Membership Dues Now Activated

The big day has finally arrived. We have gotten all the members into the new database and are finally ready to begin the long journey towards putting the Media Bloggers Association on a paying basis.

HOW TO PAY YOUR ANNUAL MBA MEMBERSHIP DUES

What I need you to do is go to the MBA web site and login. You will see a PayPal button. You know what to do from there. Once you have paid your twenty-five bucks, you will get a receipt which you can print out and the payment will be noted in the membership database. After you have paid the PayPal logo will no longer be visible. And that's it.

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As you have hopefully now read, the plan is to grow the MBA to 10,000 members by the end of 2008 through a managed growth plan. Between membership dues, application fees, sponsorship of our annual conference, selling branded merchandise and other TBD lines of revenue, we hope to make the MBA entire self-financed by the end of this year. We believe this is important because we do not want to be dependent on any outside source revenue that might bring into question our independence.

You have already seen announcements about the new web site, the media credentials from the U.S. District Court in Washington for the Scooter Libby Trial, our MBA RSS Edited Feeds deal with the Associated Press which is now distributing our Libby Feed to over 750 news web sites around the country. The Project for Excellence in Journalism has already announced the work we will be doing with them. We will soon announce partnerships with Harvard Law School the Society for Professional Journalists, News University and many others. We will be rolling out the MBA Review Copy Book Program with Simon & Schuster, HarperCollins and many other publishers and similar programs with movie companies and music companies.

I have also noted that my wife is no longer willing to allow me to keep putting money into the MBA. I have already spent about $20,000 over the past two years. Trips like my one to DC to set up the Libby Trial coverage came out of my own pocket, same with the server hosting the new MBA site which costs $375 per month. At this point I need folks to step up and helping with the finances so I (and she) will appreciate your prompt response to this message.

Robert Cox
President
Media Bloggers Association

PS, the next step is to build PayPal into the membership referral process so we can begin to charge member candidates and application fee. Later we are going to build in a "referral credit" capability; members who make referrals for bloggers who are ultimately will receive a credit against their next year's dues (limit $25).