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ThinkProgress has a problem, and we need your help to solve it

Ad networks are targeting ThinkProgress.

There has never been a more important time to have a strong progressive media — to hold the Trump administration accountable, to expose hatred and bigotry, and to provide a voice for the powerless.

ThinkProgress is a small team of dedicated reporters and editors who wake up every day with one thing on their mind: getting you the truth.

Our reporting is having an impact. Two weeks ago, ThinkProgress exposed twelve organizations that invest in Renaissance Technologies, a hedge fun run by Robert Mercer. Our reporting traced how these investments enriched Mercer and, in turn, financed white nationalist propaganda produced by Breitbart and Milo Yiannopoulos. After our report, thousands of people contacted these investors demanding action. On November 2, Mercer abruptly resigned from his hedge fund and announced he would no longer finance the activities of Yiannopoulos. One of the most prominent purveyors of hatred and bigotry has lost his primary source of funding.

But ThinkProgress has a problem, and we need your help to solve it.

Ad networks are targeting ThinkProgress simply because we cover white nationalism and other controversial topics. They’ve recently placed ThinkProgress into a category of sites that produce “controversial political content,” which many advertisers are blocking. ThinkProgress relies on advertising revenue to fund a substantial portion of our work.

In other words, we are being financially punished for our work exposing racism. Even as our audience grows and our reporting has impact, our advertising revenue is declining.

One thing is certain: We will not change our mission or our approach to the news to bring back advertisers.

That’s why we’re asking you, our readers, to help fill in the gap. We are launching a ThinkProgress membership program. If just a small percentage of our readers chip in $5 a month, feckless advertisers won’t be a problem for us anymore.

Our first goal is to sign up 1,000 Founding Members to get this effort started. Please join us.

If you have any trouble with the form below, click here.
You can also email us at membership@thinkprogress.org for help.

Since you are investing in us, we also want to invest in our relationship with you. So we are creating a members-only Facebook page. This will be a community where you can interact with ThinkProgress writers and editors, talk about your ideas for stories, and interact with each other.

Even more importantly, you will allow us to build on the groundbreaking work we’ve been able to produce already this year. Just a few examples:

We produced original reporting on Trump’s conflicts of interest that has been cited in multiple lawsuits filed against Trump, including a key lawsuit filed by the Attorneys General of Maryland and the District of Columbia. We were the first site to document the Trump Organization pressuring foreign governments to move their events to the Trump Hotel in Washington, D.C.

We exposed the phony methods and bogus arguments employed by the forces seeking to suppress voting throughout the United States. Our reporting in Alabama and Kansas has been cited in litigation seeking to preserve voting rights. The Kansas case was filed against Secretary of State Kris Kobach, who is also leading Trump’s effort to suppress voting nationwide.

We regularly break news on Russia’s efforts to interfere in the 2016 election and manipulate our political discourse. We revealed that this effort extended beyond social media to an entire fake media organization, BlackMattersUS. Our reporting was discussed at a high profile hearing this week with representatives from Google, Facebook, and Twitter about Russian interference.

There is too much important work to do to retreat now.

But we can’t rely on advertising to support this work. That’s why we are asking for your help.

Please join us in this fight.

Judd Legum

Editor-in-chief, ThinkProgress.org