🧯🔥Beating burnout, one new Patron at a time

I’ll start with a confession: even until just a couple of weeks ago, I was really struggling to keep up and keep everything going here at Himal. 

Every story we publish takes a huge amount of work: finding and matching the right writers and ideas; weeks or even months of working together on the research, reporting and writing; multiple drafts across rounds of painstaking editing; fact-checking to comb through every detail; figuring out exactly how to get the finished product to readers across the plethora of online platforms. Add to that all the work of keeping an organisation going – meetings, reports, retaining talent, managing cash flows, resolving conflicts, regulatory compliance, long-term strategy, scaling operational infrastructure and so much more – and things can quickly get overwhelming. All the more so in an organisation like Himal that’s trying to stretch a limited budget and a small team to the maximum, and always holding itself to the high standards that our readers have rightly come to expect. 

Simply put, for the three-and-a-half years that I’ve been running Himal, weekends have been largely non-existent and burnout has almost always felt just around the corner.

But, in these last few days, I’ve suddenly felt like I have a bit more room to breathe. I have to say that it still feels unfamiliar and somehow off, as if it’s a sign that something is wrong – though in reality it’s a sign that something is going right!

What’s prompted the change? In large part the fact that we’ve finally been able to make some absolutely essential additions to the Himal team. 

At the start of this week we welcomed two new team members, and for the first time in a very long time the size of our team has hit double digits – eleven, to be precise. Just a year ago that number was still hovering around seven, before we made a concerted push to strengthen the team across our editorial, management, tech, audience and social media functions. We’re still a tiny team compared to almost any other media outlet, and we’re all still stretched and all constantly pushing to bring you world-class independent journalism with the limited resources we have. But, for the first time in a long time, I feel like I can keep going without launching myself off the burnout cliff. That might not seem like much to ask in many contexts, but for me it feels like something worth celebrating.

For this I owe a big thank you to the Himal team and all their hard work – and also to all of Himal’s Patrons. Support from a small but growing number of readers is a big part of why we’ve been able to build the team and give good jobs to some superbly talented journalists and media professionals even as so many other media outlets are slashing jobs in massive numbers. This is happening not because a corporation is pouring money into Himal for its own interests or because some government is giving us a sweet deal on advertising so that we keep our mouths shut. It is happening because more and more of our readers are deciding that it is worth paying to support independent media and give us a fighting chance.

This became all the more clear to me and the Himal team during our first-ever Patrons Meet last week. 

Thank you for believing in Himal and giving us a chance.

All best

Roman Gautam Editor Himal Southasian

SOUTHASIA MIXTAPE 📻🎵