Ending Co-Optober with a $50,000 donation to food banks!

Posted by Stacey Molski on 27th October 2023

Co-Optober officially ends today! We’ve all had a great month celebrating co-ops with you, and we hope that you have, too.

This week of Co-Optober has been all about co-ops doing good in their communities, so it seemed very fitting to end the week with one of our favorite annual traditions: donating the money we raised during our last charity sale!

Donating $50,000 to five food banks

After the last MaxFunDrive, we ran a special sale where all of our $10+ members could buy as many stickers as they wanted. Thanks to our members’ generosity during our MaxFunDrive 2023 sticker sale, we raised $50,000 to distribute equally between five different food banks!

Logos for five food banks: Banco de Alimentos Puerto Rico, Food Bank of Northeast Louisiana, Merced County Food Bank, Second Harvest of South Georgia, and Food Bank of Rio Grande Valley

These donations will add up to over 225,000 meals across all five food banks. That’s going to do a lot of good for a lot of people who really need help.

We’ve been running an annual post-drive charity sale for several years now, starting with a donation to the Los Angeles Regional Food Bank in 2017. Last Tuesday, a team of MaxFun worker-owners went back to the LARFB for a day of volunteering. Working together with another group of volunteers, we assembled almost 900 food donation boxes!

Seven MaxFun worker-owners standing at the Los Angeles Regional Food Bank, holding a sign that reads "Total Kits: 896. Wow! #WeFeedLA"

Since 2017, our incredible members have helped us raise more than $600,000 for eleven charities. Thank you so much to everyone who’s participated in the charity sales since they started—and a big thank you to the employees and volunteers at food banks, who work tirelessly to help their communities.

Co-Optober comes to an end

Co-Optober has been a wild but very fun ride—while we’re no stranger to events, we’ve never put on anything quite like this before!

It was so great to share info about the cooperative model, spotlight other co-ops doing great work, chat with audience members who are interested in forming a co-op, and talk about why we love co-ops so dang much.

Interviews, a worker-owner Q&A, and more

Check out what we’ve gotten up to over the past month:

Or, if you’re more of a video person:

A screenshot of the YouTube video featuring Julian, Bikram, Gabe, and Stacey and question from an audience member on the screen

Hanging with MaxFun HQ – Co-Op Q&A:
MaxFun worker-owner Julian Burrell moderated a chat with Board members Gabe Mara, Stacey Molski, and Bikram Chatterji.

A screenshot from The Roundtable featuring Bikram, Michelle, Jasper, and Evan

Creative Co-op Roundtable: Moderated by Bikram Chatterji and featuring Michelle Sadler from Stocksy, Jasper Wang from Defector, and Evan Edwards from Project Equity, the non-profit that helped MaxFun become a co-op.

Co-Optober merch final call!

While Co-Optober ends today, our member-exclusive merch will still be available until the end of October! All of these items—our comfortable T-shirts, ultra-cozy hoodie, cool hat, and sleek enamel pin—are only going to be available until the night of October 31, so if you want something, make sure to snag it before it’s gone.

If you’re already a member, you can get your merch by going to maximumfun.org/manage and requesting a magic link. Follow the magic link to your membership dashboard, then tap the button for the merch store!

If you’re not a member, you can sign up at maximfunfun.org/join for as little as $5/mo, then follow the instructions above to get your merch!

Supporting MaxFun beyond Co-Optober

About 70% of Maximum Fun’s funding comes directly from audience contributions. This means that…

  • We can keep ads to a minimum, with just a few short ads per episode
  • We don’t have corporate investors pressuring us to go against our values, so our creators can make their shows exactly how they want
  • We get to make all of the decisions about how we use our resources and money, which means we can keep doing good in our communities

Every single member—whether they give us $5 a month or $100—directly helps us keep our network afloat and ensures that all of our shows can keep making cool art. If you want to support the network and help ensure our long-term sustainability, becoming a member is the best way to do that!

If you can’t become a member but still want to support the network, we completely understand. Here are other ways you can support us:

  1. Buy some of the MaxFunHQ merch available in our online store
  2. Make a one-time contribution towards our operating costs
  3. Spread the word about us to help us grow our shows and our network!

Thank you so much to everyone who participated in Co-Optober—whether you bought merch, shared our posts on social media, made a contribution, asked us questions, or just followed along as we went on this ride. It warms all of our hearts to know how many people care about the network.

We’ll be back in your inbox next month with a special announcement—we want to keep it a secret for now, but we’re excited to unveil the mystery soon!