If you’ve already donated, THANK YOU, and if you have not yet, we’d all really appreciate your vote of confidence on.prx.org/494XLUq

This is a lot of information (hah) – but I spend most days trying to figure out how to improve all of this – so if you have ideas/questions/feedback, I really, REALLY want to hear from you!

So when you donate to Radiotopia, YES, you are directly supporting the shows you love, but you also support Radiotopia: an increasingly rare network model, dedicated to supporting independent creators.

This means every show in Radiotopia gets monthly payments from that base of support we’ve been growing since we started. This money is ESSENTIAL, especially for new shows who haven’t yet become monetizable through advertising.

Fundraising $$ is split shows: 80%, Radiotopia: 20% which goes towards operating costs. The shows’ rev is split into 2 pools. Pool 1 is divided evenly across all, and Pool 2 is based on downloads, calculated quarterly. This acknowledges production schedules/audience pull, etc.

…podcast publishing tech (a platform PRX
built called Dovetail), marketing + PR support, editorial feedback, biz strategy, fundraising support, and we help our shows navigate a wild and fast-changing industry. We do this in-kind.

We sell sponsorships via our sales partner Soundrise, with most of that revenue going to our shows. And we provide a bunch of other support too…

Our Network Dir. @y00ree.bsky.social and I make sure our shows hit their own goals, creatively and financially. There are 100 decisions a day and our jobs are to offer advice/feedback/communicate the realities of the podcast market – but our shows get to decide what to do with that information.

Radiotopia is a network owned by @prx, a non-profit public media company. I’m a PRX employee, and so are all of my coworkers who support the network. All the shows in Radiotopia are totally independent – they own their shows/businesses/IP and get to make all the decisions.