It’s tough out here in the real world.
What it is like to be at the tip of the spear? We are under attack constantly, in ways readers and supporters don’t fully understand. Our server is under automated attack around the clock and we have had to invest several thousand dollars a year just to keep the server running. Our newsletter subscription link is under bot attack and we had to disable it until we get better security. We got kicked off our email/donation/event platform SalsaLabs without explanation but ‘coincidentally’ shortly after it was purchased by a far left group, the transition ended up costing us almost $20k in consultant time and additional costs. A leftist educational group we have been intensively investigating unsuccessfully tried to interfere with our hosting company and domain registration.
The loss of the Salsa platform was a major operational setback, which since we are so thinly staffed, was disruptive. We had to move quickly, and we made a choice that we thought would meet our needs, transitioning in February 2022.
But the new platform is not working out (nothing to do with politics). Among other things, the newsletter sign up has been a mess because of problems with the existing platform integration. There are almost two thousand people who signed up but are not receiving the newsletter. It also doesn’t provide the database usage ability we need.
So we made the hard choice not to muddle through, and we are transitioning again. All of that should be worked out on the new platform.
None of this has anything to do with the website you interact with. It’s behind-the-scenes stuff. Most of the time burden has fallen on Kemberlee.
We have grown a lot (despite the deplatforming challenges), and have some big plans for 2023. We needed a more robust and suitable new CRM platform that would provide the foundation we need. It is another time and money sinkhole, but it needed to be done.
We have had to deactivate our donation and newsletter subscription forms because the data is in the final stages of transfer to the new platform. We hope to have everything sorted out in the next few days.
If you planned to donate but now can’t, hold that thought!
The DONATE link is now active on the new platform.
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