Multiple Kinds of Metrics

Alec Gewirtz

Every project eventually has to answer the same question: How will we know if this is working?

In digital spaces, the answers come quickly. Readers. Subscribers. Opens. Shares. These numbers are easy to see, easy to compare, and easy to celebrate or despair over. They are the metrics we’re trained to care about. And they’re often meaningful.

Kismet has reached more than 35,000 readers. This is a number that still surprises us for a digital literary magazine focused on spirituality and religion. We’ve been featured twice in New York Times newsletters, once in The Morning, which reaches millions of readers, and once in their Believing newsletter on religion, and we’ve received other press like a profile in the Columbia Journalism Review..

Readership numbers and press is, of course, great, and we always welcome more of it. But alongside those visible signs of success, we care about stuff that’s hard to measure.

Did someone feel lit up, moved, energized, inspired to see the world in a new way by a piece? Did a writer feel taken seriously for the first time? Did a relationship form that wouldn’t have otherwise existed? This is what really matters to us.As a literary magazine, we’ve never been especially interested in chasing the biggest possible audience or optimizing for clicks. We’d rather have meaningful engagement from people who are actually shaped by the work, cultivating conversations among writers, thinkers, and readers who are doing careful, patient exploration..

Some of our most meaningful “wins” aren’t attention-grabbing. A writer connects with an agent because of a piece they published with us. A young poet reads their work aloud for the first time and realizes they belong in the room. A religious studies PhD student tells us the magazine is the exact space they’ve been searching for.Much of Nearness’s work focuses on building small-group communities for people who feel isolated in their identities, like parents navigating spirituality outside religion and elected officials who may be the only people like them in their local contexts. These communities are intentionally small. Their success can’t be measured by scale alone. It’s measured by connection, trust, and depth.

Did someone find companions they didn’t know they needed?Did a group stay together longer than expected? Did participants leave with language, courage, or clarity they didn’t have before?

This doesn’t mean we ignore growth. It means that growth doesn’t tell the whole story. In a world increasingly governed by algorithms, there is quiet pressure to believe that what can be measured is what counts. But anyone who has spent time in spiritual communities knows better. Transformation rarely announces itself loudly. It unfolds slowly, relationally, often invisibly.