ANIMAL PEOPLE goes to nine editions per year

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2007:
Because of a drastic increase in U.S. nonprofit postage rates
in May 2007, the cost of mailing our June edition instantly rose
almost $1,000. We will have to dig deeper into general operating
funds to cover the postal rate hike, but have made a decision to try
to reduce costs by scaling back our production schedule to nine
issues of ANIMAL PEOPLE per year instead of ten.
This way we hope to avoid increasing our subscription price,
and to avoid raising our advertising rates substantially.
Subscribers who have paid for ten editions will receive them, but
all new subscriptions and renewals will be for nine editions a year.
At inception, ANIMAL PEOPLE determined that if we were going
to make a real difference in how effectively the humane community
responds to problems, we would have to reach the entire humane
community with every edition-and we knew that the people and
organizations most in need of our information tend to have the least
resources with which to buy a subscription. Many organizations
abroad–especially in the underdeveloped nations of Africa, Asia,
and Latin America–simply could not buy a subscription, no matter
what.

Accordingly, sending free subscriptions to animal charities
and agencies worldwide has always been an ANIMAL PEOPLE priority.
Distributing complimentary subscriptions to ANIMAL PEOPLE to
every animal agency and charity in the world–currently more than
10,500–is by far the most costly item in our budget, but it is also
fundamental to accomplishing our mission objectives. We have
received some grant support that has helped to subsidize these
subscriptions, though some of the costs have always come out of
general revenues, including from donations and advertising.
We estimate the cost of providing free subscriptions to 6,800
U.S. animal groups in the coming year to be just over $40,000 per
year, for nine editions instead of ten. The cost of printing and
mailing to the international list of approximately 4,000 animal
groups in the coming year is estimated to be close to $50,000 for
nine editions. We had to reduce international mailings for some
editions of the paper over the past year-deciding which geographical
areas to cut based on the relevancy of content of particular
editions. We may have to cut back on overseas distribution again,
but we are always hopeful that our supporters will make funding
available. If you can help with a donation for this purpose, we
will be very grateful.