I am asked every now and then how people can best support the site. Tell local businesses to buy a CHS ad, I usually say. The person usually laughs. Here’s something else you can do that might be a little easier.

First, to be clear — CHS is alive and well and sustainable. But if you would like to support CHS and become part of a group with a long-term, fuzzily defined interest in the site’s future, please consider a $5/month CHS subscription. We added a sign-up box to the right side of the page a week ago. One person — adventurous type, to be sure — took us up on the offer even though, at this point, there are no subscriber benefits, no free gifts, no reason other than your support. If you’d rather just add something to help us out and not sign up for the monthly payment, you can tip us here via Paypal. If you’d rather we survive or die, click here.

CHS average daily cringes (See also: TAL) *or* monthly “direct” CHS visitors (you great people who come straight to the site most every day)

It’s been two years since the first CHS Pledge Drive. That was around post #3000. In retrospect, it was not a do or die moment but it was definitely an effort that helped expand CHS at a critical time. Sometime toward the end of this summer, CHS will publish its 6,000th post. The site has been a full-time, (mostly) serious business since spring of 2008. These days, about 6,000 people visit CHS every day. In total, 78,000 unique visitors came to the site in June. Most importantly, a core of about 24,000 of you *really really meant* to come here by taking the time to type capitolhillseattle.com into a Web browser or having a link bookmarked. The rest wandered through via our robust RSS following, social media like Twitter and Facebook, traffic from news partners like Seattle Times and SeattleCrime, search, etc.

As a community news site, CHS is a modest success. As an obsession, it’s my density. As a business, the industry is less rewarding. I have found ways to sustain it while also keeping a similarly modest start-up afloat. If you appreciate the site and want to help boost our effort, this is one way to do it. We plan to stick around to give you plenty of other ways to help, too.