You’ve sent us WhatsApps, listened to us on the radio or seen us fighting disinformation on TV. One year building this independent, non-profit outlet together. Now, we want to keep building it with you, and to do so we have opened a crowdfunding campaign at goteo.cc/maldita
We believe that Maldita.es should not belong to anyone: it should belong to everyone. Maldita.es could have been a company, but it chose to be born as a non-profit association and wants to become a foundation.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJgKbBqoRXo
A foundation?
Yes, a foundation. We have five reasons:
1 - We do not want this project to be a company.
2 - The purpose of Maldita.es is not to make profits and distribute them among shareholders: we want to be a non-profit project and for income to be used to improve the project.
3 - Maldita.es should not be owned by anyone: a foundation belongs to civil society.
4 - A foundation is more transparent.
5 - A foundation is subject to strict financial oversight.
We have committed to this project, leaving our previous jobs, and now we need you to join us by contributing to our crowdfunding at goteo.cc/maldita Will you help us spread the word on social media?
Why are you doing a crowdfunding?
Setting up a foundation in Spain costs €30,000. It is a non-profit, public-interest model that will allow us to be more transparent with you than if we were a business model. Greater control of accounts and a board of trustees to ensure that we fulfil the foundation’s aims. The first payment for the foundation is the crowdfunding payment.
In addition, we want to continue doing our social work: fighting disinformation. For that we need more hands: more journalists and more engineers. More of us, so that we are fooled less.
Everything we do is possible thanks to you, and we are asking you to take one more step. Donate, if you can, and become an Ambassador of Maldita.es or help spread this campaign.
What does it mean to be an Ambassador of Maldita.es?
Among the malditas and malditos there is a huge amount of vital and necessary knowledge to debunk hoaxes. A superpower that can be useful to the community in the fight against disinformation. We are already working on how to make this possible so that we can talk more and better with you: for this, we have secured a grant from the European Journalism Centre.
But we are still building that tool: in the meantime, we need you, if you can, to contribute to our crowdfunding.
How have you been funded until now?
Good question. At Maldita.es there is an investment of personal capital from Clara and Julio, who in addition to the money they have contributed to the project to date do not receive any salary. The rest is financed with what we earn through collaborations with other media, giving talks and running educational workshops.
There is no advertising on our website, and we do not want there to be: we want to commit to other funding models that prioritise citizens over clicks.
You have surely heard that disinformation is winning, but the battle is not lost: we need you to fight against lies. Because together, and everywhere, it is much harder for them to fool us.