Donate & Support

Help Support Science for the People

Science for the People needs your help! Since 2009, we've been bringing you weekly science and critical thinking themed interviews to the radio airwaves and as a freely downloadable podcast. Now we're asking for your support to keep the show freely distributed and advertising-free.

The best way for you to help is to become a Patreon Subscriber which allows you to set up a recurring monthly donation of any value.

Celebrating Science Birthdays with our Patreons!

Once a year, for Patreon supporters donating $5 per month or higher, we'll send you a card and other cool merch celebrating an important – but lesser known – scientist on their birthday. This lovely birthday card will include custom commissioned artwork and a delightful poem about the scientist's life and achievements.

Every year we'll pick a different scientist whose birthday we're celebrating!

To get 2019's Science Birthday merch, sign up as a $5/month or greater Patreon by no later than July 31!

Become a Patreon

Other Ways To Support The Show

You can also use the Pay Pal donate button below, which allows you to support us with a one time donation in any amount, if that works better for you. An ongoing monthly re-curring donation is the most help, but we understand that isn't for everyone. We also don't have a good way to provide the Patreon rewards and extras to supporters who choose Pay Pal, so if you really want all the extra goodies we recommend checking out Patreon.

You can also use the Amazon Affiliate links in the Bookshelf section of our website, or on the Episode pages to support Science for the People while shopping. For every book or item you buy after clicking these links, we get a little kick back, usually around $0.50.

Shop Amazon.com (US) Shop Amazon.ca (CAN)

Why We Need Help

Everyone who works on Science for the People – the hosts, our editors, and the rest of our entire wonderful team – are dedicated volunteers, and for the first 5 years we funded the show directly out of our own pockets. The show has always been a labour of love for us, and we work for the first years at a net loss.

We want to keep the show freely distributed to anyone and everyone who wants to listen, but our pockets are only so deep. Now we're asking for your support to help keep us going.

If you have enjoyed listening to Science for the People and want us to keep going strong and putting out new shows every week, please consider becoming a Patreon and making a small monthly donation to support the show. Every dollar helps offset our out of pocket costs and allows us to keep focused on doing what we do best, which is bringing you weekly interviews with science researchers, journalists, authors, and bloggers.

Our Current Costs

Here's where the pocket money goes right now.

  • Website hosting and MP3 hosting & bandwidth. We've optimized our system to strike a balance between being fast and easy to maintain, flexible for changes, and as cheap as we can get it given those two other requirements. This is by far our largest cost.
  • Higher tier internet. Hate when the audio cuts or drops out? We do too! Our hosts have significantly upped what they pay monthly for top tier, higher speed internet at home so they can get the best upload and download speeds possible, which makes for the best sound.
  • Pro Dropbox file sharing. Our team is in 3 different countries and 5 different cities, so we send a lot of large audio files around via Dropbox. We have paid accounts they wouldn't otherwise have.
  • Skype calling credit. We try and encourage as many of our guests to use Skype accounts as possible, but we still call many of our guests on their phones, which Skype charges for.
  • Studio recording equipment. Our hosts live in different cities in 3 different countries, so we've all created our own studios. We run on a lean setup, which impacts the sound quality. And sometimes our equipment breaks down or needs to be replaced.
  • Portable recording equipment. Live panels at conferences are a ton of fun, but require a different setup than a home studio.
  • Backup drives and cloud subscriptions. We once had a computer failure and lost a handful of interviews, and vowed "never again". Everyone has backups. Some people have two.

Wall Of Thanks

The below list of wonderful people have been added to the Wall Of Thanks as Patreon supporters who donate $10 or more per month. Thanks for your support!