A few weeks ago, we launched our annual Member Drive with the ambitious goal of raising $50,000 from readers in 14 days for our story fund — twice the amount we aimed to raise last year.

Thanks to the incredible generosity of our readers, we received $30,391 in contributions and membership subscriptions. With WordPress.com matching every dollar with $3, we raised a grand total of $121,564 for our story fund — every dollar of which will go directly to pay writers, photographers, illustrators, translators and many others who work on our investigative stories, essays, audio projects, and more.

We’d love to hear what kinds of stories you’d like to see more of on Longreads — send us a note at hello@longreads.com. And if you haven’t given yet but would like to, you can always support us by becoming a member here.

We’ve got a lot of exciting projects coming up, including a weekly podcast and our annual year-end “best of” collection. Thanks again for all of the support you’ve given us over the years.

— Mike Dang, Editor-in-Chief