gal-dem.com

Project aim

gal-dem.com is a creative online magazine comprised of almost 50 women of colour. Most of our team are based in the UK, but we do have a few from farther afield including the States and South America. The aim of gal-dem is to open up our take on the world to a wider audience. We want people of different shapes, sizes, sexes and ethnic backgrounds to engage with the work we are doing. It is no secret that the mainstream media doesn’t represent or reflect us, so we are doing it for ourselves.

gal-dem was started by Liv who, frustrated with the lack of diversity at her university, wanted to reach out to women of colour like herself. The team began to grow and we now have contributors who come from all walks of life. The gal-dem girl gang is here –  and we are ready to provide you with thought-provoking content, eye-catching visuals and an abundance of giggles.

What are people saying about us?

Why do we need money?

Firstly, everyone is pumping their time and skills into the production of gal-dem.com for free (we are mostly students). However, there are some expenditures which are preventing us from moving forward.

We require funding to keep our website updated with innovative creative content including videos, podcasts and articles. Our website itself needs to be custom built, in order to iron out all of the flaws with our current model. 

For now, the priority is website design, for which we have been quoted between £400 and £1100. As we are an online publication, our website needs to be perfect. Now that enough people are engaging with our work, it is time to update. We have experienced several glitches which are due to a combination of factors, including our web hosting site, and use of generic theme. We are trying to compete in a market saturated with beautiful websites, creating beautiful content. It is important to have a website which is fast, can work on multiple platforms and can hold and showcase multiple forms of media; articles, podcasts, guest mixes and short films. Our new website will;  allow us to  generate income through ad space, so we can become self-sufficient.

The website designer will:

• create a beautiful, user friendly site - it will be fun, attractive and easy to understand. We also want to create interactive elements to the website, so that you can get involved!
• teach the team how to use the website, so we can be self sufficient.

We are girls with big plans and intend to put on a series of talks, workshops (our first women's prison workshop has been completed), screenings and other events.  

The goal of these events is to showcase and support the work of women of colour. While our time is currently free, there are other expenses such as booking spaces, equipment hire and promotional materials which we have to contend with.  All the money which is left from website design will be channelled into these areas. You as crowdfunders, will be able to come along and enjoy the events which we put on!