University-backed website The Conversation is the latest to push out the begging bowl for reader contributions.

Appealing for donations is an increasingly-popular way of funding your business (perhaps we should try it): Last week kids' newspaper Crinkling Times announced that it had raised more than $200,000 in record time via a crowdfunding site.

Now it's the turn of The Conversation to ask readers to contribute to costs which, according to a video, are more than $1 million a year for server and development costs, for "90 editors and 40,000 academics".

To be fair, they do it for a couple of weeks every year.

The Conversation - which was founded in Australia by the government-funded CSIRO, plus Melbourne, Monash and WA universities and UTS Sydney - has links also to a global site and others for Africa, France, the UK and USA. Other groups including the Victorian government, AMP Foundation, Australian Cancer Research Foundation, City of Melbourne, Commonwealth Bank, The Copyright Agency, law firm Corrs Chambers Westgarth, Melbourne's Lord Mayor's Charitable Foundation, the Myer Foundation, and RMIT University fund "specific projects".

An email from editor Misha Ketchell says job losses at Fairfax and News have "thrown new light on the parlous state of public interest journalism" and talks of the "rise of hostility toward experts".

Ketchel says the Conversation works with almost 49,500 academics worldwide, its content shared with more than 20,000 "republishers".

About half of its costs are covered from university members, with the balance from grants and donations. This time it's asking for "$30 a month, or whatever you can afford".

Pictured: Keeping up The Conversation - a still from the appeal video