CounterPunch surpassed 2.7 million readers in 2025 — a milestone we could not have reached without the support of our readers. The website has seen a steady uptick in readership since Jeffrey St. Clair, our long-time editor-in-chief, first built it about 25 years ago. That steady growth has come with an equal increase in the cost to maintain the site.
Our financial supporters — donors, subscribers, or both — are doing heavy lifting. Each of our 6,663 supporters carries the weight of 405 readers who don’t contribute. If we could double that number of supporters, we’d only need to ask for donations every three years. At the moment, you may have noticed that we come to our readers twice a year to ask for support. The average donation in 2025 was $59 — but the median tells a different story: half of all donations were $10 or less.
It may sound like a cliché, but the small donations add up. Even a slight rise in reader support would allow us to devote far less effort to fundraising and focus more on the organization’s mission: to provide in-depth reporting, analysis, investigation, and commentary, helping readers make informed assessments of the vital public issues of the day.
I’ll spare you my usual: my meet-cute with CounterPunch… of how I came to work nearly 30 years ago as business manager, hired by Alexander Cockburn, one of our founding editors, before he could even use a computer. This year, I’m getting down to brass tacks: I’ve created some graphics that tell the story better than I can. I hope you’ll look them over and consider joining our global community of supporters. Every amount helps — you can donate at counterpunch.org/donations.
