Mondo Radio Emergency Fundraiser

Who are we

We’re a DIY radio station based in Sheffield, in the historic building that was The Night Kitchen/DLS. Up to this point, the project has been completely self-funded. Our computer and DJ setup have broken and we don’t have the resources to replace them. We’re launching this crowdfunder to try to buy new equipment and keep Mondo Radio alive.

There are 5 people in the internal team - Dan, Ed, Maddy, Chris and Amina. Behind the scenes, we run the day-to-day operations at Mondo Radio. We have volunteer producers Danny, Adam, Ash, and Yan who help us run the streams too. We don’t pay ourselves or our volunteers, and any money made goes straight back into funding the station.

Between us we’re students, full-time workers, artists, and DJ’s, who’ve dedicated their time, money and energy to maintaining a platform for expression through music. We’re a resident community of 60+ strong, made up of DJ’s and musicians primarily based in Sheffield and the north.

We’ve expanded into collaborating with writers, visual artists, photographers and live musicians as of late to foster a community we’re so proud to call Mondo Radio.

Why we need to crowdfund

Running an online Radio station that doesn’t run ads and doesn’t work with corporate sponsors isn’t a cheap project to run.

We try to keep all of our activities including workshops, book launches, panel discussions, club nights and concerts free of charge, or as affordable as possible, to ensure that it is as accessible as possible. This means that we don’t generate enough income to buy the most expensive bits of equipment needed to run the station.

Up to now, that equipment has been bought from our own pockets, but due to the rising cost of living and difficulties in our personal situations, that’s just not possible. The money that we’re looking to raise will allow us to buy the equipment we need to continue the station with a good level of future-proofing, and will allow us to focus on public fundraising to make the station more self-sustaining.

How you can help

In order for the campaign to be successful, we need to raise the money to replace the broken equipment. We estimate we need £750 for a downpayment on decks and a mixer. £1300 will help us buy a computer with the right spec.

That being said, we know that times are incredibly difficult financially for the majority of people that interact with the station. Monetary donations are the best way to ensure the survival of Mondo Radio, but if you are unable to donate, please consider sharing this to spread this message via Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Twitter, in your social circles and beyond.

******* UPDATE! We reached our 2k goal!**********

​​We are shocked and in awe of the community we have. We have reached our goal to cover the initial minimum costs to run our day-to-day streams and we are overwhelmed by the support and kindness everyone has poured into this.

We didn’t know if we would hit the minimum payment we needed, but we don’t know why we doubted the strong community we have to make that happen. The £2000 we’ve raised so far will cover the cost of a computer to stream off and the downpayment on vital equipment.

Because of the energy of this campaign, we have decided to extend the goal to help secure the future of the station.

Our initial target was essentially the bare minimum amount we needed to ensure that we could continue to broadcast, and by increasing the goal we have the opportunity to buy the equipment outright as opposed to financing them, which makes the future of our station much more secure.

This is far from the only cost that we will incur as a station, so any extra funds will go towards being able to insure the equipment, and hopefully funding more community projects and events within our space.

And after that we would love to get our space licensable so we could continue to welcome you all to events outside of radio hours and create some revenue to support the station through a bar.

Over May and the rest of summer we want to work with the community to reach this longer term security goal. The ideas that the community have brought forward to us include music events, food vending, clothes sales, donating merchandise and tickets for raffles which have been beautiful. We endeavour to make these happen to add to the pot of money we have raised for our future security.

We can't express how grateful we are for the response this fundraiser has seen so far, and the collective effort of our residents and friends paints a very clear picture of how impactful small, DIY community projects like this can be.