Funding the future: Partizán’s strategies for community building in Hungary

Can you imagine hosting live debates in the main squares of different cities and inviting anyone to debate you on a controversial topic while being a fiercely oppositional media in a country dominated by one political party? This is what Partizán did last year as part of its spring tour, visiting seven different cities throughout Hungary. Live broadcasts from sofas placed in the main squares of these cities were hosted by Márton Gulyás, Partizán’s founder and main host. Anyone could sign up to “debate Marci” and join as a live audience member. Overlapping with the tour was a campaign for the so-called “1% tax,” that led Partizán to become Hungary’s largest publicly funded media outlet. Even more surprisingly for the Central and Eastern Europe context, they did all of this while being left-wing.

Partizán ranks fourteenth in online reach in Hungary according to the Reuters Institute Digital Report 2024. With a 70-member strong team and operating budget of approximately 1.5 million euros (for 2023), it offers a diverse range of content – including investigative journalism, talk shows, podcasts, newsletters, and live events. It is known for its election coverage and upbeat talk shows that even those on the political spectrum who disagree with it cannot refuse to participate in. The organisation is funded through a combination of individual donations and grants. Founded in 2018 and published by the non-profit Partizán Foundation for the Production of System-Critical Content, it focuses on politics, economic justice and the aspirations of the social majority. With 532,000 subscribers to its YouTube channel and the support of around 180 volunteers, these elements form the backbone of its success.

I spoke to Ádám Székely, the community organiser for Partizán, about strategies that engage their communities and attract public funding for its operations.

During last year’s spring tour, they had two shows in every city. “For the first one, Marci, the host of the debate, would have a controversial statement, for example: ‘Fidesz can be defeated in this electoral system too’, ‘The state is not a bad owner’, ‘Everyone deserves housing’, ‘If the same amount of people who go to therapy would get involved in politics, this would be a happier country’ and people could sign up to sit on the other sofa and convince Marci otherwise”, explains Székely. In the evenings, there was another show from their channel broadcasted live from one of the venues of the city. Between the two, Székely organised small gatherings between Gulyás and the volunteers, “exclusive meetings with him, the main face of Partizán, where they could discuss things and get to know each other better.” 

The key message of the spring tour was that Hungary is not just Budapest: “The main focus was about getting our content, ourselves, and our philosophies to every city we could, which is something that media outlets didn’t really do before. And since we’re there, trying to form these communities and do something like a social mission with this, because we see that the Hungarian community is very atomised. I was gathering volunteers in every city beforehand to hold small introductions—workshops or little exercises—and it was really telling that people who live in these cities, which are not big, who watch the same thing and think similarly about the state of Hungary and probably about the world as well, didn’t really know each other,” explains Székely, reasoning behind the community gatherings.

Partizán’s approach is consistent with the recent Journalism Value Project report (authored by Choni Flöther and Malte Werner), which maps the state of public interest journalism in Europe. In a detailed section dealing with reader revenue and participation as a pathway from audience to community, one insight stands out:

If you want to convince people to pay for your content, provide opportunities for them to meet you

The tour was also an experiment in redefining relations between media and the community, which are often one way: “I’m in a video, I’m talking to you, you can just listen to what I say. And that’s the same with newspapers or online newspapers. Best-case scenario is that you write a comment and then people start to discuss it. What usually happens is that people start to bully each other online. And we wanted to see what we can do beyond this, how we can still produce content and, using the production of that content, bring people together, maybe make them a part of that content, but also make them a part of creating the whole system that produces this content”, says Székely. 

The “1% tax” model, which exists in similar forms in other countries (e.g., Poland, Romania), allows taxpayers to allocate one per cent of their personal income tax to a charitable organisation, foundation, or other eligible non-profit entity of their choice. This system enables citizens to support causes they care about without additional financial burden, as it comes from the taxes they already owe.

Partizán first competed last year, finishing third, while this year it became the most popular choice, securing one million euros of public support and surpassing major healthcare and charitable organisations. While their regular YouTube videos had an impact, with the host explaining at the beginning and the end of each video that viewers could consider supporting Partizán, the timing coincided with the “super election year” period when politics in Hungary was highly active.

“One pillar of the campaign was huge offline events. For example, we had a big debate broadcast live between the leaders of the lists for the European Parliament. We also had many other debates and tried to focus on the election because we have this huge commitment towards democratic debates and elections. Seeing this on YouTube is completely different from seeing it live—seeing how many cameras you need, how many people you need to produce it. And of course, it’s a different quality of connection.”

Another pillar was campaign booths, something Partizán tried in 2023 with mixed success. Back then, they went to major squares in Budapest and tried to talk to people. They realised that not everyone watches Partizán. On the contrary, many people didn’t even know about them: “So if you just hand out flyers to random people to consider us with their one percent, it doesn’t really work. But if you have events where people come to you – for example, on the main square of your city – and there you hand out flyers to them, engage with them through your volunteers, and tell them what you’re planning to do, what you’re doing, why you’re in this city, in the countryside, then it’s a much stronger message. And you basically make these people heard as well because you can actually talk with the staff beforehand. You make these connections live.”

The third pillar, and perhaps one of the biggest elements of their campaign, was a huge call centre operation where, together with volunteers in Budapest, they rented a big storefront. “We called all our supporters and subscribers, those who gave us their phone numbers and consented to be contacted for this kind of stuff.”

While Hungary’s ruling party did everything possible to capture media, it didn’t touch the already existing mechanism. But it doesn’t do anything to actually remind people that they could support any of these causes. This meant that Partizán had to run a six-week-long campaign: “We called our subscribers to actually remind them that in this period (from March to May), you can offer your one percent. And these calls were not strictly fundraising calls. We called them to thank them for their support, to thank them that they’re watching us. If they were open to it and they had time, we talked about our shows and what they like about them, what they don’t like, how they are following us. And in the meantime, we told them that we can do all this – go on a tour, create shows daily, and do these very important live broadcasts – if they support us and give us their one percent,” explains Székely.

Today, Partizán has around 180 volunteers, 90 of them in Budapest and around 90 outside Budapest. They came through all the channels Partizán has—through newsletters, social media, and YouTube videos: “We had specific ads where we tried to gather volunteers. So basically, in any form where you can find Partizán, there was a message about the volunteers. And since then, we are doing these club evenings in every city where we have volunteers, specifically to bring these people together again – those who we already have as volunteers – and to find new volunteers as well. And this number is growing,” says Székely.

If you are wondering who is doing all this community organising for Partizán, it’s just Székely and one of his colleagues. Surprisingly, at least for me, they both have professional backgrounds in software engineering: “I always say that I used to be a software engineer and now I’m working with communities. But that was also helpful because I think a big chunk of the work with community organising is defining systems that work well and that work sustainably.”

Key insights:

• Decentralise: Your audience is not only in your capital city.
• Democratise: Let your audience contribute to your content in a meaningful way.
• Show: How much it costs to produce good quality, public interest journalism.
• Organise: Offline events to bring the community together.
• Equip: Have a dedicated team in place with skills in community organising.

Cover photo: Partizán team members and volunteers (courtesy of Partizán)

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