Stength in Numbers

By Kenneth Kerr

May 2, 2007

I’d like to go off topic from the regular subject matter of our site and talk a little about how we run things here at the Biblical Archaeology Society. As I’m sure many of you are aware, the post office is just about to raise rates across the board for the second year in a row. While for most of us this only means the price of a stamp will increase by a few pennies, for magazines the cost will rise between 11% and 25%. For any business, this is a huge increase. For non-profits, like BAS, it’s potentially lethal.

But I’m not here to ask for donations, or even to bemoan our circumstances. When you’ve been in business for 30 years, you learn to deal with the changes the world throws your way.
Instead, I’d like to talk about one of the ways we are able to keep some of our costs down while still producing the beautiful magazine we deliver to you every other month.

BAS is a member of a cooperative of magazine from all across the country. Almost all of them are run by state agencies, usually dealing with their state’s park services, game boards and conservation services. The function of our co-op, very much like a farmer’s co-op, is for the group to carry more weight than its individual members. Because of this, we are able to negotiate prices and discounts for services that would normally be beyond our means. For example, thanks to banding together into a co-op, we’ve been able to shave a nickel off of the cost of each label we generate to mail our magazine. Five cents doesn’t sound like much, but when you’ve got 150,000 subscribers receiving six issues a year, it adds up to quite a bit.
I’ve just come back from a meeting of our co-op in South Carolina, and I’d like to give each of my fellow co-op members a big thank you for their ideas and contributions. We really couldn’t exist without their help and support.

If any of you reading this already subscribe to one of their magazines, please accept my thanks for supporting their efforts. And if any of you live in or vacation in their states, I’d ask you to throw them a little help if you can, either by subscribing or just dropping them a line to let them know their efforts aren’t unappreciated. Each of their magazines is special in its own way and all will give you a greater appreciation of the state publishing them.

Here’s a listing of our fellow co-op members:

Outdoor Alabama
Arizona Wildlife News
Arkansas Wildlife
Colorado Outdoors
Iowa Outdoors
Kansas!
Kansas Wildlife and Parks
Maine Boats, Homes & Harbors
Massachusetts Wildlife
Montana Outdoors
New York State Conservationist
Outdoor Oklahoma
South Carolina Wildlife
Virginia Wildlife
Wisconsin Natural Resources
Wyoming Wildlife News
Moment Magazine