Will you help TOS advance your values?

Dear Reader,

I’m writing to ask for your support in advancing the principles on which freedom and flourishing depend.

The Objective Standard’s summer fund drive begins today, and our goal is to raise $85,000 by August 15.

Several supporters are offering matching funds to double your impact:

• • Chris & Lydia Ash are matching up to $10,000 in donations;
  • Jim & Kathryn Smith are matching up to $5,000; and
  • Jim Hanrahan is matching up to $5,000.

A big thank-you to all of them!

This means that the first $20,000 in contributions will be doubled.

Contribute now to double your impact!

The Objective Standard does more than fight for a future of reason and freedom. We also provide useful tools for living and loving life in the here and now.

Our articles on heroic figures—such as Frederick Douglass, Benjamin Franklin, Louis Pasteur, and Marva Collins—help people to recognize and embrace the qualities of character that enable and cause personal fulfillment and happiness.

Likewise for our essays on Objectivism and philosophy in general. For instance, our articles on the principles of logic and fallacies that violate them, on the secular source and nature of morality and rights, on the principle of purpose and value hierarchies—these help people to think more clearly, to choose more wisely, to live more fully.

TOS’s articles on the arts—literature, poetry, music, painting, sculpture, and architecture—expand people’s knowledge of what’s available and how to maximize their enjoyment of these soul-fueling values.

Our essays on politics focus not on the hourly tweets of Trump or the changing winds of the day, but on the philosophic and moral fundamentals that underlie and cause cultural and political trends.

Likewise for our articles on science and technology, education and parenting, books and movies, and everything else we produce: Our focus is always on understanding, integrating, and applying reality-based principles in service of personal happiness, social harmony, and political freedom.

The Objective Standard produces a constant stream of such clarifying and useful articles. And to continue doing so, we need your help.

TOS’s business model reflects the reality of the marketplace. Because we advocate reason, egoism, and laissez-faire capitalism—and because we oppose mysticism, altruism, and all forms of statism—our ideas are as difficult to sell as they are essential to progress.

Although many people are willing to read our articles (e.g., our website sees almost 60,000 unique visitors each month), relatively few are willing to pay for them. In light of this fact, and because our mission is to promote the ideas on which freedom and flourishing depend, here is what we do:

1. 1. We produce clear, concise, easy-to-read articles on a wide variety of subjects from an Objectivist perspective.
   2. We make most of these articles available online for free, and we share them with TOS’s entire mailing list (more than 9,000 people) and on TOS’s social media platforms (more than 67,000 followers). This enables anyone and everyone to read the articles and learn about the ideas.
   3. We keep the balance of our articles (typically the lengthier, in-depth essays) behind TOS’s paywall, accessible only to people who value the journal enough to subscribe.
   4. We distribute the full journal—including all pay-walled articles—to more than 800 college libraries, where students have full access to all TOS articles for free.
   5. We generate a small amount of revenue from newsstand sales and from advertisements in the print edition and on our website.
   6. And we rely on donations from people like you, who understand the importance of advancing Objectivism with the clarity, breadth, and depth that are characteristic of TOS.

Our annual expenses are about $350,000. Our sales revenue covers about half of that. The other half we must raise from people who see the value of what we do.

Will you help us to continue advancing these vital ideas?

Contribute now and double your impact.

If you are a monthly donor or already have contributed this year, thank you. Your support makes what we do possible, and my hat is off to you. (Of course, if you’d like to make an additional contribution at this time to take advantage of the matching funds, I would appreciate that immensely.)

You know me. I would never ask for a sacrificial contribution. But if you appreciate what TOS does and want us to continue our important work, I ask you to consider making a selfish donation. In exchange, we promise to continue creating a constant stream of crystal-clear, life-serving articles that advance your values and improve your world.

Donations of any amount are helpful, whether single contributions or recurring monthly donations. And if you’d like to discuss anything with me over the phone, just let me know. I’d be happy to schedule a call at your convenience. I love talking about TOS, our goals, and our plans. And I have an open-book policy about everything we do.

Will you contribute today?

Warmly, on behalf of everyone at TOS,

Craig Biddle

PS. If you would like to join the Ashes, the Smiths, and Mr. Hanrahan in providing a round of matching funds, please let me know. That would be an enormous help.

About Craig Biddle

Craig is cofounder and editor of The Objective Standard, cofounder and director of education at Objective Standard Institute, and executive director of Prometheus Foundation. He is the author of Loving Life: The Morality of Self-Interest and the Facts that Support It; Rational Egoism: The Morality for Human Flourishing; and the forthcoming Moral Truths Your Parents, Preachers, and Teachers Don’t Want You to Know. He is currently working on his fourth book, “Thinking in Principles.”

View all articles by Craig Biddle →