We raised $250 in 10 days to support a journalist. Here’s How You Can Do The Same.

On July 3rd I announced that Spot.Us created a wiki that could accomplish our basic goals: The wiki would allow groups of people to come together around topics, journalists could create pitches and using a 3rd party e-commerce solution, we could crowdfund.

Two weeks later, we have successfully raised enough money for our first example of “community funded reporting.” You can duplicate this. I’ve used no secret technology. Whenever it comes to online organizing – it’s more about the people than the technology. What’s holding you back?

A note about this first example: I don’t want to sell this as outright “success.” That’s not what Spot Us is about at this stage (pulling something off and shouting “success”). The analogy I like to use: This is like a pitcher getting ready in the bull pen. We are warming up. This was our first practice throw. To extend that analogy our first practice “pitch” made it safely into the hands of a catcher. We are one-for-one in our warm up pitches. Considering this is very new territory, I am thrilled about successfully going through the motions.

The ingredients

(a: Fantastic reporter. The reporter in this case is Alexis Madrigal. I first met Alexis while working on the Beat Blogging project. He is a young and motivated reporter, but also seasoned, as he regularly reports for Wired. An ideal reporter, in my opinion, will help with fundraising by spreading the word similar to how Chris Albritton asked his readers for financial support to report from Iraq. Alexis did this via Twitter, but more importantly (and I’ll discuss this more below) Alexis believes in this story. That’s why he asked for, what we both agree, is below market value. As one donor noted “250 is cheap.” That’s because Alexis has wanted to do this story for some time.

(b. Fundraiser: Sisi and I both spent a decent amount of time “fundraising” which I’ll describe below in “the strategy.”

(c. Participants: We got 13 contributors who donated an average of $20 each. Some gave $25 others gave $10. Some of the donations came from people I know and indeed I donated $15 myself. More on this in “what went wrong” below.

The Strategy

1. To get started all we needed was ingredient A and B from above. If you are A, nothing will stop you from being B as well, although it helps to have someone else in your corner.

2. Find news or civic organizations that might be interested in the final product. In this case Sisi and I targeted environmental blogs. We contacted 15 and four of them responded including EcoGeek and EcoLocalizer. The later even donated $25 themselves. What’s in it for them? Quality content they wouldn’t be able to afford otherwise which will now be handed to them via a Creative Commons license.

3. Personal interactions and networks. Most people don’t respond well to blanket calls to donate. At least – not that I know of. Example: Several people bookmarked the Eco-localizer post on Stumbleupon but didn’t donate. Following up with them personally did result in one donation.

What went absolutely right!

1. Step two above worked. Four out of 16 blogs put out a call to help spread the word for us. The reason, I believe, is because they see the value in a creative commons investigation. This is the kind of reporting that they wouldn’t be able to purchase on their own – most blogs don’t have a freelance budget where they can throw $250 at a story. But this is about maturing the blogosphere – allowing people to collaborate together on stories. It’s possible that I could have just contacted the blogs and asked for $10 each and given them all first publishing rights and not even dealt with micro-donations from readers. Instead it would have been about micro-publishers. That might be a future approach.

What Needs to be Improved (or isn’t up to par)

1. We didn’t raise THAT much money. I envision some investigative reporting projects requiring 2k or more. We raised $250 in 10 days. That’s great, but it was also because of Alexis’ generosity that the target was so low. I do not expect to know so many generous people and indeed, Spot Us is not about forcing reporters to be generous. For now, I am thankful.

2. I love my network, but Spot.us can’t rely on them for donations. There was one anonymous donation of $25 which was to “just getting the ball rolling and providing David Cohn some support for his excellent idea.”

It’s obviously greatly appreciated, but in the end Spot.Us has to stand on its own two feet. While “I get by with a little help from my friends,” I wish I knew who Anonymous was. I also noted donations from Michele McLellan, Josh Levy and Ellen Miller. While I do know all three, I suspect the donations weren’t just to support me. That would be an egotistical view anyways. I could see all three having an earnest interest in the outcomes of Alexis’ research. This is especially true for Levy, who is heading up Change.org’s editorial direction and Ellen Miller who is always interested in potential government oversight.

3. This pitch isn’t “hyperlocal.”

A requirement from Knight Foundation is that Spot Us support local journalism. This is local to California, but not “hyper-local.” This was the first pitch on the wiki and within two hours already raised $50.
By time I realized it wasn’t hyper-local to the Bay Area, it already had momentum. It’s also a great pitch. So instead of killing it because it wasn’t hyper-local enough, I chose to run with it. This will not be the case in the future. From here on out: I’m all about the SF Bay (it’s where I left my heart).

What now?

Two things.

1. To go back to the bull pen “pitcher” analogy. The catcher (reporter) has to return the ball back to the pitcher. Don’t forget – we have only gone through half the motions. Now Alexis has some reporting to do.

2. Wind up and get ready to throw another practice pitch (I know another reporter who is drafting one as I type).

Related posts:

1. Alexis Madrigal Is Doing "Spot Reporting"
2. This is How Spot Reporting Works
3. Campaign Season is Coming – And With It, Propaganda
4. Growing a Community and The Importance of Being Iterative
5. Video Update on Spot Us