Makers Grant Fund.
Can we do it, together?

This week we headed over to threads, our go to platform for dropping half thought-out ideas, to see what the appetite for them is.

First, some background on the idea: Kate and I want to do more for the maker community.

We see a lot of amazing makers struggling to get started or to make the next step. Whatever it may be - we want to help with that.

The Idea: A We Are Makers Grant.

We want to be able to offer 4x grants, 4x yearly (quarterly) to makers, craftspeople, and artists.

How will we go about this?

Well as many of you know, we are NOT well funded, we are bootstrapping this.

However we are hard working and are wicked good at making a plan and sticking to budget.

The fund will be fully funded by magazine subscription sales.

11% of all our subscriptions will go into this quarterly pot to fund a minimum of 4 makers a year to complete a project/ buy some new kit/ pay for a photoshoot or course to improve their practice no matter where in the world they are.

This will then be followed up 6 months later with a feature in the We Are Makers magazine, so you the reader can see where the money goes.

The Pot: 11% of all sales.

The grant pot will be 11% of sales.

NOT 11% of profits or 11% after we take our x, y, and z. This is 11% off of the top line.

“But surely you don’t have the margins to cope with that and still pay yourself?”

You're right we don’t.

But we will if you help.

The Golden Number: 2500

This is only achievable if we hit 2500 subscribers to our magazine.

We are currently approaching 400 magazine subs (in the first year of launching a subscription based model), we have a newsletter with 15,500+ weekly readers, 41,500 instagram followers, 3200 + Youtube subs.

So we are confident by the end of 2025 we can be presenting our first grant to at least one talented maker.

We are looking at ways to keep you upto date with the subscriber count regularly at the minute.

How can a small husband and wife team bootstrapping their dream pull this off?

Well like I said above, we cant right now, but at 2500 subs we can.

Why 2500 subs?

2500 subs opens us up to huge quantity discounts in printing and much more ad sale/ sponsored content leverage.

How much can we really expect to offer?

At 2500 subscribers 11% is a whopping £3,960 ($4,943/ €4,710) that we, as a community, can award to a maker to give them the bump they need.

We really have done the numbers here and worked out the maximum we can offer.

It does mean there is no money left over for paid advertising so we are relying on all of you to help us make this happen by simply sharing what we do with your friends family and social.

You in?

Reply “Yes” or reply and tell us what you would use this grant for.

If you are really in and want to get involved straight away you can subscribe today here

Some of the messages we received: