Why Did I Start Normalizing Crowdfunding Basic Income
Wanting an Immediate Solution to Something Can Be Quite the Driving Force
I’ve had an interest in basic income since I was a teenager and actively started talking about it in the last five years
Basic income pilots like SEED launching and discussions of UBI during the 2020 presidential election cycle allowed me to find like-minded basic income advocates
Realizing that the timeline to pass UBI was not happening anytime soon, I wanted to find an immediate solution for people in need of a basic income
Observation of author Scott Santens’ basic income generated through the subscription platform Patreon intrigued me because it seemed like a template for a solution for people in need of a basic income prior to legislation
Observation of political campaigns fundraising and crowdfunding efforts to rally people around political activism were more examples of the template of microdonations having a significant impact when provided in large numbers
Initially, I simply discussed with other UBI advocates how and why we should crowdfund basic income for individuals with time-sensitive expenses they could not pay for, and later helped a friend do just that for several months
At the time, I highlighted the potential of Patreon possibly being the perfect infrastructure for crowdfunding recurring basic income and I’m gathering data to confirm whether it is
When I began this process I didn’t realize that crowdfunding my own basic income was going to be part of it, but last week I started doing just that gaining new insights, gratitude, and a supplemental income. I’m looking forward to documenting this part of the process and sharing data with others showing the ability to crowdfund basic income with a collective of microdonations
Microdonations from a large collective is the most sustainable way to crowdfund a basic income; it’s not about a few of us giving a lot, it’s about a lot of us giving very little
I’ve been actively talking about universal basic income for nearly half a decade, although the concept of government-funded cash payments has had my interest for decades. Public discussions of UBI really picked up for me around 2019, especially on Twitter and on TikTok in 2021. While examining its increased popularity around the 2020 presidential election cycle and after the first major income pilot in Stockton, CA was underway, it seemed like a possibility for the first time in my lifetime.
I finally found myself in the company of fellow UBI advocates online which allowed for in-depth discussions on the topic as well as a coordinated plan to engage with others about the topic while data was developing on its benefits. At the time, individuals obtaining a basic income in the United States was nearly unheard of but finally not completely non-existent.
Examples of basic income in action at the time stemmed largely from the Stockton Economic Empowerment Demonstration (SEED), a nearly completely privately funded income pilot in Stockton, CA with 125 participants receiving $500 for a month for 24 months, 10 families and individuals receiving a basic income of $1000 a month for a year as part of a demonstration from the campaign of the presidential candidate Andrew Yang, and the individual basic income raised through Patreon of the author and UBI advocate Scott Santens.
I enjoyed analyzing data from all of these examples but the infrastructure that provided Santens’ basic income was particularly intriguing when thinking of an immediate solution for some people who were in desperate need of basic income. Likewise, the analysis of campaign donations and donations to campaign volunteer efforts supported that collective efforts of small donations had the ability to provide a basic income.
An understanding that basic income was not going to pass anytime soon became evident as its popularity did not improve significantly and it was not viewed as an option to combat economic struggles brought on by Covid19 in the United States, outside of the one-time stimulus checks distributed during the pre-vaccine era of the pandemic.
This didn’t diminish my hope that a guaranteed income would one day be legislated federally, but I understood that such a thing was going to take some time. Upon this revelation, I was and still am committed to pushing for government-funded unconditional cash payments for everyone, but I still wanted to address the needs of the many people who need a basic income long before legislation happens.
This meant promoting candidates that pledged to support basic income, promoting the findings in the limited basic income pilots already completed or underway, and supporting legislation that included direct cash payments like all of the other UBI advocates while also promoting the concept of an individual basic income for people in need.
This started out as simply thinking about how great it would be if more people could use the infrastructure that is Patreon to develop a basic income just like Scott Santens. Eventually though, I stopped keeping those thoughts to myself and started pitching to my fellow UBI advocates the idea of normalizing a crowdfunded basic income. It was met with mixed reviews, which really surprised me because the same people who would pitch that everyone has intrinsic value and deserves to live in dignity with their basic needs being met, were hesitant to support the notion that a collective of people could provide a basic income for an individual.
