Our Patrons Always Hit Their Target

Let's help to get the truth!

Dmitry Muratov, Nobel Peace Prize winner, calls such media as Charter’97 an "extractive industry". They get the truth. This is sometimes harder than butchering work.

Do not be surprised and do not ask what Muratov from Novaya Gazeta has to do with the Charter. It's very simple. In addition to belonging to the "extractive industry", both publications almost six years ago simultaneously appealed to their readers for help. I even remember the day – September 3, 2018.

Charter then asked readers simply for support – one-time payments. I was able to collect almost 15,000 euros for three months. Novaya Gazeta — despite the fact that Patreon was not as widespread as it is now — intuitively chose the Patreon model: readers were invited to be involved with the newspaper. Or rather, with the co-participants, as Muratov said. They were asked to make monthly donations.

On the first day, 1,357 people made such a donation to Novaya Gazeta, and in a year it acquired eight thousand co-participants. Now there are 34,000 of them, and despite all the unbearable difficulties, Novaya exists mainly on regular donations from those same co-participants.

Later, in December 2018, Natallia Radzina said that most of the 15,000 euros collected by the Charter in three months consisted of contributions of 2-3-5 euros, and admired the huge number of people who responded to the request for help. Now imagine how great it would be if these, albeit small, contributions became regular. It is not so much the amount as the regularity that is important. This would greatly help the best independent online publication in Belarus, which has been engaged in truth-seeking for a quarter of a century and even at a time when all other independent media persistently called Lukashenka "president", never gave him this pleasure.

Yes, now the situation is difficult for everyone. Belarus has gone into the shadow of the world agenda – not because the world is tired of us, but because the war in Ukraine has completely changed the structure and content of the Western aid. Now – everything for the front, everything for victory, and you can't argue with that. The more important is the help of each reader, so that everyone can still read about the situation in Belarus, about repression, about torture, about our heroic political prisoners, including those who are today reducing their assistance to Belarusian independent media. By the way, no one blames these people for anything, everyone understands everything.

I know that more than once media experts and managers suggested that Natallia Radzina remove especially important texts "locked up" and make them open only to subscribers. We all know that there are a lot of media that some materials make available only to subscribers on Patreon. This is a completely normal scheme necessary for the survival of the publication, but it is not suitable for Charter for one simple reason. Many readers are in a very difficult situation — they have recently been released from prison, or they spend a lot of money on parcels for imprisoned relatives, or they have fled the country and start life from scratch in a foreign country. For them, every penny is a fortune, and a Patreon subscription can be overwhelming even with tiny contributions (at least at this particular time). Charter cannot deprive these people of the opportunity to read important texts. Any word, any letter, any column published on the web page should be accessible to all readers without exception — this is a strong "Charter's" position.

So, while helping Charter by subscribing to Patreon, at the same time you help political prisoners and their relatives, forced migrants and volunteers – all those who went to the Square with you, stood in a hitch, wrote letters, and delivered parcels. This is the legendary Belarusian solidarity. The one that helps us all survive today and then will help us to win. Becoming a “patron” of Charter means bringing victory closer.

Our patrons always hit their target.

You can support the Charter on Patreon here.

Iryna Khalip, specially for Charter97.org

You can support the website Charter97.org

MULTI-CURRENCY ACCOUNT FOR ASSISTANCE:

Bank's name: Bank Millennium S.A.
Address: ul. Stanislawa Zaryna, 2A, 02-593, Warszawa
IBAN: PL97116022020000000216711123
SWIFT: BIGBPLPW
Name of the account holder: Fundacja “KARTA ‘97”
Purpose/title of payment: Donation for statuary aims

You can contact us by the e-mail charter97@gmail.com