Summary

We are creating a new series unlike anything streaming or on TV.

Award-winning journalist Ben Swann travels the globe on a quest to uncover personal stories of struggle and success from people who are working to advance the betterment of the human condition

This is Global Activist—a series about people who aren't waiting for the world to change.

There are uprisings, demonstrations and public calls to action happening this very moment that are underreported or completely ignored by institutionalized media—the People’s Liberation Army in China; the #BlackLivesMatter movement in the United States; the “pots and pans” revolution in Iceland; open carry activists in Texas; environmental protesters getting killed in Brazil; the protests for the 43 missing students in Mexico. In this series, Ben Swann and Jasmine Monroig give voice to activists from these movements and others, who are creating change in the NEW global protest movement.

Protests are only a small part of the activist movement building across the globe. Activism involves art, culture, organization, information and education. Styled after embedded journalism, we take you through a process of understanding how and why movements across the world are demanding reform and change from banking, government, policing and political powers.

We will reveal activist movements that are just beginning, others that have succeeded and still others that have failed. We delve into the background of these movements, the people who are organizing them and the protesters who are calling for change, as we explore what that change looks like.

Challenge & Risk

Our goal throughout this process is to realize the concept of Global Activist and make it an ongoing project. The challenge is to demonstrate to streaming networks the strong grassroots interest in this subject matter, with the intention of securing mass distribution of the content created here. The risk is that interest in this project will be limited. But with your help, we believe we can minimize that risk. Plus, the format of Global Activist following the "embedded journalism" style will broaden appeal.

How You Can Help

To launch what we believe will be the first season of the Global Activist series, we need to create a single pilot, half-hour episode. At a rate of $50,000 per episode, we have slimmed down production and creation costs to one-sixth (⅙) of what a network would create the same show for. Slimming down that cost does not mean we are cutting back on quality. Here’s how we’ve worked out our budget:

• $35,000 production (director, photojournalists, editors, sound engineers, pre-production, post-production, colorists, graphic editors, design, hosting, equipment)

• $3,000 local show producer

• $3,000 showrunner

• $7,000 travel

• $2,000 web and social

Our production crew and promotional team are made up of world-class talent, willing to slash costs because they believe in the project. Our ultimate goal is to raise the $50,000 needed in under 60 days. To do that, we need your help.

Contribution Perks

We've put together awesome perks in exchange for your contribution to Global Activist. From swag, to your name listed in the credits, to virtual hangouts with the team, to exclusive access to the show—there’s a way to get involved at every contribution tier.

We’re also creating a website for Global Activist to provide exclusive access to the series. There you can find on-location photos, extended cut versions of episodes, behind-the-scenes interviews, and direct access to Ben Swann and the team. Site members can interact with the show by sharing activism they’re involved with and network with other activists from around the world. We’ll have space for you to post activities, demonstrations, informational meetings and other events surrounding protest movements.

Other Ways You Can Help

Obviously we would love for everyone interested in being involved to work with us by contributing financially to this effort. Still, we recognize that there are millions of activists who are networked through social media, email and online platforms. We need your help to activate these people and spread the word about Global Activist in a way that will highlight activism on a variety of fronts.

Sharing on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Instagram and other networks will be critical to the project!

The Impact

Our videos are currently getting viewed over 3.5 million times a month. And now we have a new partnership that will give us a potential audience of hundreds of millions of people AOL and Huffington Post. So, even without a network to carry the show, this series will have impact.

Once we clear the biggest hurdle of this campaign—raising $50,000—we can’t stop there. To make that more meaningful, we need to share more stories, giving voice to a large swath of protest movements happening globally. Connecting our potential audience to these voices is the ultimate goal of Global Activist, and to do that we need to create more episodes. Based on our model, we can produce each episode for $50,000. As such, raising $100,000 supports two (2) episodes, $150,000 supports three (3) episodes, and so on.

To be clear, we are looking at $50,000 for the first episode of the first season of Global Activist. As we raise funds and grow audience support for Global Activist, we will actively work to place the show on networks like Netflix, Hulu, Amazon and HBO to try to get a deal. If we hit our goal before the end of our campaign we will introduce stretch goals in order to maximize the impact.