My org is applying for some grants, and often granting agencies ask (rightfully) to be given full access to the content behind the paywall. I’m trying to sort out how to create a subscriber account that I could share with multiple granting agencies without having them have to check their emails etc. (I don’t even know what their emails are, in most cases.)
I’ve created an email account for this on my side, created a subscriber in Ghost and given that subscriber access to the content. But I haven’t managed to figure out how I can give people access to that subscriber account to log in with. Ghost doesn’t offer passwords, and I saw that they were toying with OTC but don’t seem to have rolled that out yet. Any suggestions?
In my field, grant givers do not hand out lists of emails. Generally you apply for a grant through a form, and they guard individual employee emails pretty tightly so that they aren’t bombarded with requests for money/clarification/etc.
OK, fair enough. So they could create a shared email alias that anyone in their org can check, and use it to get everyone logged in.
Ghost does have OTC, but it’s sent out to email (along with the emailed magic link), so that doesn’t solve your problem.
I’ve built a system for one client that lets users log in with a password, but that still wouldn’t be something that a big group could share (because what if someone resets it?).
You could also set this up: https://giftlinks.net/ and share the content you’d like them to look at.
Or Outpost has an institutional subscription option based on email domain, but there again, you’re ending up with their email addresses.
You described needing to show granting agencies the content behind your paywall — and trying to rig up a shared subscriber account to do it, which gets tricky when you don’t have the agencies’ email addresses and sign-in happens through email links.
Ghost now has gift links, which could help with that.
Every paywalled post and page has one. Copy it from your posts list or the post’s analytics page, then send it to anyone — no account, no email check, no password. Whoever has the link reads the post in full, while the rest of your paid content stays locked. For a grant application, that means sending an agency gift links for the pieces that matter to the review, and the same links work for every agency.
To be straight about the fit: gift links work per post or page, rather than opening your whole archive with a single link. For giving reviewers a real look at your paywalled work with zero sign-in friction, though, this may be helpful.