Help ex-Messenger Employees Left Without Severance

This is a fundraiser organized for and by ex-employees of The Messenger, which abruptly shut down on Jan. 31 after less than a year of operations. That day — not only did we discover our company was closing from other media outlets and not our own leadership — we also found out that the company would not be providing its nearly 300-person staff severance or healthcare of any kind.

Working through this traumatic incident over the past few days has been challenging. It’s been even more stressful knowing that many of us don’t have a safety net for support while we look for a new job. While we are doing the best we can to move forward under the circumstances, such as applying for unemployment and emergency health insurance coverage as well as filing a lawsuit against our former employer, we face an uphill journey, and would greatly appreciate any support for our staff.

All the funds collected will go to laid off employees to help them cover bills, living expenses, medicine, groceries, childcare, and health insurance costs, among others. To be clear: The funds collected will not be used for legal expenses, but rather to help those among us who live paycheck to paycheck and are in dire need.

We know that it’s a difficult time for everyone in media and stand in solidarity with our laid off colleagues at other publications. With this is mind, please only give what you can.

Thank you in advance from the bottom of our hearts for any support you can provide.

–

More info: We’re Jody Serrano and Mónica Zorrilla, previously tech and entertainment reporters at The Messenger. These donations are going to staffers laid off at The Messenger in January. We’ll be collecting the funds and then directly distributing them equally among staffers who opt-in through the payment app of their choice. We firmly believe in transparency and will publish a report that includes the number of people that were helped by these donations and proof that they received the funds — without disclosing personal information out of respect for their privacy — after the fundraiser.