Crowdfunding the funded: The Labor Herald

The fifth most funded journalism campaign on crowdfunding platform Pozible isn’t journalism.

The Labor Herald — a content website by Australia’s most popular political party — will successfully complete its crowdfunding campaign in coming days, raising around $40,000.

Labor’s political agenda and community networks have exposed more Australians to the concept of crowdfunding, and the campaign has pushed journalism crowdfunding in Australia into the mainstream.

The 600-plus backers of The Labor Herald include Labor staff and KPMG Partner and former union leader Paul Howes.

Around seven in eight supporters — including Howes — had never pledged on Pozible before.

Howes and other Labor supporters pledged around $40,000 for the campaign for the new website which describes itself as “your openly biased news service”:

We will bring you fresh ideas, news and information from an Australian Labor Party perspective. We don’t pretend to be an online newspaper or traditional press outlet — after all, the press gallery has refused us a press pass. Just think of us as your openly biased news service.

Only four other Australian projects on Pozible have raised more investment within the “journalism” category.

These projects are:

• the New Matilda Relaunch — raising $175,838,
• the Protect The Star Observer campaign — $103,938,
• Lost Perth — The Book — $71,280, and
• Dan Ilic’s A Rational Fear — $52,825.

I’ve compared the supporters of these campaigns — including how many are first-time pledgers, and how many have backed multiple journalism projects — in this post on Quests.