Every month, you're asked to contribute to tons of worthy causes and crowdfunding projects. But this month's most worthy call for crowdfunding support isn't a new project — it's the longest running non-profit science fiction magazine on the Web, Strange Horizons, which is having its annual fundraising drive. If you love good fiction, this magazine deserves your cash.
As Alastair Reynolds (who contributed the above painting to the magazine's fundraising efforts) writes, "Strange Horizons is one of the best places on the net for intelligent and informed discussion about the literatures of the fantastic, and we're lucky to have it."
Strange Horizons has been paying its contributors professional rates for a dozen years — meaning that getting published in this magazine gets you as close to "pro" status in SFWA as one of the "big three" digest magazines. But the editors and staff of Strange Horizons don't get paid at all. They volunteer their time, and work insanely hard to keep the fiction and non-fiction they publish unique and challenging. (Full disclosure: I've had my fiction published in Strange Horizons a few times.)
Maybe because Strange Horizons is non-profit — unlike most of the other pro SF mags online — the magazine can take more risks sometimes. I've definitely read a ton of fiction in Strange Horizons that might have been too odd or too far off the beaten track for most other fiction publishers. Strange Horizons has helped to launch the careers of a lot of your favorite writers, and it's done so while also publishing a significant number of wonderful stories by writers who were only ever published that one time in Strange Horizons.
In any case, if you care about short science fiction, and want to read more stories that challenge and amaze you, then you really ought to kick in some money for the great Strange Horizons. You'll be helping to make science fiction better.