Emergency Fundraising Appeal

UPDATE: Due to the amazing generosity of, well, you all, this emergency is no longer an emergency! HUGE THANKS! Read more here.

At this point in a normal pledge drive, I would be taking a moment to thank everyone who has donated and nudging anyone who hasn’t to add what they can. And I do want to thank all of you — those who have provided financial support and those of you who have offered support in other ways. You are all very generous; some of you extraordinarily so.

Unfortunately, my financial situation at the moment is quite dire. After dealing with unavoidable bills, the money I’ve raised so far during this pledge drive is already mostly gone and I need to raise more money to pay rent and get through the next month or two. I didn’t realize how close to the edge I’ve gotten.

So if you appreciate the work I’ve done over the years here at We Hunted the Mammoth, and are in a position to help out, I truly need all the help I can get. If you haven’t donated,, or if you have, but can afford to give a little more, please give what you can.

You don’t need a PayPal account; credit cards are fine. And if you want to avoid PayPal altogether, email me at [email protected] and I’ll let you know how. Thank you!

I’ve been doing this blog for eight years now, and I’ve never had to make an urgent request like this before, and I hope I never have to again.

I plan to start a crowdfunding campaign in the next couple of days — probably on GoFundMe — but I wanted to let you folks know what’s going on first, and to see if any of you had advice on the best way to go about this. Because we’re family. You’re the people I do this blog for.

The reason this has come to a head right now is that I have been subsidizing this blog from the start by by raiding my 401(k) savings. But I don’t have that option any more. My savings are gone; I’ve hit the limit on what I can put on my credit card; and I simply don’t have the money to cover my bills right now.

Adding to the trouble are the thousands of dollars in medical debt incurred treating an assortment of serious ongoing health issues, as well as a bunch of expensive tests I underwent in the wake of a health scare a little over a year ago.

My plan is to dig myself out of this hole by taking on more freelance journalism work, which I had largely set aside for many years in order to focus on the blog. But it will take some time to ramp this back up and build or rebuild relationships with editors at various publications. Donations will give me a little breathing room while I make this transition.

Don’t worry: the blog will continue on uninterrupted. Hopefully, in the medium and long run, the combination of freelance work and regular pledge drives will return me to some sort of financial stability.

Again, I’m sorry to have to come to you all with this urgent request. But I really have no choice.

Thank you all for your support over the years, and for taking the time to consider this appeal.

— David