As we approach the end of 2019, I would like to thank all of our writers for their contributions and our readers for their support. As you many of you know, Hormones Matter is run as a service to the greater good. Our writers are volunteers. Patients share their stories and researchers and physicians share their insight and time. None of this is funded beyond the bare minimum to keep the site up. We rely entirely on contributions from our readers to sustain this work with minimal Google advertising for bit of additional income. Despite, or perhaps because of the limited funding, we are able to tell the stories that no one else will tell and share research that would never find a home in the industry sponsored journals or sites.
As the founder and the editor of Hormones Matter, I am often asked why I choose not to run HM like a more traditional website with the fee-for-entrance subscriptions and massive advertising. The answer is this: I believe that health information is too important to be cloistered behind a paywall. Similarly, I believe that advertising not only clutters the site, but more importantly, compromises publishing independence. There are great conflicts of interest in medical journals, media companies, and health websites whose funding comes from industry. That is not who we are and not the type of journal I want to run. Integrity and access are the foundations upon which this site is built. If we compromise those values, we might as well be clickbait, or worse, industry sponsored propaganda. To me, there is not much else.
So while you, the reader, may or may not agree with the articles we publish, you can trust that our articles are written and published from a position of honesty and integrity. We have no other agenda than to move health knowledge forward.
This steadfastness to an ideal that is decidedly antithetical to business leaves open one very pressing problem – how to pay for the continued existence of Hormones Matter. There are costs associated with running a site like this and despite the sentiment that health information should be accessible to all who need it, providing that information is not without costs and effort.
To generate funds, we use a pay-what-you-can model. We call it an “unsubscription” model, where readers subscribe to annual contributions of various amounts with no anticipation of anything other than the continued existence of this website. It is based upon a notion that those who can afford to contribute, will contribute, and those who cannot afford to support us, still have access to all of the great health and science information we provide.
This is my ask: if you are regular reader of Hormones Matter or if you follow us on Facebook and enjoy the research we post there, contribute to our continued existence. Select one of the subscription options below to set up an annual contribution or click the donate button* and surprise us with a one time contribution. Every little bit helps. Thank you in advance for your contribution.
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Thank you for your contribution!
*Is this a Donation? Well, yes and no. Hormones Matter was formerly a B-Corp (for benefit corporation), that I ran for many years as a service to the community. Without the resources to run this type of business endeavor any longer, and in an effort to keep Hormones Matter alive, I have closed the corporation and moved Hormones Matter over to a single entity LLC. What this means is that any money you contribute is not tax deductible, for that I would have to create a not-for-profit enterprise. So while the donation is a contribution to our on-going operations, it is not a donation to a non-profit. Know this though, your financial contribution will help keep Hormones Matter online.
Hi, I would like to make an automatic monthly donation.
However, I live in Turkey, which no longer accepts Paypal use.
I can do this with a creditcard.
Unfortunately, we are only set up to do paypal. Thank you though.