‘Twas the night before Christmas
‘Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house
We begged donors to give through the click of a mouse;
Campaigns were scheduled in Mailchimp with care,
In hopes that conversion rates soon would be there;
The newsrooms were anxious with end-of-year dreads;
While visions of revenue danced in their heads;
Tristan in his newsboy cap and sometimes a beanie,
Tweaked giving amounts: Large, Medium, and Teeny,
When out on the ‘net there arose such a clatter,
We sprung to our phones to see what was the matter.
Away to our browsers we flew like a flash,
Looking for outcomes from this year’s Newsmatch.
The gleam on the screen as we searched for clues
Gave a lustre of hope to a new year of news.
When what to my wondering eyes did appear,
But News Revenue Hub with a mission so clear.
With pro tips and stats that can’t be outdone
I knew in a moment they must be the one.
More rapid than eagles the Hubbers they came,
Mary whistled and shouted and called them by name:
“Now, Stacy! now, Kerrie! now Lizzy and Sam!
On, Abbey! on, Rachel! on, Evan and Graham!
To the news deserts! To the ones being bought!
To the burned out reporters whose pipelines are fraught!”
As frightening counts of Omicron rise,
When met with an obstacle, we’ve words for the wise.
So out to the newsrooms the Hubbers they flew
Christina, Anne Marie, and Agustín, too–
And then, with a twinkling, familiar Slack sound,
Daniel arrived with his fancy Zoom background.
He traveled the globe for Todd, Leo, and Lucy,
They came bearing Salesforce ideas that were juicy!
Just what we needed to segment our lists!
(This year cannot end with a few more plot twists.)
A bundle of toolkits and topicals timely
Would make just one more appeal land sublimely!
Our forms: how they twinkled! Stripe checkout, how pleasant!
Our CTAs, improved from their status at present.
With so much to offer, we nearly forgot
The Engine was coming: a fundraising yacht.
Single-page checkout, payment methods galore,
Apple and Google and Paypal and more.
A portal for admins to change up their pages
To make lots of edits, in bulk or in stages.
What’s more, as though staff aug’d by Santa’s small elves,
A place for donors to change payments themselves!
“The Engine is coming!” the Hubbers all said,
“So future newsrooms have nothing to dread!”
They carried pride from their critical work.
They made a big difference, then turned with a jerk,
Said “No more” to billionaires, said “That just won’t do,”
Said “No” to the algorithm; that’ll go, too.
Funded journalism, with the blow of a whistle.
And away they all flew like the down of a thistle,
But I heard them exclaim, ere they drove out of sight —
“Happy Christmas TK and TK a good night!”