Like a procrastinating parent reluctant to have “the talk,” I’ve been putting off a conversation I knew we needed to have. It’s the old “good news-bad news” conundrum. First, the bad news: Beginning October 1, we are having to raise our annual subscription rates to $19. The Religious Herald has ended each of the past two years in the red despite instituting cost-saving measures like changing printers and decreasing travel budgets. While lean years are bound to occur at times, we can’t continue to spend more than we receive.
Jim White
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The reason for our red ink is not that we are spending too much, however. Rather, due to an economic domino effect, many church members have less to give in tithes and offerings, the churches have less to send to the state organization, the state has less to distribute to the ministries it supports and consequently, the Religious Herald receives less support.
As a result, we must find new ways to generate income. As painful as the thought may be to us all, an obvious choice is to increase subscription rates. For years, we have done our best to hold group subscriptions to a rate churches can afford. The problem is, it costs us more to print and mail the Herald than we have been charging. I’m sure we all agree that no group can do that indefinitely and stay in business! And while, since 1828, the Religious Herald has been more of a mission than a business, we can’t keep going in the hole on each subscription we sell or we won’t continue to be around to inform and inspire our readers.
We are concerned about what this increase will mean to our readers, of course, but declining cooperative ministries income means we have no choice but to pass along costs associated with printing and mailing the paper. We are particularly concerned about those churches that underwrite the cost of the Herald to their members through their church budgets. We understand that an increase of $5.50 per subscription in one year could be impossible for a church to absorb. For this reason, our trustees authorized the staff to negotiate terms agreeable to those churches. We don’t want anyone to give up the Herald because they can’t afford it.
Beyond subscriptions, however, we need to develop a cadre of supporters who understand the necessity of a free and unfettered press and who will sustain the Herald with their gifts—along the lines of National Public Radio. Although the programs are free, some conscientious listeners give because they believe NPR fills an essential role. While we cannot provide the printed version of the Herald to everyone without cost, our website AND THE DIGITAL VERSION OF THE RELIGIOUS HERALD ARE FREE! This is the good news!
The digital version of the Herald displays each page exactly as it appears in print. You read the articles, and captions beneath photos, examine the ads and flip the pages exactly as you would with the paper.
To begin sending the Religious Herald to you (or everyone in your church!) all we need is your email address—which we promise to safeguard. You can send your email address to Marty Garber at [email protected] or call her at 804.672.1973 and you will receive in your email a link to each new issue.
When you think about it, why would church leaders not want every household in their churches to get the Religious Herald? Especially if it is free?
I know some of you are asking, “How can they give this for free?” Others may even be asking, “If the Religious Herald needs additional income, why not charge for the digital version, also?”
Good questions! I will answer in two parts. First, being true to our 184 year mission, we are here to provide news, information and inspiring articles to Baptists—especially those in the Mid-Atlantic region. We have considered charging, but if we can possibly provide it for free, we will! But, we need help from our readers—especially you pastors—to encourage your church members to subscribe to the print version or to receive the digital edition free.
The second part of our answer has to do with advertising income. The higher our circulation figures, the more attractive we are to advertisers. They don’t really care whether people read their ads on paper or digitally. What they are paying for is “eyes on ads.” When advertisers realize that our online readers can click on their ads and go straight to the advertiser’s website, they immediately see the advantage. In theory, at least, if we can generate additional income from ad sales, we will not have to charge for our digital subscriptions! In addition to helping yourselves by getting the news, you can help the Herald by subscribing to the print version of the Herald for $19, or the digital version for free.
But some of you can help us in another very important way! You can remember the Religious Herald with your gifts and in your wills and estate planning. We need to develop a dependable income to sustain the Herald in the years ahead by creating a hefty endowment. I will be happy to sit down with you to discuss creative ways to take care of your loved ones while also leaving something for the Herald.
Our 24 Religious Herald trustees, our staff of Robert Dilday, Barbara Francis and Marty Garber and I, as your editor, are all doing our best to meet these challenging economic times with creative solutions. But the truth is we need your help. If you value having information you can trust provided with journalistic excellence, encourage subscriptions! And gifts!
Now that we’ve had our talk, I feel better. I hope you do, too. At least we have good news with the bad!
Jim White ([email protected]) is executive editor of the Religious Herald.