Success Stories / Community Funded Reporting

David Cohn is the founder of community-funded journalism startup Spot.Us. Here’s how it works. A reporters proposes a story and the amount of money he/she needs to write it. If enough people pledge, the reporter writes the story and makes it available for publication. David knew that people would be reluctant to pledge to a story if there was a risk of the goal not being reached and their money being wasted. So he turned to The Point to run his first several campaigns. On The Point, people’s pledges aren’t collected until the goal is reached, so they could give without worrying about wasting their money.

David has already successfully funded three amazing stories. The first story, by Alexist Madrigal (pictured on the left holding his check is published here.