Originally posted on Dec. 22:
Contrary to a myth clung to by some, neither Russ nor I get paid to maintain or write this blog. (Quite the contrary: we – well, Russ actually – pays to WordPress, our host, the monthly fee required to keep the Cafe in business.)
For nearly eight years now we’ve posted material at the Cafe almost daily (and, most days, several times). During that time we’ve avoided adding advertising links. So, truly, neither Russ nor I receives any monetary pay for our work here as Cafe Hayek’s ‘blogeristas.’
So please indulge me if I now ask you for some money – namely, a contribution to the Department of Economics at George Mason University. (Your contribution, at least if you pay income taxes in the U.S., is tax-deductible, made as it would be through the George Mason University Foundation, a 501(c)(3) organization.)
Any contribution you make will go not to Russ or to me. It will go to the Department on whose faculty we so proudly serve. Our Department Chairman, Dan Houser, determines the uses of any non-earmarked private funds that we receive. And Dan, I know, uses those funds prudently and wisely to promote as best as possible research by our faculty colleagues, and support for our students.
Some (but by no means all) of the ways that such private funds are typically used are: to pay for faculty travel to professional conferences (at which they present their research); to pay for our annual Undergraduate Economic Awards Ceremony every April, where we honor – some with cash prizes – our top-performing undergraduates; to fund graduate-student fellowships, as well as to pay for our graduate students to attend professional meetings where they both present their research and interview for faculty positions.
So if you enjoy the Cafe, please consider expressing your appreciation with a tax-deductible contribution GMU’s Department of Economics. You can do so by writing a check made payable to “GMU Foundation” (with “Economics” written in the check’s lower left-hand corner) and mailed to:
Don Boudreaux
Department of Economics
Enterprise Hall
George Mason University
Fairfax, VA 22030
Or you can contribute on-line at this link, and by specifying “Department of Economics” in the box labeled “Other Established Fund.”
Thanks to you all. Have Happy Holidays and a wonderful – and, hopefully, freer and more prosperous – 2012!
