Is a donation really about “impact”? Questioning Felix Salmon
Felix Salmon really knows how to rain on someone’s parade. On the day ProPublica wins its second Pulitzer in as many years, he tells readers to ignore editor Paul Steigler’s appeal for donations. Why? Because online donations are so paltry at the investigative site that they don’t even amount to 2 months of Steigler’s $585,117 salary. So if you’re looking to donate, he argues, look elsewhere, where your money will have a larger impact.
It’s an odd argument, especially from someone who seems to be friendly with members of ProPublica’s staff (see tweets re @eisengerj). Discouraging people from donating to a non-profit seems a long way to go to make the point that ProPublica subsists largely on donations from its board. Perhaps it makes sense to someone who is writing for a business audience, but it underscores a complete lack of understanding of why people donate in the first place and the importance of small donors to ProPublica irrespective of their actual contributions. It’s about community. It’s about validation. It’s about the fact that large donors were probably small donors at some point.
It’s an important question that Salmon does not satisfactorily answer: What is the presumed “impact” of a donation? Can it really be boiled down to percentages? If non-profit journalism is to succeed, I truly hope not.
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