How We Them Media is funded.
The community is over 700 people. $1,000 a month covers what it takes to keep filming: wages for the two people on payroll, Gift and Bayo, plus the tools and the payment rails that get money to Nigeria. Supporters cover $162 of that. Maceo covers the other $838 himself. Every dollar and every tier is published below, and the tracker moves when the number moves.
Frames from the tape your five dollars keeps rolling. Explore the catalog →
We take no advertising and run no paywall. The work is paid for by monthly supporters through Fractured Atlas, our fiscal sponsor, and by bounties that fund specific stories. This page shows the model, the current total, and what each level covers.
Manual tracker · next milestone $250/mo · founding roll closes at $1,000/mo
Most supporters are at $5 a month, and that is the plan working: small and many leaves more people with a real stake in what gets filmed. A dollar counts. The next $91 a month covers the team’s editing software and tools; nineteen people at five dollars is $95, which covers it.
| Every level gets | A dollar$1 / mo | Supporter$5 / momost popular | Sustainer$31 / mo · $365 / yra dollar a day | Major Patron$50+ / mo · $600 / yr |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| All public content, no paywall, ever | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| The Dispatch, the newsletter, once a week: what went up, what we are asking next | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Your name on the supporter roll on this site, and the founding roll if you join before $1,000/mo | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| The Discord, and the WhatsApp group with the team | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | |
| Submit investigation requests; your questions shape the work | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | |
| Your name in the end credits of every video we release | ✓ | ✓ | ||
| Private supporter channel, early access to releases, a vote on which bounties run each month | ✓ | ✓ | ||
| Monthly coffee hour on Zoom with the team, quarterly townhall, priority voice on requests | ✓ |
Monthly amounts through Fractured Atlas, a 501(c)(3), are tax-deductible in the US; a monthly on Giveth is not. One Sustainer covers a real line item: a tool, a payment rail, a day of somebody’s wages.
- The next page opens on Monthly, with our tiers ($5 / $31 / $50+) ready to pick.
- Pick an amount, or tap Other and type your own. A dollar counts.
- One-time instead? Use Give once below.
No ads and no paywall, ever. Tax-deductible in the US through Fractured Atlas. Cancel any time, in two clicks, with no email to anybody.
Any size, same button, same place: choose “one time” instead of monthly on the Fractured Atlas page. Tax-deductible.
Give once →We Them Media is a project on Giveth, the zero-fee crypto giving platform. Give once or set up a recurring stream. Not tax-deductible.
Give on Giveth →Send any token to our ENS name on Optimism. No platform in the middle, no fee taken out. Not tax-deductible.
15 people became monthly supporters before this model proved itself. They are our Founding Supporters, credited as the people who backed community-made media when it was an idea and a spreadsheet. Every supporter who joins while we are still short of the $1,000/mo goal joins this cohort. When we hit the goal, the founding roll closes.
Founding roll · 15 members · names published as each supporter opts in
$1,000 a month is the number. It covers wages for Gift and Bayo, the tools, and the fees that come with moving money to Nigeria. Past that, this stops running on one person’s savings and starts running on the people who watch it.
The work happens either way. Reporters are filing, the catalog is going up, and we post seven days a week whether the number moves or not. Support decides how much of it we can pay for, not whether it gets made.
Why are you asking for support?
I am bootstrapping this. Support buys me the time to work on it fully and to grow the team. I am asking for the runway it takes to get We Them Media established as a platform and to release everything we have already filmed, which is years of it.
What happens when you hit the goal?
There is one number, $1,000 a month, and we are at $162. It covers wages for Gift and Bayo, the tools, and the fees that come with moving money to Nigeria. Whatever comes after that gets set once we are there.
Can I contribute one time instead of monthly?
Yes. One-time gifts go through Fractured Atlas in USD, or you can send any token to wethemmedia.eth on Optimism, or give once through our Giveth project. If you want monthly in crypto, Giveth does that too: a recurring donation on Optimism or Base that you can end whenever you like. Monthly supporters get direct community access and a voice in what we investigate, so we lead with monthly, but one-time works.
I am interested but not ready to contribute yet. Can I follow along?
Join the Discord. We post updates, share research, and build community there. No financial commitment required. Join the Discord.
Is my donation tax-deductible?
Yes. We are a fiscally sponsored project of Fractured Atlas, a 501(c)(3), so anything given through them is deductible in the US.
Not everyone has five dollars. Everybody has a street.
The other way to back this is to make some of it. Ask somebody a question where you live, get them to answer their own question on camera, then post it to X and tag @WeThemMediaHQ. It goes up on our channel with your name and your city on it. We are going for 150 of them by 4 November, and during a campaign like that an interview is worth as much to us as a subscription.
How One Question works →The Weekly Connect is our community townhall, every Wednesday at noon New York time. It is where the week’s street interviews get played and argued about, and where the team says what it is actually working on. Everyone who backs this is invited, and so is everyone who does not. Come and see what the money makes before you decide anything.
Let's build this together.
Your money pays the people filming. Your questions go on the board and get asked on the street. Your name goes on the roll. Everything that gets made is free to everyone, forever.
Back the work →