If you like what THEGAYUK.com does then please consider donating to keep us alive
We’re aiming to be ad-free and we can with your help. With Facebook and Google hoovering up most of the ad spend in the UK, it’s never been harder to be a publisher – let alone a niché publisher.
If you like what we do please consider helping us out so THEGAYUK can continue to exist.
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Our supporters
With thanks to these generous supporters for their contributions.
Anna Goodman
Chris Smith
Craig Buchanan
FAQ
Why is THEGAYUK.com asking for money?
We envisage a website cleared of clunky, annoying and editorially limiting adverts. Did you know that many ad platforms, including Facebook’s, will not monetize our content because of its “adult” nature – but they’ll happily monetize that of Cosmopolitan‘s, the Daily Mail’s and Men’s Health’s – go figure?
This policy of targetting us for non-monetization has left THEGAYUK.com in a precarious situation. In order for us to cover the stories that matter to a gay, bisexual and curious audience we’re asking that our readers make a small contribution.
Who collects the money for THEGAYUK.com
We’ve teamed up with DonorBox to help us administrate donations to the website.
How much can I donate?
We’ve set up a number of Tiers from just £1 to £30. These can be donated as a one-off, monthly or quarterly gift to us. You can also donate a custom amount, if you wish.
Hello from the Founders.
When we started THEGAYUK.com back in early 2012, we set out to create a media platform for the gay community that was completely different from what else was offered on the market. We opened our platform to new writers and contributors who had never written for anyone else. We called our space a platforum, part platform, part forum. We wanted to give space to anyone with ideas, regardless of their politics, race, creed, sex, gender or indeed their sexuality, who needed a place to let their creativity flourish and gain traction.
We’re so happy to say that some of our very earliest contributors are still with us. Some have gone to land their dream jobs at other publications and some dip in from time to time. Some have visited far-flung countries, some have reviewed countless shows, some have even undergone cosmetic surgery to see how effective it was, some have bared their souls for us – every piece of content is treasured and appreciated.
In our time we’ve interviewed Lords, pop stars, soap stars, MPs, gay icons, (we even asked Cheryl Baker if she knew what poppers were). We’ve covered the heartache of some of the loss visited upon our community, we’ve witnessed and shared some of the most significant improvements in legislation for the LGBT+ community. We’ve also saved a cow from slaughter.
We started a digital magazine; we opened the UK’s first online sexual health clinic, we’ve provided free legal advice to scores of people, we began a free condom through the post service, we’ve opened a shop, we’ve media sponsored over 40 Prides across the UK. We’ve travelled thousands of miles every year to get to know about the people of the country we proudly have as part of our name – and never once charged a penny for the service we’ve provided.
It’s taken a long time to get where we are today. As a truly independent company, we’ve never sought money from investors, a huge publishing firm didn’t create us, and we weren’t (and still aren’t) internet millionaires who were able to pump in wads of cash into our baby.
What we have done is spent countless hours in front of our computers, uploading, editing, sourcing and publishing thousands of stories from around the globe.
On a marketing budget of just £2300 (over five years), 36000 hours from us, and a lot of help from our contributors, we’ve grown THEGAYUK.com into an entirely different platform from our competitors. Every follower on our social media is real, every mistake we’ve made, an honest one (and learned from), every comment, like and reaction to our platform listened to and heard.
There has been a lot of change over the years since we started. Online advertising has plummeted, social networks change their algorithms regularly, making it hard for us to get our message to every one of our subscribers, and the media itself is under attack – sometimes fairly sometimes dangerously.
(Here’s the grovel) If every one of our readers gave just £1 we’d fund THEGAYUK.com for the next DECADE (at current expenditure) ensuring that this brand, this entity, this home for many, can continue to connect, entertain and empower the LGBT+ community in the UK.
Thank you for reading