Support us

Thank you for your interest in supporting the Scenoptica project. We believe art and education should be freely enjoyed and open source, but unfortunately, we also need to pay our bills, and our hope is to achieve the latter without compromising the former. This can only be done with the kindness of people like you.

Where your support goes

All donations received by the project go towards the following:

  • Upgrading or purchasing equipment. As of this writing, our oldest piece of equipment is our camera (12 years old) and the newest is our shotgun microphone (1 year old).
  • Labour costs. Currently, there are two of us responsible for the entirety of the project (recording, editing, uploading, maintenance, etc.). Occasionally, we enlist others for help and try to renumerate them fairly. On a more permanent basis, we'd like to be able to support people's livelihoods through Scenoptica.
  • Maintenance costs. This means domain hosting, etc., but not necessarily server costs. Since the website is open source, it is hosted using GitHub, while videos are uploaded to a variety of (free) services, most importantly the Internet Archive. Even if it might be better to self-host video, it is ultimately best to diversify the locations of files in case one of them breaks or we discontinue the project.
  • Caring for abandoned animals. Gandalf, Caramel, Hendricks, Mackerel, Clemmie, Princess, Bonder, Poppy, Blip, Arian, and Scabcat are our current residents, each one arriving here for one reason or other but equally welcome to stay.
  • Our community mutual aid fund. A portion of funds goes directly towards buying food for struggling families. The specific items we give are rice, sugar, instant noodles, oil, and tea. We purchase these items in bulk and distribute them personally to ensure as much food as possible can be given.
  • Sustaining our own needs. Finally, we hope that Scenoptica will grow enough to support our own livelihoods, which in turn will mean that we'll be able to dedicate our full time to the project.

If you want to support only a specific aspect (e.g. equipment or the mutual aid fund), we're all the happier to oblige. Either let us know when you donate or email us letting us know where you want your donation to go.

Ways to support us

Currently, we receive donations/patronages from the following sources. If there's another way you'd like to support the project, please get in touch!

Patreon

You can become a patron of Scenoptica at several tiers. These tiers contain access to behind-the-scenes things, such as our roadmap, and you can request specific topic coverage at the highest tier.

Ko-fi

If you prefer "buying us a coffee", as it were, we are on Ko-fi.

Liberapay

Finally, we also accept donations via Liberapay. Liberapay enables recurrent payments to creators of free content. It is secure and private, allowing you to donate anonymously, and does not take a cut of payments, as the platform itself runs on the donations of users.

Page updated: 12 June 2023