90 Miles from Needles: Please help!

Remember us on Giving Tuesday!

This Giving Tuesday, I hope you will consider adding the Desert Advocacy Media Network to your list of causes you support. Home to the desert protection podcast 90 Miles from Needles, as well as a number of email newsletters, the D.A.M.N.¹ is the only media company that focuses entirely on environmental and cultural issues in the arid lands of North America, from Zacatecas to Idaho.

I myself am taking a leap of faith in January, leaving my quite comfortable job with NPCA so that I can devote the time to developing D.A.M.N. that the organization will need. Our aim is to grow D.A.M.N. from an organization with about a $12,000 annual budget to something more like 20 or 30 times that, which will give us the ability to hire freelance reporters and editors, along with giving me and my favorite podcast co-host some income to support our time spent putting podcasts, articles, and live events together.

If you like the 90 Miles from Needles podcast, this is an excellent time to contribute. Whether you donate $5 or $50,000, every single bit of support makes us thoroughly grateful, and utterly determined to make our supporters proud of their role in keeping us going.

I’ll be frank: we are at a big decision point this next couple of months about whether the effort we put into the podcast is worth it. One of the things we’re looking at is whether we have visible and growing support among potential listeners. Sadly, we’ve plateaued at about 500 total listens per episode and about 120 financial supporters since the beginning of 2023.

Giving Tuesday will give us more data about whether the podcast has run its course. We hope not! Despite the amount of work we put into each episode (10-25 hours of recording, audio editing, and other screen time per hour of audio in the finished podcast, more or less) putting out 90 Miles from Needles has been a blast so far. I have to think there are more than 100 of you in the desert states who think this is worthwhile.

We have big ideas for the podcast. I will be putting together at least three episodes from my decompressing-from-NPCA road trip in late January/early February, including a couple of border pieces from southern Arizona and Big Bend. The 90 Miles from Needles website is being revamped, and the D.A.M.N. website (under development) will offer desert news articles, explainers about the desert, essays by notable desert thinkers, and other good stuff. Maybe even special interest subpodcasts!

In the meantime, we have 90 Miles from Needles episodes developing on desert bighorn sheep, Mojave Desert fires (with my NPCA colleague Jennifer Errick, host of the podcast The Secret Life of Parks!), more on saguaros from Native peoples’ perspectives, and — once we’re fully insured — Cadiz’s plans to drain an ancient desert aquifer for profit.

We have no lack of work to do, in other words; we just need to be able to do that work. That’s where you come in.

In addition to helping us cohosts make ends meet while we work on the podcast, your support will make it possible to:

• Hire a sound editor who actually knows what she’s doing, compared to yours truly

• Pay freelance reporters non-insulting amounts to create stories for us

• Promote the podcast and other D.A.M.N. activities through targeted advertising

• Work with fundraisers to find supportive foundations and large donors

• Launch into video production, because what sells the desert better than seeing the desert?

• All kinds of potential other things

We’ve made it as easy as possible for you to donate. If you’ve got an existing Patreon account, or if you want swag, you can join our Patreon crew here. If you’re on Facebook, we’ve got a Giving Tuesday campaign going here through Network For Good. (If you want to be a rock star supporter, you can set up your own fundraiser for us on Facebook! Just reply to this email to ask how.)

Not on Facebook? Don’t like Patreon, or you want us to get every penny you donate rather than filling up Patreon’s user fee coffers? Our partners at Givebutter offer several ways to get money to D.A.M.N., including the option to text the word “NEEDLES” to 53-555, which will then bring you to a donation page where you can charge your donation to Apple Pay, Google Pay, or whatever setup your phone allows.

And remember: your friends are much likelier to donate if they hear from you rather than letting the universe decide whether they learn about D.A.M.N. or 90 Miles from Needles or, for that matter, the desert.

Please consider helping us make the Desert Advocacy Media Network the place people turn to when they want to learn more about the desert and how to protect it. We appreciate you.

1. And yes, we’ve been having way too much fun with the acronym.