Apologetics Apostolate Fundraiser, Days 1-3

Today I’ll be talking about my finances, so as to fully inform my regular readers of my “situation.”
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I’ve been a full-time Catholic apologist and author since December 2001, and my income since then has always consisted of a combination of book and article royalties, part-time jobs as needed, and generous donations from thoughtful people like you. Since July 2020, Social Security payments (for both my wife and myself) have basically replaced the function of the part-time jobs. I’m still working as hard as ever at age 65 (and I think, doing some of my best work, too), with no plans whatsoever to ever retire or even to “slow down.” You see this in the work I produce almost on a daily basis.

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Those of you who have followed me through the years know how little I ever solicit funds, even though every legitimate apostolate has a perfect “right” to do so, according to St. Paul, who taught that “The laborer is worthy of his wages” (1 Tim 5:18, NKJV); and virtually all of them do, in frequent massive campaigns. I’ve also consistently followed the principle of *never soliciting individuals*, whether in person, by mail, email, or Facebook discussions or private messaging. I like to let my work speak for itself, and to count on the good will of people who utilize my 4,300+ free articles to consider reimbursing the author (as time=money).

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I did fundraisers of this sort in the years 2012-2014, raising about $5,000 each time, and only once or twice since then (not recorded on my “Personal Page”). Meanwhile, my book royalties for older books are considerably lower than they used to be, when I had four bestselling books with Sophia Institute Press and a popular pamphlet for Our Sunday Visitor, dated 2002-2007. My current book, The Word Set in Stone, is selling pretty well, but I don’t know yet how much new income it will generate.

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Now, to explain the title of this fundraiser . . . As I wrote about before (simply asking for prayer at that time), our previous used car died several months back. When one is living month-to-month and barely making ends meet, this can be a big problem in the family budget, and it certainly was for us, since we still had to pay off the old car for about two years, and then we had a new monthly payment of $257.50 for five years (we purchased a 2014 car with 55,000 miles for $10,000).
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Because we couldn’t incorporate that new addition into our budget, we were forced to pay the minimum payment for our mortgage, which pays it off in 30 years, instead of the amount we had been paying, which pays it in 15 years. As most of you know, this entails many many thousands of extra dollars of interest, if one takes 30 years to pay off a house instead of 15. I’ll already be 77 years old if we pay it off in 15 years. So I need to raise that money, and it is $377.45 in additional principle every month, in order to maintain it as a 15-year loan. To do that, I need your help. Much of what I raise will go straight to the mortgage. I already “owe” it over $1,000; all because an old car died on us . . . such is life.

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People don’t realize how little authors make from their books. It’s only a standard 12% cut. For example, my current book sells for $18.95 right from the publisher. Thus, I would make $2.27 on a paperbook sale. But most today probably buy it on Kindle or some other form of ebook. That costs $12.99 from the publisher or $9.99 at Amazon, bringing me about $1.56 or $1.20 per sale. And apologetics is a small market.

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Unfortunately, my 30 or so self-published books make me very little, too. How little? Well, Lulu sends me royalty money every month. For the last four months, the total revenues were $30.63, $46.17, $31.56, and $58.21. I also make $150 / month for two articles a month at National Catholic Register. You get the idea by now . . .
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At present, I have 14 regular monthly financial supporters, who provide a total of roughly $627 a month. Yet I have 5,000 friends on Facebook and 2,934 additional followers, presumably regularly reading my materials. Needless to say, I could use many more such monthly supporters. According to my records, 1,002 individuals have supported my work since 2001, with 112 having donated twice, and 114, three times or more. That’s fabulous, and I am so thankful for such generosity, but on any given month, it usually doesn’t add up to much. I pay my bills, and little is left. A friend of mine once accurately observed (at least for those in apostolates), “God will provide your needs, and not a penny more.” But there are now other factors, too, eating up my barely adequate income.

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Those of you who are suffering under the present inflation like I am, don’t need me to tell you how rough it is. Of course, it causes relatively little harm to those making a fair amount of money. It’s those like myself who barely make ends meet every month that greatly suffer as a result of government incompetence. For us (as for many), it shows up most obviously in higher food and gas prices. And so we need more money to get by. It’s as simple as that. We were doing fine, until our car died and prices went sky high. I’ve always met my bills, had very good credit (over 900 last time it was checked), and we don’t use credit cards. We’re very responsible with our money. That’s not the problem. We simply need more income, for the reason I am explaining in this post.
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Taxes are also causing a problem with our budget now. For many years, because we had four children and a relatively low income, we got a great deal every year with the Earned Income Credit and two different child tax credits. We would get a refund for $4-5,000 and live off of those funds for many months. Now our children are too old to be listed as dependents (yet two still live with us), so I have to pay tax, due to self-employment tax. This is a huge difference. In three of the last four years, I had to pay from $909 to $2367 in taxes. We get a much-needed tax break now with untaxed Social Security, but it’s still a payment rather than a refund, and we can’t meet it according to our monthly budget as it is, and so have to raise money for that, too.

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As for the “rainy day” portion of this fundraiser; well, that is things like car repairs. I owe my daughter $650 right now for front and rear brakes. Now we need four new tires, since they are going bald and the car shimmies above 60 mph. It’s things like badly needed new eyeglasses. I saved a whopping 72% with a great Medicare plan (Molina) but I still had to pay $289. I have to renew my car registration now ($103). Clothes have to be bought every now and then (and we get them used as much as we can). A house has to be maintained. These expenses have to be included in family budgets, but the combination of factors above are making it impossible, short of raising new funds.

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Everyone knows what they get if they support this ministry. You see my work and my constant labor in the field. It’s evident on my blog and in my 53 books. I have no overhead, no rent, no employees, no big “projects” that I need to fund. It’s just me writing every day and supporting my family (as a “sole proprietor” on tax forms). Catholic apologist and author Karl Keating wrote about me a few years ago:

“I know you spend countless hours writing about and defending the Church. There may not be any American apologist who puts in more labor than you. You’ve been a hard-working laborer in the vineyard for a long time.” Catholic apologist and author Devin Rose echoed this observation, in stating, “Dave is the hardest working Catholic apologist I know.”
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And there is the evident fruit of changed lives. In the late 90s and early 2000s, I kept track of the personal reports I received, from folks (both Catholics [part one / part two] and non-Catholics) saying I played a primary or significant role in their becoming convinced of Catholicism, or returning to the Church. I documented 156 of these people in one blog post. But there are surely many more: unrecorded or those who never wrote to me and told me how I had helped them. It could easily be many hundreds of people by now. I get the reports all the time. Just two days ago someone shared with me that “your ministry has been instrumental in my own conversion.” All glory to God; it’s all due to His grace and willingness to utilize this poor sinner. But it’s relevant to report when good fruit is evident. It shows that I am doing the right thing, following my calling, and that God is at work and bringing forth good results as I “co-labor” with Him (as the Bible says).

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Your support helps very tangibly in bringing about such conversions and “reversions.” You play an indispensable role. I’ll keep working hard and doing what I do no matter what. But with your charitable help, I can get this heavy burden of falling behind in the family budget and the mortgage off of my shoulders.
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Over the next several days I will write about the scope and nature of my writing, so everyone can see what it is they are supporting through generous donations, prayer, “likes” and shares, Facebook comments, purchasing of my books, and word of mouth recommendations.

Thanks for reading!

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PLEASE PRAYERFULLY CONSIDER A GENEROUS ONE-TIME DONATION OR MONTHLY COMMITMENT (*ANY* AMOUNT IS VERY HELPFUL) TODAY!
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See the information on donations (including a 100% tax-deductible option).

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