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 I'm excited to announce,
and hopefully you
are excited to hear, that
Idea Channel will soon
be launching a Patreon.
We haven't done
it yet, because I
wanted to make this
video first, explaining
how it's going to work.
And so if there's any confusion
or if we say some bad ideas,
you can help us make
the best Patreon we can.
So there are four big
questions that I'm
going to ask and answer.
First, of course, and foremost,
where will the money go?
It will go everywhere.
It doesn't just go
to me or to PBS.
No one party gets most of it.
It's going to go
to everyone who has
a hand in the show, from me,
to Morgan, to our graphics
artists, Leah, to the production
company, Kornhaber Brown,
and it'll help offset PBS
Digital Studios production
costs.
Everyone benefits, and
that's how I like it,
since everyone pitches in.
And just for the record,
your Patreon contribution
will not be tax-deductible.
Second, what is the
money going to pay for?
So basically, you're
going to be paying for us
to make publicly-available,
behind-the-scenes stuff,
and fun, additional
bits of content,
distributed via Patreon.
It's going to be simple
stuff-- production
stills, desktop backgrounds,
blooper reels, and who
knows what else.
I'm sure we'll come up
with all kinds of stuff.
We're still working on it.
The money that you pay for
those small things will
help the show, the big
thing, continue to exist.
And so now you're thinking?
Whoa, whoa, whoa, wait.
Exists?
Which I know it sounds
dire, but it's not.
It's just that we've always been
almost entirely grant-funded,
with some sponsors
along the way.
And while that's very
nice and it's super rad,
it would be great if we didn't
have to depend on anyone other
than ya'll for our subsistence,
because that's the public media
dream.
Third, what is all this talk
about publicly available stuff?
So we're still working
on the details,
but we're not going
to do anything fancy,
because we want to focus on
the show, not on the perks.
And we're not going to
do anything private,
because that's not in
the spirit of the show.
Anything made for
the Patreon is going
to be available to
anyone who wants it.
No paywalls, no private posts.
We may send individual
patrons a secret, fun surprise
every once in a
while, after they've
given a certain amount of
money or for a certain amount
of time.
But it's really important to
me that any crowdfunding we do
creates and never
restricts access
to all things Idea Channel.
The details of how
that's going to work
will ultimately be found
on our Patreon page.
And finally, fourth-- when?
So if I've anticipated
the largest concerns here,
then hopefully sometime in
the next couple of weeks.
But if there's something
I've overlooked,
and we have to go
back to the drawing
board, maybe a little bit more.
Please, please,
please, please let me
know your questions, your
concerns, your comments,
anything below in the
comments, and I'm going
to do my best to address them.
Either way, I cannot wait
to get this off the ground
and to enable you all to show
support for the show in yet
another and, without a
doubt, significant way.
We really value
your contributions
to the Idea Channel
in all of their forms.
And I think we've
worked really hard
at trying to make that
part of our values
and to let those values guide
us in as many parts of the show
as we can.
And I think we can do that with
your financial contributions,
too, but I want to
make sure that we
know about your
expectations and your ideas.
So like every other part of Idea
Channel, it's important for me
to know, what do you all think?
Let me know in the comments.
And of, course thank you.
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