You're lifting us higher and higher

To paraphrase the great Jackie Wilson, your support keeps lifting us higher and higher!

Thank you to all of you who have made a generous contributions to the Institute Investigative Fund. In two weeks we've raised over $3,000 to cover costs for our team of first-class reporters and projects like Gulf Coast Reconstruction Watch (see this nice little piece of muckraking on FEMA by Watch reporter Sean Reilly earlier this week).

And due to a donor who has agreed to match all contributions dollar-for-dollar up to $7,500 (thank you), we've reached the $6,000 mark -- putting us right on schedule to reach our $20,000 goal by the end of the year.

Still deciding whether to invest in the Institute's hard-hitting reporting and a unique progressive take on the South with a tax-deductible contribution? Here's what other bloggers have to say:

"The folks at the Institute for Southern Studies and its blog, Facing South, provide indispensible, highly respected reporting and resources for community-building from a Southern perspective that you can't find anywhere else. ISS and Facing South dispel the myth that serious, growing progressive activism isn't occurring south of the Mason-Dixon line."

-- Pam Spaulding of Pam's House Blend and Pandagon

"The Institute for Southern Studies is home of the excellent Facing South blog and the new Gulf Coast Reconstruction Watch project. This organization is doing great work in the gulf states.

They're also looking to raise $20,000 to cover their investigative expenses for their reconstruction watch. Strong progressive voices in the South are not especially common. The ISS is one. Honestly, check them out."

-- Matt Singer of Left in the West posting on Sirotablog


"The Institute for Southern Studies is raising money for its Investigative Fund. The fund supports investigative journalism and alternative media, including the new Gulf Coast Reconstruction Watch.

Donations are tax-deductible and a generous benefactor has promised to match donations up to a total of $7500. Support muckracking today."

-- Lindsay Beyerstein aka Majikthise

And we didn't even use extraordinary rendition to get them to say all these nice things.

Thanks y'all. We've been deluged with calls and emails about stories to investigate, and can hardly keep up. Your support helps us cover costs to put more reporters in the field, digging up critical stories that need to be told. Let's keep taking it higher and higher!