised C$15,690 by May 2, and were able to continue our important work of telling the large and small stories of how we can live sustainably.
Our unending thanks
The following brilliant, beautiful, unutterably kind, and supremely generous individuals contributed to funding our future in 2021 (*indicates monthly donors):
Leah Abramson
Rae Ackerman
Mary Adlersberg & Sally Thorne
Affinity Bridge
Amir Ahmed
Irum Ali
Noor Al-Rashid
Lindsay Anderson
Benjamin Anton
Britney Bachmann
Shirley Ballin
Bill Bartlett
Roberta Beiser
Eleanor Belshaw Hauff
Sandra Berman
Samuel Bernofsky
Trisha Blair
Daniel Brandt Lautman
Laurel Bresnahan
Amy Brill
Zacharie Brunet & Lisa Mallin
JamieLee Burke
Miriam Caplan
Colin Castle
Amanda Chang
Deanna Cheng
David Cooper
Penny Dainard
Tessa Danelesko
Rosemarie Daviduk
Leena Desai
Alia Dharssi
Fatehali Dharssi
Rahim Dharssi
Raheem Dilgir
Jai Djwa
Avi Dolgin
Liz Earle
Roy Easterbrook*
Naazia Ebrahim
Catherine Fallis
Jesse Firempong
Paul Fleishman*
Joanne Fox*
Michal Fox
Rebecca Frame
John Fuerst
Kristin Fung
Joanna Fwu
Evie Gale
Josie Geller
Carole Gerson
Rebekah Gerson
Naomi Goldstick
Marianne Grover
Manami Hara
Taryn Hardes
Michelle Harrison
Callie Harvey
Rahim Hassanali
Barbara Heller
Yuill Herbert
Ruth Hershler
George Heyman
Jane Heyman*
Lindsay Hills
Gayatri Hiremath
Richard Holden
Jane Hope*
Linnet Humble
Hilary Johnston
Lionel Johnston*
Daniel Jokelson
Mia Kemp
John H. Kennedy
Steph Kirkland
Bonnie Klein*
Elisabeth Kushner
Sarah Kwon
Peter Ladner
Nancy Lanphear
Gisa Laslo
Tami Lautman
Monique Léger*
Harriett Lemer
Gloria Levi
Sijia Lun
Carol Macdonald
Susan Maclaurin
Lorne Mallin
Michelle Mancini
Elan Mastai
Talia Mastai
Margaret Matteson*
Susan Mertens & Max Wyman
Novin Mesbah*
Cecelia Michaelis
Bea Miller
Margaret Miller
Helen Mintz
Heather Molloy
Helen Molloy
Jeremy Murphy
Lee Newman
Deborah Newstead
Avril Orloff*
Erik Post
Kunakar Pou
Nicholas Rice
Joyce Rosario
Vera Rosenbluth
Lola Ryan
Jennifer Schlissel
Kathryn Shaw
Susan Shamash*
Emma Slipp
Barbara Shumiatcher*
Josh Shupack
Marsha Sibthorpe
Bernard Simon
Nadia Slakov
Kevin Smith
Sheryl Sorokin*
Roberta Staley
Andrzej Stankiewicz
Elizabeth Sung
Kat Tancock
Susan Taylor
Jeffrey Tecosky-Feldman
Andrew Thomson
Morning Star Trickey
Amy Turton
Nick Urquhart
Bernadette Walker
Monique Walsh
John Weiss
Christianne Wilhelmson
Meredith Woodward
Marcus Youssef
Barbara Zatyko
Where did the money go?
- Two thirds of our annual budget is paid out to freelance journalists, writers, photographers, illustrators, and our dedicated staff (who all work part-time).
- The remainder of our expenses are things like printing the magazine on 100% post-consumer-recycled paper and mailing it to subscribers, website hosting, software, and event costs.
Our tiny but mighty team keeps getting better at what we do. Support us with a one-time donation, or better yet, join our growing list of supporters making recurring donations.