I was told that such an “experiment” wouldn’t provide any data for a local economy, which I didn’t care about because larger income pilots could and would show such data. This wasn’t about obtaining data for economic benefits for a community, this was about helping an individual, and data obtained about how it impacted them was simply a bonus to the process that’s main goal and purpose was to help someone.
I was told no one would be willing to just give someone money because people would air on the side of caution that the person didn’t really need it. This never made sense to me because how can you say everyone would benefit from a basic income and then say you wouldn’t know how to vet whether or not someone needed a basic income?
I was told that no one would be willing to give money to someone just to have their basic needs met because what benefit was that to the movement of getting UBI. So while some people would be willing to pitch in a few bucks to help someone campaign for UBI, they wouldn’t extend that money if it was just providing BI for someone.
I found this most perplexing.
Finally, people informed me that Patreon was not a household name and that they couldn’t really picture what I was pitching because they weren’t familiar with that platform. This is one reason when I decided to start crowdfunding basic income for myself just last week that I began doing it on two different platforms: here on Substack and Patreon. I am still determining if Patreon is the best option and will write about my findings in the future. I took all of this feedback and catered my pitch to reach more people.
While all of this was happening, a dear friend had fallen on hard times due to medical issues completely out of their control. Their basic needs were not going to be met without the help of friends and family while they worked on achieving stability in their newfound life with disabilities. They were in desperate need of a basic income. They self-advocated a lot and myself and other friends pushed out their circumstances on social media platforms they had content on, initially on Twitter and later on TikTok.
With the help of friends and then later friends of friends, this individual was able to obtain a basic income for months. Eventually, new circumstances occurred in their life that allowed them to obtain their basic needs without having to crowdfund anymore. I don’t normally go into detail of my friend’s circumstances because it isn’t my story to tell, but independent of all of the details, their story is an example of how a community can come together to help someone crowdfund a basic income.
While helping out my friend more people came across my feed who needed help, often with one-time unexpected expenses that were out of their disposable income budget. Some of them I knew well and some of them were well-known by my friends. I did my best to show them how you could achieve crowdfunding goals by highlighting the total amount that was achievable when you broke it down into microdonations, a few dollars, by a certain number of people. I personally dedicated hundreds of hours to boosting individuals’ online crowdfunding campaigns while trying to build up tools and resources people could use to advocate for basic incomes to help them with their expenses and to this day that’s an ongoing process.
The process just got a little more interesting now that I too am crowdfunding a basic income for myself and I’m gaining new insights to the crowdfunding process that I didn’t have before. I’m immensely grateful to have supplemental income with this crowdfunded basic income and I’m really excited to share the process of obtaining it in future pieces.
I suppose the short answer of why I started to normalize crowdfunding basic income was that I wanted to do something in the immediate that helped people achieve getting basic income, while doing all the things to ensure that it happens for everyone in the future.
The process of normalizing something is difficult on its easiest days and it consumes an excessive amount of time, but I have no regrets about starting the process. I like to think that I’ve planted seeds to help others self-advocate and even better help others advocate for their friends and family.
I’m sure I’ll echo this many times in my writing, but crowdfunding basic income only requires that a certain number of people who have the means to part with a small amount of money become aware of someone’s situation. With empathy and an understanding that their small amount will actually make a difference in that person’s situation, people will be willing to give money to help someone.
It’s not about a few of us giving a lot, it’s about a lot of us giving very little.
SOURCES:
SEED https://www.stocktondemonstration.org/
Andrew Yang to give $1,000 a month to 10 families as part of his campaign - ABC News https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/andrew-yang-give-1000-month-10-families-part
How a New Hampshire family spent Andrew Yang's 'Freedom Dividend' | Reuters https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-new-hampshire-money-fami/how-a-new-hampshire-family-spent-andrew-yangs-freedom-dividend-idUSKBN20417F
Scott Santens | creating support for unconditional universal basic income (UBI) | Patreon https://www.patreon.com/scottsantens
Crowdfund Basic Income with Cheyanne4UBI | content promoting UBI, crowdfunded basic income, & more | Patreon https://www.patreon.com/CrowdfundBasicIncome