• by Ray Schultz , Columnist, September 3, 2025

Civil Eats, a nonprofit site focused on the relationship between food and public issues, had a paywall for nine years. But last year, it removed it in a move that some nonprofit pros probably saw as suicidal. 

But it wasn’t. Exactly a year has passed, and the editors say they are doing fine, thank you. The site saw “an immediate and lasting surge in our readership” after the paywall came down," they write in a post. “We’ve seen a 23 percent increase in traffic over the past 12 months, compared to that timeframe the preceding year—and a 32 percent increase compared to 2022–2023.”

Remarkably, their 2020 report on “President Trump’s first time and its effect on the food and ag industry saw a spike in traffic in the months leading up to the 2024 election. It received more than 57,000 pageviews in the past year, totaling over 89,000 pageviews since the day the story was published.” 

And, the site “received a 46 percent increase in overall pageviews in the weeks leading up to the election compared to the same period the year prior.”

In January, Civil Eats launched its Food Policy Tracker, and has published more than 160 posts covering actions by Congress and the Trump administration. It has also started daily and weekly newsletters. 

That’s all very impressive. But we have to ask the tawdry question: how are they sustaining the site financially?

“When we removed our paywall, we also shifted our membership strategy to clarify the value of member support," the team states. “Even though payment was no longer necessary to gain access to our content, we explained that supporting Civil Eats was still essential to our survival. To enrich our appeal, we’ve offered more membership benefits and have seen our engagement deepen. And it’s paid off: Since we dropped the paywall, we’ve gained several hundred new supporters.”

This may not turn out the same for every publication. But paywalls can drive readers away, leading to decreases in ad revenue. Here is one organization that has found a way to live without them.