It's an honor reporting for Mother Jones. For you.

Some gratitude from a journalist. [Mother Jones]( MoJo Reader, My name is Hannah Levintova. You're probably not used to seeing me in your inbox; I'm a reporter at Mother Jones, where my bosses Monika and Clara run a pretty incredible newsroom. One of the best parts of working here is that we're given the space to prioritize accountability reporting: the sort of time-intensive investigative work that many journalists dream of focusing on, but that for-profit newsrooms—many of which depend on cranking out fast stories for steady revenue—make it hard to prioritize. Over the last six months, I spearheaded one of our largest accountability reporting projects in a while: [a package focused on private equity](. This is a class of Wall Street financiers who have gobbled up an increasingly large share of the US economy by investing in every corner of our existence, from housing to elder care and doctors, in search of profit for their wealthy investors and themselves. The package contained more than a dozen stories that dug into this industry's enormous and growing power—and the consequences when everything from the basics to life's most vulnerable moments are financialized for investors' gain. Monika went into [great detail]( about the package in a note earlier this week. And she drew a smart connection between our reporting and broader trends driving how journalism gets funded. Some news executives, she wrote, are wary of the nonprofit model because it doesn't depend on what one of them called "[the animal spirits of capitalism](": investors pouring money into news companies. That investor cash, as Monika rightly points out, comes with strings attached. It means that rather than focusing on generating enough revenue to fund the journalism (what a nonprofit like Mother Jones does), a news operation has to worry about earning a hefty profit on top of that to pay investors back, with interest. If that were our funding model, it is unlikely that my coworkers and I would have ever gotten the green light to do a private equity package that was this big, ambitious and, frankly, expensive. Monika said it best: "I doubt the animal spirits of capitalism would have said, 'Yeah, Hannah, we should write something big about this.'” She's right. So I wanted to borrow her email podium for a day to support her by trying my hand at asking you to [boost our team's work with a donation]( if you're in a position to do so right now. It sounds like we still need to raise quite a bit of money by this time next week, when our fiscal year ends, and it's not like we have piles of investor cash to burn through. The fact that Mother Jones is reader-supported powers everything our newsroom is able to do. A few years ago, I asked Monika and Clara if I could take a year away to do a fellowship that sends journalists to business school. They heartily agreed, encouraging the work that led to me getting an MBA so I could better investigate the financial forces that determine who gets to prosper, and how much. The latest result of that investment is this private equity package, which took over an entire issue of our magazine and pulled in 20-plus journalists, half a dozen fact-checkers, and many of our art, video, and social media staffers across almost six months. There are so few newsrooms that can make that kind of huge investment in their reporters, and in stories that are ambitious, costly, and sure to ruffle some feathers. And even though I'm insulated from the finances of our operation, it doesn't take an MBA to know that we couldn't do any of this without [donations from readers like you who value our reporting.]( Your support means that journalists like me can keep doing the work without worrying about our next paycheck. That might sound trite, but as rounds of layoffs continue to hit our colleagues across the industry, it is so pivotal to our ability to keep chasing stories with impact. I could go on. But my brilliant editor Ian Gordon would (rightly) tell me to keep this tight. He was also my tireless partner across the (many) late nights that we worked together to shepherd the private equity project from pitch meeting to publication and deserves a ton of credit. And one last thing: Before I decided to specialize in the opaque world of finance, I was part of the gender justice team here at Mother Jones. As we wait for the Supreme Court's decision on Roe to come down in the next week, something I can't stop thinking about is how the potential demise of abortion rights could lead to major profit opportunities for private equity firms and their ilk on Wall Street. I will certainly be digging in. So many of the biggest news stories of the moment have a crucial money angle that needs investigating. Reporting like that takes time, money, and the support of bold newsroom leaders—and readers. Thank you for being our fuel. I feel fortunate to be able to do this work for you and all our readers who expect us to look where others aren't, and insist we call it like we see it. So, if you're able to, I sincerely hope you'll [pitch in with a donation]( to help our business team pull together the money it takes to keep us journalists giving everything we can. Thanks for reading, and thank you for trusting me and my colleagues here to help you make sense of the world. We're honored to do it for you. Hannah Levintova Reporter, DC Bureau Mother Jones [Donate]( P.S. If you recently made a donation, thank you! And please accept our apologies for sending you this reminder—our systems take a little while to catch up. [Mother Jones]( [Donate]( [Subscribe]( This message was sent to {EMAIL}. 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