We all love monthly recurring revenue. It feels stable and predictable.

But what are we missing out on?

Everyone who wants to contribute one time.

The longer you’ve been publishing, the more likely it is that you have lots of casual supporters who appreciate your work, but for whatever reason, they don’t want to become recurring subscribers.

This is where reader raises come in…and they’re not just for nonprofit newsrooms.

Last week, L.A. TACO launched a campaign to raise $25k for their coverage of ongoing ICE raids and protests across Southern California.

They surpassed their goal in FOUR DAYS. They’re at $38k as I write this, and they also had a celebrity reach out with a hefty matching donation offer, which means they’re likely going to at least double their original fundraising goal. Incredible.

But L.A. TACO’s been publishing for nearly 20 years. They’ve long had a donation button available. So, why did this particular campaign work so well?

I asked publisher Alex Blazedale that question, and today, I’m breaking down what worked about this drive so you can build on these wins when you run your own reader raise.

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Inside L.A. TACO’s urgent reader raise

I flew into L.A. last week, and one of my first stops was the L.A. TACO office. I’ve been in frequent touch with Lexis-Olivier Ray, one of their investigative reporters, about the work they are doing to expand their membership while reporting on crisis after crisis in Los Angeles.

Despite its name, L.A. TACO isn’t just about tacos—though they do rank and review tacos and their members get exclusive taco-related perks—it’s also a trusted news source for millions who rely on their hyperlocal reporting of what’s actually going on in Los Angeles. And in this moment, their culture coverage is intersecting with their news coverage, as taco trucks get swarmed by ICE and the Dodgers parking lot is turned into a detainee transfer site for Homeland Security, putting them in a position of unmatched authority on the stories they are breaking right now.

While I was there at their office last Wednesday, the whole L.A. TACO team was blowing up with tips from readers about ICE raids every few minutes. They’ve had to make some tough decisions about what they can realistically cover as a tiny newsroom stretched way too thin.

Exposing the truth is expensive and dangerous. Their staff have been shot at by police, detained by police and doxxed by haters. More funding in this moment means they can have more reporters in the field. It means they can buy and/or replace gear when it gets damaged and it means they can have proper legal and medical support.

So, they decided it was time to run that reader raise they had been putting off.

L.A. TACO set their goal at $25,000 and they launched their campaign on Givebutter last Thursday, June 12.

What L.A. TACO’s campaign included

I barely saw any promotion for this campaign because it was so lightweight. It goes to show how much L.A. TACO’s audience really was just waiting to be asked because they were standing by, ready to chip in, without many reminders.

The campaign included:

• A Givebutter campaign page with a $25k goal and a progress tracking meter

• A launch email to their list of 30k+ readers (see below)

• A video appeal and slideshow appeal to their 209k+ Instagram followers

• A few posts on other social channels like Bluesky and X

• A campaign link as the top link in their Linktree (which is in all social media bios)

L.A. TACO’s publisher, Alex Blazedale, told me that first email got them about 30% of the way towards their goal and that this video editor-in-chief Javier Cabral made and this slideshow featuring Lexis-Olivier Ray pushed them up to close to 75-80%.

Even though they did leverage email (as you should!), this campaign became more about getting the social media audience to pitch in. Our social media audiences are almost always bigger than our email lists so targeting them and catering to them with a campaign like this, if you have a captive social audience like L.A. TACO does, can be a smart move. Their Instagram audience really responded to their appeal, both with donations and with supportive comments.

[Related: Inside the reader referral campaign that brought the Prison Journalism Project 200+ new readers in two weeks]

What made L.A. TACO’s reader raise a success

L.A. TACO’s raise is a perfect example of how journalists will beat marketers every time with the creativity and directness they bring to their campaigns.

Here’s five things they nailed with this reader raise.

Producing really good work

L.A. TACO has been absolutely killing it on all levels in this moment. You can see that in the numbers of likes, comments, and shares on their Instagram and other channels. They are responding to this crisis moment in L.A. by staying close to their readers, answering their questions and producing stories they care about.

