The experimental livestream turned out to be a lot of fun. We were testing a donation-collection program for live broadcasts, and the campaign headquarters set a goal of raising 450,000 rubles.
We raised even more than that. This is important experience, and I strongly recommend that journalists and video bloggers—especially those outside the major cities—adopt it and try it themselves.
Obviously, you won’t raise half a million every time, but making a channel financially self-sustaining is absolutely possible. If you are fighting censorship and telling the truth, people will support you.
A few fundraising stats, if anyone’s interested:
987 donations 518,000 rubles (500,000 during the live broadcast, and small amounts are still coming in) average: 524 rubles maximum: 25,000 rubles minimum: 2 rubles median: 100 rubles
At its peak, the livestream had 16,300 viewers online, so the conversion rate into donors was about 6%—not bad, if you ask me.
The livestream is here, and the timestamps for those too lazy to watch the whole thing are below:
Timestamps:
0:24 Beginning.
1:11 Navalny and Volkov argue.
2:48 “Can you find out where the other presidential candidates get their money?” — Navalny on raising donations on YouTube.
5:00 About the most popular item in the fundraising store, which Oleg Navalny helped create.
6:45 Has YouTube stopped loving us?
8:50 “A fool and a con man”: the Russian prime minister’s response to accusations of stealing billions of rubles.
10:25 “The man is a nobody”: what Medvedev said in an interview with Russian TV channels.
12:05 “Alexei, who should I vote for if they don’t allow you to run in the election?” — Navalny responds to Alfred Koch and Olga from Nizhny Novgorod.
13:52 “What are you supposed to do at a polling station if there is no real election?”
15:55 Is everything really not all about Navalny? Then where is even one other real election campaign?
18:02 “Don’t worship the ballot box if the election is meaningless!”
18:49 “When I become president, I will reduce spending on education,” — Navalny on his verbal slips and why Freud has nothing to do with it.
20:48 “If a candidate running a real campaign is barred from the ballot, then taking part in the election is indecent.”
21:45 On rallies in Chelyabinsk, Perm, Vladimir, and Nizhny Novgorod.
23:24❗️Saratov, Pskov, and Samara! Navalny is coming to your cities!
24:52 In Irkutsk, arrests are still continuing after the rally. Why are the authorities jailing the very people they should be proud of?
28:55 “Failures in space by both Russia and the United States are failures for all humanity.”
30:00 Why the crash of Russian rockets is no surprise—and what Rogozin’s tooth has to do with it.
35:06 Alexei, what do you think of the 2018 election logo?
37:12 A new rally in Moscow: why has the capital turned out to be the most lawless city?
38:56 Money for Far East airports has “disappeared”: the authorities react to the “vanishing” of 64 billion rubles.
41:05 Flying from Novosibirsk to Vladivostok is cheaper via Seoul: what kind of country are we building then?
43:30 Are there any upsides at all to building factories that are harmful to major cities?
44:24 “Tinting the front windows 99%, like I used to do, is the wrong thing,” — Navalny on car window tinting in the beautiful Russia of the future.
45:50 On verification statistics.
47:49 “A good deputy who skims off the top” — how independent municipal deputy Vadim Korovin fights United Russia members.
52:07⚡️Sberbank reported a disruption in card transactions.
52:40 Alexei, how will you build relations with the oligarchs?
54:50 Who won the argument: Volkov or Navalny?
55:30 “An example of the degradation of the education system,” — Navalny on teachers and schoolchildren from Kaliningrad.
57:56 “So what, am I supposed to vote for Zyuganov?” Why a boycott would be the right choice if Navalny is barred from the ballot.
59:19 “The results of our fundraising marathon.” Who won the prizes?
1:01:10 “Somebody throw in another thousand rubles, or Oksana Baulina is going to have a heart attack.”
1:01:23 “Five hundred thousand! Thank you all so much!”