Taking Back Saturday
“We’re sports people. We like to score.”
I have a galaxy-brained theory that the most effective fundraisers in the country aren’t politicians or the heads of major foundations, but a pair of Atlanta-based college football bloggers.
Two decades ago, Spencer Hall—best known as the creator of Every Day Should Be Saturday, a site covering college football with a mix of analytical skills and many inside jokes—decided to raise money for refugees in the Atlanta area. Hall had worked for a refugee services organization before pivoting to writing, so he put out the call to his readers and raised a few thousand dollars. After a couple of years of this, he and Holly Anderson, his fellow blogger, had an idea: Why not use college football rivalries to raise even more money? There’s nothing fans love more than destroying their most hated opponent, they figured, so they’d make the fundraiser a competition. Fans began donating in honor of their favorite team, often choosing the amount based on a significant number, like the score of a big game. The #CharitibundiBowl was born. The fundraiser continued after Vox Media bought Every Day Should Be Saturday, and after Hall and Anderson left the company, in 2020.
Related Knowledge Center: State of the business model
The traditional journalism business model has long since collapsed, and news organizations have shrunk or disappeared entirely. While a number of promising experiments are under way, the public has not shown a willingness to buy what news organizations are selling.