Among the biggest issues of nonprofit publishers are financial and legal ones. In every country, publishers struggle to find a solution. In Poland, which climbed higher in RSF’s World Press Freedom Index ranking this year, the situation still leaves much to be desired.

In a quite hostile environment, independent outlet OKO.press particularly stands out, using the law to ensure a regular income from the taxes of its readers. Paweł Cybulski, Marketing & Fundraising Manager at OKO.press, told The Fix how they manage to do it successfully year after year.

*OKO.press logo, which was refreshed with the entire visual identification in 2022 (photo: screenshot from the main page)*

The nonprofit model

The outlet’s name oko is Polish for “eye” and an abbreviation for its owning foundation’s name Ośrodek Kontroli Obywatelskiej (Centre for Civic Control). The OKO Foundation was established in 2016 by former journalists from Gazeta Wyborcza and Polityka newspapers, with additional financial support from the publishers of both. Piotr Pacewicz, former deputy chief editor of Wyborcza is the foundation’s co-founder and chief editor of the OKO.press website, which was launched the same year.

OKO.press defines itself as a publisher standing for democratic values, focusing on investigations, fact-checking of public debate, and government transparency control. As an outlet that fully relies on readers’ support, in 2019 OKO found one more way to gather donations. That year the foundation gained the status of a public benefit organisation (PBO). According to Polish fiscal law, payers of personal income tax can contribute 1.5% of their total annual tax liability to specific Polish public welfare organisations. This doesn’t require any cost or a lot of effort. People just pick the organisation from the register, and Polish tax authorities will transfer 1.5% of the already paid taxes on their behalf directly to the organisation’s account.

In 2023 Polish residents donated close to 3.5 billion euros from taxes. Compared to last year, fewer people made donations, but with higher amounts, according to the statement from the Polish Ministry of Finance. OKO.press also enjoyed an upward trend here. In 2023 the readers donated to the publisher more than EUR 530,000, which is 56.5% higher than last year. In 2022 OKO saw an 83% year-to-year growth in tax donations, which makes this revenue stream quite important.

Together with local and foreign grants, 1.5% tax transfers constitute 30% of the publisher’s income. The rest consists mostly of regular contributions from approximately 8500 readers monthly. Average regular donations vary from 6 to 11 EUR per month, giving together with one-time payments of around EUR 74,400 monthly, according to OKO.press Marketing & Fundraising manager.

*Paweł Cybulski, Marketing & Fundraising Manager at OKO.press (photo: courtesy of OKO.press, author: Mikołaj Maluchnik)*

The average OKO.press monthly budget for now is around EUR 191,700, which is enough for stable development, Cybulski added. The publisher has never tested external paid subscription services, preferring to have full control of reader revenue and develop its own platform.

How to convince readers to donate

The answer is: make the audience trust you. For OKO.press it means regularly covering problematic topics such as government corruption and political manipulations of different parties, abuses of the Polish Catholic Church, the humanitarian crisis on the Polish-Belarusian border, and news about politics and the Russian war against Ukraine.

The second pillar of OKO.press reputation is clear communication and transparency. There’s a separate page on the publisher’s website dedicated to 1,5% tax donations. It contains instructions on how to donate and a report of revenues and costs from the last year. The biggest expense line is salaries for almost 60 employees (38%), IT services and marketing (27%) and administrative / legal services, accountancy (15%). OKO.press undergoes an annual financial audit even without a statutory obligation to do so and says it does not pay dividends or bonuses to the executive board, having a fairly flat pay scale.

This year’s fundraising campaign for tax donations focused on short fact-checking videos, published on Instagram, YouTube, Twitter, and TikTok. “By showing how we verify the statements of public figures, we also encouraged people to support our work. This tactic turned out to be effective and was well received by our readers”, Cybulski explained.

Throughout March and April OKO.press checked statements made by politicians in two-minute videos on questions ranging from the number of homes built by Poland’s ruling party to how many Poles helped Jews during the Second World War. At the end of each video, there was a call to donate 1.5% of taxes to OKO.press.

The most popular video from that period debunked the statement of Krzysztof Bosak, leader of the radical Konfederacja (“Confederation”) party – often labeled as pro-Russian – that the famous “Confederation’s five” is an old slogan taken out of context, which doesn’t represent its program. OKO.press proved that the motto “We don’t want Jews, homosexuals, abortions, taxes, and European Union” was circulated by its members all the time. The video gained 219,800 views on TikTok, 64,000 on YouTube, and 76,900 on Instagram.

*Screenshot from OKO.press TikTok account, depicting the moment when Krzysztof Bosak says “This is a quote from a few years ago taken out of context”*

The video series was also accompanied by an article letter from the editor-in-chief titled “For 1.5% of taxes you will get 100% of OKO.press journalism. Your profit = 98.5%”. Pacewicz recounted how the newsroom cuts costs due to inflation, and observes large drops in traffic from Facebook, just like other publishers. He asked readers for stronger support in the form of tax donations, not only focusing on the problems but also informing them about new content formats and the achievements of his team.

“Thanks to open communication, our readers and donors know perfectly well how we spend the money received from them and how the support turns into the functioning of the newsroom. By explaining certain things directly to our audience, we can also appeal to them when the situation is more difficult”, Cybulski told The Fix.

However, the factor of the political situation in Poland this year was also significant. October 2023, the parliament election month, was the best in terms of traffic for OKO.press this year so far. The publisher noted a more than 60% spike compared to the average monthly number of real users, attracting 2.5 million in October, according to Gemius Mediapanel data.

*OKO.press* editorial team (photo: courtesy of *OKO.press*, author: Mikołaj Maluchnik)

Moreover, October was a record-breaking month in terms of financial support from the readers. Cybulski explains it with published daily content and coverage discussing, for example, the election campaign, but for that period the team also prepared special fundraising communications. The new weekly video cycle “Political Programme”, launched three months before the elections by OKO.press could play a significant role here as well. It focuses on key political events in the country and enjoys stable viewership on the publisher’s channels.

“The political situation in Poland has been changing quite significantly in recent weeks, which will undoubtedly have an impact on our coverage. However, what will not change is that we constantly prepare the highest quality materials: analyses, investigations, interviews, reports, and news. All of it is appreciated by our readers, and they want to support our great journalistic work. We believe that they will stay with us regardless of who rules in Poland”, Cybulski said.

Source of the cover photo: courtesy of OKO.press

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How Polish publisher OKO.press earned over half a million euros from readers' tax donations