You’ve been reading Fair Observer for free. Maybe for years. You’ve accessed perspectives from Lagos, São Paulo, Korea and dozens of other places that don’t usually make it into your news feed without a Western correspondent explaining what it all “really means.”

You’ve probably noticed we don’t have ads. Or a paywall. Or pop-ups begging for your email in exchange for “premium content.” 

You might be wondering how this works.

Spoiler: It barely does, and only thanks to the dedication of many volunteers.

Not because what we do isn’t valuable; you’re reading this, so you already know it is. But because the way funding works in 2026, we’re what you might call “categorically challenged.”

Let us explain. (With some humor, because if we can’t laugh about the peculiarity of modern philanthropy, we’ll cry into our unfunded budget spreadsheets.)

Les Bulles de savon (Soap Bubbles). Philipon, February 1831.

The funding paradox, or: Why everyone needs infrastructure, and nobody wants to pay for it

Here’s what Fair Observer actually is: We’re infrastructure.

We’re the platform where senior editors train younger editors, who together support, mentor and translate 3,000+ citizen journalists across 90 countries. We’re the middle ground between mainstream media’s agenda-curated parachute journalism (you know, where a correspondent flies to a “conflict zone” for 48 hours and explains a decades-long situation in two pages) and social media’s unmediated information chaos (where everyone’s an expert and nobody’s fact-checking).

We provide editorial rigor without editorial colonialism. Fact-checking without Western gatekeeping. Standards without silencing.

Here’s the problem: Funders for a long time have recoiled from funding infrastructure. They funded programs. It seems that the trend is changing. 

They want investigative journalism that wins Pulitzers. Civic engagement projects that register voters in Ohio. Educational initiatives with accreditation. Geographic focus areas with clear metrics. Partisanship for a candidate or an idea, and bandages and staples for the wounded. 

We’re none of those things. We’re:

• Media (but we do analysis, contextualization and commentary, not breaking news)
• Education (but we train editors across continents, not MFA students in Iowa)
• “Civic” engagement (but global, which apparently doesn’t count), not for voters to go up or down or south or west, but for democracy to stay strong and power to be kept accountable 
• All of the above (which means none of the above)

It’s like showing up to a potluck with the plates and cutlery. Essential? Yes. Sexy? No. Going home with compliments? Absolutely not. The nonna’s lasagne would get compliments, though. We can ship you the recipe.

Here’s a fun fact: Roughly 70% of US foundations don’t accept unsolicited proposals anymore.

Translation: You can’t just knock on their door with a good idea. You need an introduction. A connection. Someone who knows someone who can get your email read.

It’s not the Medicis, but it’s Medici-adjacent. Except instead of painting frescoes for the Pope, we’re providing editorial infrastructure for global democratic dialogue, and instead of a letter of introduction from a cardinal, we need…well, we’re not entirely sure. A LinkedIn connection? An Ivy League alumni network? A board member who goes on summer vacations with another board member?

The gatekeeping isn’t malicious — it’s structural. A major foundation got 144,000 inquiries in a year and could fund maybe 3,000. The smaller ones have three program officers. They need filters.

We get it. We just don’t fit.

Let’s talk about the “overhead” heresy

You know what funders call our “overhead”? 

• Intergenerational editorial training systems
• Fact-checking infrastructure
• Platform maintenance across languages
• Global coordination
• Standards development 

You know what we call it?

The entire point. 

We don’t have programs sitting on top of infrastructure. We ARE the infrastructure. Asking us to minimize overhead is like asking Wikipedia to cut server costs or asking a bridge to apologize for having foundations. (We’d love to hear more funny analogies…)

There’s even a name for this: the Nonprofit Starvation Cycle. Stanford wrote about it in 2009. Now, the Trust-Based Philanthropy movement (800+ foundations) is trying to fix it.

And yet here we are in 2026, still explaining that the thing labeled “administrative costs” is actually our mission.

It’s fine. We’re not bitter. (We’re a little bitter, like too much vinegar in the sauce.)

What Fair Observer has that nobody else combines:

• 3,000+ citizen journalists/authors across 90+ countries
• Intergenerational and intercultural editorial model: senior editors training younger editors, together mentoring authors and journalists (some writing from non-English languages)
• Strictly nonextractive model (local voices speak for themselves. I repeat: no parachute journalism)
• Four generations actually collaborating (Gen Z to Boomers, not just sharing office space)
• Militantly nonpartisan in an era when everything is going tribal
• Vision for French, Spanish, Hindi, Chinese and Arabic mirror sites (because democratic discourse shouldn’t only happen in English)
• Universal access, no paywalls, no gated knowledge, no “subscribe to read more” (we do ask you to “subscribe to comment” only to ward off trolls and bots) 

What Fair Observer lacks:

• Decades of brand recognition (we’re not the Red Cross)
• “Grandmother money,” that is, recurring donors who’ve been giving since 1947
• A simple category that makes program officers feel comfortable 
• Viral investigations that get optioned by Netflix
• A subscription model (because we actually believe in universal access)

Organizations like Doctors Without Borders have had 50 years to build donor pipelines. Wikipedia has 8 million donors, each giving an average of $10.58.

