To its credit, Good magazine manages to skirt these landmines with a mix of quirky stories, smart writing and engaging design. The bimonthly's tagline: “Media for people who give a damn.”

Though just two years old, and with a tiny circulation of 50,000, Good has been nominated for two National Magazine Awards, putting it among the ranks of far larger, more established titles. One is in the design category, where fellow nominees include Vanity Fair and GQ, the other in the magazine section category, competing with the likes of Esquire and O, The Oprah Magazine.

Good is attempting to do for social consciousness what Wired does for technology, packaging it in an arch, accessible style that appeals to the general reader as well as to the already committed.

“The whole idea of the magazine is that you can live the life you would normally lead, but if you’re a little more informed about it you can do it in a more meaningful way and have an impact,” says editor-in-chief Zach Frechette, who like most Good staffers is still in his 20s.

Instead of overtly prescriptive articles (“Ten ways you can save energy”), the magazine focuses on explorative, often humorous treatments of subjects from politics to pop culture.

The food-themed March/April 2008 issue has a story on the humane farming movement, but it also includes a pithy round-up of trendy foods, a photo spread illustrating a typical school lunch, and an urbanite’s account of his (failed) attempt to hunt deer in the hills above Los Angeles. Much like the audience it hopes to reach, the overall tone of Good is sophisticated without being cynical.

Transparency, the front-of-book area that earned the NMA nomination for best magazine section, turns data into eye-catching graphics. In the March/April issue, for example, statistics from Journalism.org about the biggest news stories of 2007 are translated into a page filled with differently-sized words—the biggest is IRAQ—with size representing the relative ubiquity of the subject.

The design nomination could be seen as a nod to Good’s emphasis on illustration and graphics and the resolutely unglossy nature of its photography. Several pages at the start of each issue are devoted to an artist’s interpretation of that issue’s theme, and another unusual section, Look, is a mainly visual examination of creative ideas, products or programs from around the world.

Good's business model is nothing if not unorthodox. To build readership, it’s relied on word of mouth rather than direct mail and the other standard subscription generators, which goes a long way to explaining why the magazine is so small.

What little money it does receive from subscriptions goes right to charity.

Readers pay $20 for a year of issues, but their entire subscription fee is then sent on to one of Good's nonprofit partners, which include groups such as Slow Food USA, Kiva and Teach for America. Total donations so far have topped somewhere over $700,000. The magazine hopes to see that figure rise to $1 million by the middle of this year.

Why give away your subscription revenue? The arrangement lets readers experience the Good philosophy first-hand, explains Frechette. “You’re getting a magazine that you want to read and enjoy anyway, but the process of doing this turns you into someone who is participating in something more meaningful, without having to sacrifice a whole lot.”

Besides, Frechette points out, most magazines don’t actually make all that much on subscriptions once the high cost of direct marketing and other subscription drives are taken into account.

Good's circulation strategy is not likely to change much. “That doesn't mean we won't add strategies for how we market and target people,” says Frechette, “but it does mean that we'll continue to donate those subscription fees to our nonprofit partners.”

So how does Good make money, especially being so small?

It has several things working in its favor, and one is a deep-pocketed founder, Ben Goldhirsh, son of Bernie Goldhirsh, who founded and operated Inc. magazine. Goldhirsh, director of the Goldhirsh Foundation and founder of Reason Pictures, which is dedicated to socially relevant filmmaking, dreamed up the concept for Good and provided about $2.5 million in startup capital.

The magazine also appears able, despite its size, to attract a solid base of advertisers, averaging 32 pages of ads per issue. Whole Foods Market and Hope Equity ethical investment funds are represented, but so too are Ralph Lauren, Virgin Mobile and Mini cars.

“The group of advertisers we’ve put together has been a validation that we’re doing something right, because it isn’t just a collection of granola sellers and yoga mat-makers,” says Frechette.

What attracts those advertisers, he says, is Good’s elite readership. Frechette says a recent readership study found that Good's readership rivaled those of the Atlantic, the Economist and the New Yorker in education, engagement and thought leadership.

Good certainly hopes to become bigger. “We think it can grow a lot bigger. We're just scratching the surface of a huge pool of potential audience for this,” says the editor.

But Good will never become huge. It's just not that sort of magazine. “A million subscribers seems high given the kind of real-world connections we're trying to create for our audience.”

In the coming months, Good hopes to increase traffic to its web site, where visitors can create profiles (about 24,500 have done so), upload photos and comment on articles and short videos on the site.

Presumably, it will also see a flush of new print subscribers resulting from the buzz around its two National Magazine Award Nominations, of which the staff is appreciative.

“We’ve been happy with the stuff we’ve produced but it’s nice to be recognized by someone who doesn’t work for you or isn’t your mother,” says Frechette.

If they win, chalk up one up for the good guys. If they don't, they’ll still be able to credit themselves with putting out a very readable magazine that's bent on doing good without cluttering readers' minds with Al Gore-like ruminations or mailboxes with floods of subscription offers.

Only history will say which was the greater contribution.