Thank you so much for your all of your donations and support! Thanks to you, we'll be able to update our website, www.matermea.com, and begin to create daily content for the site.
If you didn't get a chance to donate, but would still like to support mater mea, you can send a PayPal donation to us -- our email address is info@matermea.com.
Thank you again -- together, we can change the conversation around black motherhood!
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Hello! My name is Anthonia Akitunde, and I’m the founder of mater mea, a bimonthly online magazine that profiles the inspirational lives of working mothers of color.
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2012 was the year of work-life balance and “Can women have it all?” think pieces, but women of color were largely absent from these conversations. mater mea launched on Mother’s Day of that year to fill a void in the portrayal of working motherhood, using gorgeous photography and engaging profiles to tell the stories of women the media so often ignores.
mater mea has featured the compelling stories of women such as poet Staceyann Chin, who went through IVF treatment to have the daughter she always wanted despite judgment for choosing single motherhood over a two-mother home, and performer Rhonda Ross, daughter of soul legend Diana Ross, who struggled to conceive for 10 years before giving birth to a son she's taught four languages to by age 3.
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The response to the site has been huge. Since mater mea launched in May 2012, the site has had 52,000 visitors from around the world, and close to 1 million page views with readers spending a whopping 15 minutes on the site, engaging with mater mea the way they would a print magazine. We’ve been featured on the Huffington Post, New York Magazine’s The Cut, Babble.com, and we were finalists for “Best New Blog” in the 2012 BlackWeblog Awards.
mater mea has been funded entirely out of pocket since its debut, and the costs associated with creating such a high-quality site affect its ability to grow. In order to reach mater mea’s potential for major growth, I need your help.
What We Need
To set the site up for even bigger success in 2014, and to continue giving a voice to mothers of color, mater mea needs to raise $55,000.
Right now mater mea’s biggest expense is the gorgeous photography taken by a number of talented photographers around the country. mater mea runs two times a month, not for a lack of amazing women to profile, but due to a lack of funds to pay these top-notch artists to capture each woman at home with her family more frequently.
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Your donations will help pay for great photographers and writers who can help us go from two issues a month to four for an entire year. We’ll also be able to do more special issues, such as our well-received Father’s Day Issue.
The money you give mater mea will also go toward paying a web developer to relaunch the website with a responsive and mobile-friendly design and a back-end system to support a daily blog. Our new daily content will provide the type of stories our readers want to see: well-curated news pieces featuring families of color, great photography, and original pieces focusing on career, style, health and wellness, and parenting.
A breakdown of where your donations will go:
Photography: $15,000
Writers: $8,000
Mobile-friendly website redesign: $10,000
Taxes (per IRS' 2012 tax schedule): $13,705
Cushion for Indiegogo’s cut and Paypal fees: $8,200
Any additional funds raised by the campaign will go toward developing more content and promoting the brand (i.e. videos, special issues, social ads on Twitter and Facebook, etc.).
Perks
Since launching mater mea, I’ve been consistently blown away by the talent and hard work displayed by these women, all while managing their families. That's why many of the perks available on your right have been offered by some of the 35 women who have been profiled on the site. Scoop up a set of bangles from jewelry designer to the stars, Lorraine West (her past clients include Erykah Badu, Andre 3000, and Questlove), or a gourmet party consultation from food marketing maven Crystal Black Davis.
All donors above the $50 giving level will be listed as a donor and supporter on matermea.com.
Other Ways You Can Help
Please share this campaign with your friends and family -- it can mean the difference between mater mea’s continued growth or ultimate shutdown. If you’re unable to donate money at this time, you can become a supporter of mater mea by checking out our website, www.matermea.com, as well as liking and following us on Facebook and Twitter.