We have readers like you, who consume our work for free and appreciate it quietly.

Which brings us to why we’re writing this.

The actual situation (with numbers)

We’re looking for three funders at roughly $100K each — enough to maintain and strengthen what we’re doing while building toward $1M in sustainable funding over the next three to five years. We have a plan; you can ask to see it and discuss. 

It doesn’t fund: A viral investigation that wins awards and gets made into a movie starring Adam Driver as our founder

It funds: The intergenerational editorial system — senior editors training younger editors who mentor citizen journalists across 90 countries and multiple languages

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It doesn’t fund: A sleek rebrand with a minimalist logo and a website redesign featuring lots of white space

It funds: Fact-checking infrastructure and editorial standards that catch misinformation before it metastasizes across the internet

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It doesn’t fund: Quick wins we can report in Q3 to make board members feel good

It funds: A ten-year investment in the middle ground between agenda journalism and information chaos — an editorial rigor that doesn’t impose Western narratives

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It doesn’t fund: The next Spotlight

It funds: The platform that ensures a Vietnamese climate scientist, a Kenyan policy analyst and a Brazilian economist can publish — with editorial mentorship and fact-checking — without gatekeepers deciding what “the audience” wants to hear

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Impact in this work doesn’t show up in quarterly metrics. It unfolds over five to ten years in stronger media ecosystems, in journalists who understand editorial rigor, in readers who access perspectives they’d never find in The New York Times or The Guardian.

If someone needs results that fit an annual report, we’re the wrong bet.

If they understand that systems change requires patient capital, we’re exactly the right bet.

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The 5% who already get this

There is a small but growing group of funders who’ve figured something out:

• Infrastructure IS impact for certain models
• Unrestricted multi-year funding enables actual innovation
• Systems change takes time that doesn’t fit grant cycles
• Organizations led by people closest to problems deserve trust, not surveillance

These funders exist: Ashoka, Echoing Green, Draper Richards Kaplan Foundation, Skoll Foundation, MacArthur Fellows, the entire Trust-Based Philanthropy movement.

They invest in organizations and leaders, not just projects. They give flexible funding over multiple years. They focus on root causes, not band-aids.

If you happen to know any of these people, we wouldn’t hate an introduction.

(See what we did there? Very subtle. We’re extremely professional about begging.)

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What we’re actually asking (from you, our readers)

Here’s the thing: You’ve been reading Fair Observer because it offers something you can’t get elsewhere. Perspectives that aren’t filtered through Western newsrooms. Analysis that doesn’t chase viral clicks. Editorial standards that don’t silence local voices.

If you value this, here’s what helps:

1. Individual support: We need a Wikipedia-style reader model at a smaller scale. If you can contribute — even $10, even once — it helps us show funders that people actually care about this work beyond just consuming it for free. Every contribution is evidence that this model matters.

2. Share strategically: If you know someone in philanthropy, social entrepreneurship or foundation work — especially if they’re frustrated with traditional funding categories and looking for innovative civic infrastructure — send them this. (Or our actual funder letter. We have one of those, too. It’s more serious.)

3. Connect us: If you’re in networks where people talk about media literacy, democratic infrastructure, global perspectives or trust-based philanthropy, mention us. We’re not hard to find; we’re just hard to categorize, which makes us invisible to the standard search filters.

4. Tell us who to talk to: If you know a foundation program officer who’s tired of funding the same types of organizations, or a donor who cares about infrastructure over flashy projects or an innovation fund looking for breakthrough civic models — let us know. Introductions matter in this world. (Refer back to the Medici thing.)

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What Fair Observer actually represents

We represent the middle ground that shouldn’t be rare but is: the space between agenda-curated parachute journalism and unmediated information chaos.

We represent what happens when you refuse to choose between editorial quality and universal access, between local voices and rigorous standards, between fact-checking and freedom from Western gatekeeping.

We represent infrastructure that doesn’t apologize for existing — senior editors training the next generation, who together mentor citizen journalists, maintaining standards across languages and continents without imposing narratives.

If you fund us — or help us find funding — you’re not supporting a charity case. You’re investing in civic infrastructure that shifts power in global media.

If that’s not worth protecting, we don’t know what is.

The honest truth

We’re building this either way. With funding, we build it faster, stronger, in more languages, with better training systems and deeper impact.

Without funding, we keep scraping by, doing what we can with what we have, watching opportunities slip past because we’re stretched too thin.

You’ve been reading the results of “scraping by” for however long you’ve been here. Imagine what we could do with actual resources.

If you know someone who funds infrastructure, media innovation, global dialogue or systems that shift power away from traditional gatekeepers, we’d love an introduction.

If you can contribute $10 or $100 to help us build toward sustainability, we’d be grateful.

If you can share this with someone who might care — honestly, that helps too.

We’re not going anywhere. The question is how fast we can grow, how many languages we can expand into, how many more editors we can train, how much stronger we can make this infrastructure.

You’ve been part of this by reading. Consider being part of it by supporting.