Miles to Go

As most of you know, we’ve been trying to raise funds to put our financial house in order and begin a direct-mail campaign for the purpose of attracting more subscribers and thereby reaching more people with our message.

Up to this point, we’ve relied on ads in other periodicals to find new subscribers, but due in large part to the banning of our trademark ads by certain Catholic periodicals, that approach has been showing diminishing returns. The standard way of finding new subscribers is via direct mail — i.e., renting the mailing lists of other groups. A secondary way is advertising in other periodicals. The Internet is a tertiary way, and we have, thanks to volunteer labor, recently upgraded our Web site. You may now find it at www.newoxfordreview.org (the Web site is for promoting the magazine; no one will be able to communicate with editors or handle business or subscription matters via the Web site [to do that one must write, fax, or phone our main office]). So, to make our outreach comprehensive and fully effective, we need to launch into direct mail.

Initially we were seeking to raise $97,000, but we discovered that we had underestimated the amount of money needed for the direct-mail campaign by $20,000. Therefore, the goal had to be adjusted to $117,000. You may recall that in our May issue we announced that we were applying for a grant from a sympathetic foundation to put us over the top, and we asked you to send up prayers on behalf of our grant application (for which we heartily thank you).

Unfortunately, it was not to be: We did not get the grant (and no explanation was given).