30 July was the 5th anniversary of the start of the Working Class History project. So we launched a birthday appeal to try to make WCH sustainable in the long-term. Now more than ever, we think it’s vitally important to learn the lessons of our history, so we can organise and win victories in the present.
We started from a tiny Facebook page 5 years ago. And up to 2018 our Facebook page had grown to over 100,000 followers. We then started a patreon account, and that has enabled us to grow into a podcast and multi-channel social media project with over 430,000 followers with an audience of around 10-15 million per month.
Patreon is a platform which enables projects like ours to create content and get financial support from our listeners and readers. In return, supporters get access to exclusive content like early access to podcast episodes, bonus podcast episodes, access to our database and history map under construction, annual reports and free and discounted WCH merchandise. For example, right now our supporters can listen to bonus episodes of the Working Class History podcast as well as the latest Working Class Literature bonus episode.
To try to improve our podcast, our tiny core team have been taking time off from our day jobs throughout 2019. Due to our financial circumstances (namely, we have to pay rent, bills and buy food) we are only going to be able to keep spending this amount of time working on WCH for a year. If we are to continue putting as much time and effort into the podcast, researching them, finding guests and writing scripts and narrative, and keep researching new and more diverse people’s history, as well as working on numerous other projects, we need more support from you, our readers/listeners.
If just 1000 people (less than 0.25%) of our followers supported us on patreon, then our project will be sustainable in the long-term. We will be able to remunerate our core team with an amount around the minimum wage, which will enable us to continue spending as much time as we currently are, and will be able to develop more projects like print publications, and a massive website with timelines and maps.
So if you appreciate what we do, and want to see us keep doing it, and keep up our work educating and inspiring a new generation of activists, then please do consider joining us on patreon, and bringing people’s history to millions more people through 2020 and beyond.
If you already support us on patreon, we would just like to take this opportunity to say thank you, again, for enabling us to do what we are doing unearthing and popularising our collective history of struggle.
If you can’t spare the cash, that’s fine. Please just share this appeal and our content on social media, and tell your friends and colleagues about our podcast.
Best wishes and solidarity,
WCH
