Today may be the day to donate to Riseup

Dear Riseup Users:

Hello to you, and you, and you! This is our yearly user fundraising drive
where we hope you will donate to Riseup and keep us going for our fourteenth
year of existence. It has been a wild year of leaks around government and
corporate spying, and while we finally don't have to have boring conversations
with everyone to prove why we exist, we are also serving a huge number of new
users who became fed up with corporate services. Add to that the costs of
doing some major security upgrades to our system, and, well, we need money
(https://riseup.net/donate). More on that in a bit.

First though, here's how we see our work at Riseup: there are many beautiful
and important projects in this long march toward freedom and justice, and we
are one tiny but important piece that provides the right for people and
organizations to whisper. Not everyone needs privacy all the time, but
organizing against dictators, running direct action campaigns against
corporations, and journalistic autonomy are just a few places where privacy is
essential. This, as we know, is hugely under attack. The way Riseup fights
this is by providing good security embedded in our services all the time, so
that when you do need privacy you don’t have to change your modes of
communication (though you may want to use other security measures too, like
GPG).

The Riseup collective loves building alternative tech infrastructures that at
its roots are smart about surveillance and security. We love providing help
services to troubleshoot any problems or questions you have. We love spending
our Saturdays tinkering and upgrading at the hot and buzzing room where are
servers live, and then going home smelling like heavy metals. As an act of
mutual aid, we don't charge for our services, even though they cost a lot in
time and money. Therefore, we depend on those of you who can to donate money.
Time and time again, you all have been amazingly generous in supporting us.
This year we need $60,000 USD to cover our server and labor costs.

So, hello to you, yes you, with the big heart and dreams! Any donation is
wonderful, but may we suggest a monthly contribution of $5-25 USD?* That would
be huge.

When you give to Riseup, know that you are also supporting a large portion of
our users who rely on our services and are not in a position to give us money.
Lots of folks live in the Global South, ie countries financially plundered by
imperialism and neoliberalism, and we'd rather they donate to more local tech
collectives. Likewise, lots of people deal with the ravages of poverty. We
aren't expecting or asking any of you to donate. But for everyone else who can
throw a little mutual aid our way, your money not only supports our work, but
the huge base of activists we support.

And, last, please know that we don't ask for donations lightly. For anyone
with money to give, there are so many places for it to go. If you can give to
us, know that every dollar goes to collective members and/or our bills. We'll
be bugging you with some more emails over the next month, not because this is
our idea of fun, but we really want to keep being part of the vital global
struggles that you all are part of, too.

Love,

The Riseup Birds

*There are many ways to give us money! Bitcoins! Gold dubloons! Or, you know,
Paypal or wire transfers. All the info you need at: https://riseup.net/donate