There’s no substitute for understanding your audience and delivering what they want. It’s hard to replicate this because it’s baked into each newsroom’s secret sauce but it’s important to call out because it’s a huge part of L.A. TACO’s overall success.

Building on existing momentum

The L.A. TACO team had thought about doing a campaign like this before, but it never seemed like the right time. This terrifying moment where people locally and nationally are following the ICE raids in L.A. also means there are a lot more eyes on their work. Six times the normal amount of views, according to Alex. They hesitated to take advantage of that—because they wanted to keep the attention on the stories—but they also realized that without sufficient funding, many stories would go unreported.

It’s really common that journalists feel conflicted about asking for money during a crisis, as if there’s such a thing as a slow news day in 2025.

Penny Blackmore, who does sales coaching for freelancers, had a helpful reframe of this challenge:

“Every five bucks chips away at the conglomerates and distributes power and authority to journalists that haven’t completely lost touch with the actual point of journalism. You’re not taking money. You’re building something together that is challenging toxic establishment power centers in a meaningful way.“

Your reader raise is an opportunity to empower your readers to invest in the future they want to be part of.

I asked Alex how their audience has responded to the ask and he said it’s been overwhelmingly positive, with supporters sending encouraging comments to the team and deep appreciation for all their work.

Messaging the “why” in a fresh way

A lot of the donation messaging I see newsrooms use is getting REALLY TIRED. Phrases like “save local news” and “please support our work” might as well be invisible they’re so overused. L.A. TACO knows this and they took a different tack.

They positioned their campaign as a value add for the whole audience.

Editor-in-chief Javier Cabral took to Instagram to announce that they were going to switch to social media first, in an effort to get their reporting out to people as fast as possible. But that it meant they would reduce their ability to fund their operation, because they’d be driving less traffic to the site, hence the reader donation drive.

Javier’s message was fresh and of-the-moment with lines like “we’re out there just raw dogging the streets” and “we’re tired but we’re not giving up.” 

The video came across as responsive to audience needs and from the heart—and it worked. Alex estimated that it drove 50% of the campaign target, along with the slideshow they posted last Sunday.

Having a goal and tracking it publicly

Public milestones WORK.

The L.A. TACO newsletter always includes a one time donation button but Alex thought having a timely campaign with a public goal really helped motivate people to donate right now.

Like many of us, L.A. TACO has been primarily membership focused for years, but that meant that readers who hesitated to move into a subscription—and maybe more interestingly, big dollar donors who could contribute more than $100 but just needed to be asked—were not stepping up to support the way they could have been.

This campaign caught people’s attention in a new way and pulled in funding from people who were possibly not ready to become members OR who were already members and simply wanted to give more.

“A big part of it is just that we asked,” Alex said and he added that this campaign gave them the confidence to run these more often, maybe a few times a year.

They really liked the Givebutter platform (which The 51st also used when they launched and brand new COYOTE Media Collective is using too) because it offers some donor segmentation and targeted message sending. Givebutter is also free if you leave platform tips on which, just like GoFundMe, asks your donors to include an optional payment for the platform.

Making that donate button super smashable

You do not want people digging around for your campaign link after you’ve spent hours writing or recording persuasive messages.

L.A. TACO prioritized the fundraiser inside their Linktree, which is the only link in all of their social media bios. Wherever you run your reader raise, make it loud and obvious how to pay the money.

Overall, a very impressive execution by the L.A. TACO team and one that shows us it’s possible, maybe even preferable, to make a big ask when there’s extra attention on you.

Ready to try your own reader raise?

I highly recommend setting a public target and using a platform where your supporters can see progress. We’ve seen those public milestones work consistently well for small publishers. I covered some platforms and strategies in this post. You can reader raise any time and keep in mind that L.A. TACO is not a nonprofit so you don’t have to be one either.

Alex’s top piece of advice was to look out for those moments of opportunity: “If there's something going on in your city or even internally [in your organization] that people can connect to, that's gonna make it a lot more successful than even the most well planned campaign.” You could also tie it into something your audience is facing, like layoffs or sending kids back to school.

If you remember nothing else, remember this: if you need the cash, don’t be afraid to make the ask. Your readers will surprise you.

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