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The Bank of Nerdfighteria

2024-01-16 · announcement · John · 5:37 · watch on YouTube

Topic: Global development (also: Nerdfighteria) · mode: Personal essay · tags: recurring series, fundraising ask, self promotion, community lore, heavy topic

In a suited Bank of Nerdfighteria semi-annual report, John tallies its two arms (Good Store's merch donations, almost $3.5 million last year, and the Project for Awesome's roughly $12 million since 2007) and argues a secret third arm, advocacy that pushed Johnson & Johnson and Danaher on tuberculosis drugs and tests, may matter most, since time and attention matter as well as money.

What is said

The parts of the video and what is said in each (★ — how much it matters to the video).

00:00:00 — Suit and the Bank of Nerdfighteria's semi-annual report: two arms and a secret third

00:00:22 — Good Store arm: Sierra Leone project, Awesome Socks Club, merch donations by year, Cancer Socks

  • ★★ In 2019 the community began supporting Partners In Health's efforts to radically reduce maternal and child mortality in Sierra Leone's Kono District. — 00:00:25 · Nerdfighteria, Partners In Health, maternal death, child mortality, Sierra Leone · also in: The Tea
  • ★★ John says the maternal and infant care center at Koidu Government Hospital is nearly finished: they are painting it right now. — 00:00:32 · Maternal Center of Excellence, Koidu Government Hospital
  • ★★ John says some of the maternal and infant care center's wards will open this year (2024). — 00:00:40 · Maternal Center of Excellence
  • ★★ Needing long-term ongoing funding for the Sierra Leone commitment, the brothers started the Awesome Socks Club, a sock subscription, and later launched Good Store with coffee and soap subscriptions too. — 00:00:40 · Awesome Socks Club, Good Store, Sierra Leone
  • ★★★ Across all their merch projects the brothers donated about $268,000 in 2019 and $598,000 in 2020, then, after a huge jump, almost $3.5 million in 2023 alone. — 00:00:57 · Good Store
  • ★★ John says keeping up that growth in donations will be really challenging, mostly because the company and Nerdfighteria got a ton of media attention last year (2023) for something they do not want to repeat. — 00:01:16 · Good Store, Nerdfighteria
  • ★★ Most of the money still comes from the Awesome Socks Club, but coffee and soap are growing, and Pizzamas grew last year (2023) too. — 00:01:31 · Awesome Socks Club, Pizzamas
  • ★★ Beyond the Sierra Leone maternal and child care project, Hank's Cancer Socks raised over $350,000 this year (2024) to support better cancer care in impoverished communities. — 00:01:43 · Hank's Cancer Socks, Hank Green, Sierra Leone
  • ★ The merch money also supports increasing access to tuberculosis care. — 00:01:52 · tuberculosis
  • ★★★ The idea from the start was that by working with really talented people, starting businesses could raise more money than the brothers could ever donate on their own, and that has happened. — 00:01:55 · Good Store

00:02:08 — Project for Awesome arm: totals, P4A 2024 matching fund ask, Foundation to Decrease World Suck

00:03:17 — The secret third arm: tuberculosis advocacy with Johnson & Johnson and Danaher, and why time and attention matter

  • ★★★ The Bank of Nerdfighteria's secret third arm, whose power was really unleashed in the last year and which involves no spending or donating of money, is advocacy. — 00:03:17 · Bank of Nerdfighteria
  • ★★★ In 2023 the community helped convince Johnson & Johnson to abandon all secondary patents on the tuberculosis drug bedaquiline, which has already lowered prices and made it more accessible where it is most needed. — 00:03:28 · Nerdfighteria
  • ★★★ TB fighters in the community pressured Danaher to lower the price of its tuberculosis tests; the effort is ongoing but has already cut the standard test's price and won a pledge not to profit from it in impoverished communities. — 00:03:44
  • ★★ John says these tuberculosis advocacy efforts still have a long way to go and the community is not the only or even the primary driver behind them, but it has played a really important role. — 00:04:05 · Nerdfighteria
  • ★★★ The Global Fund recently estimated that Danaher's price reduction alone will save $32 million over the next three years, letting millions more people get accurate, fast tuberculosis tests. — 00:04:15
  • ★★ Not all of those savings are due to Nerdfighteria: Partners In Health, Doctors Without Borders, the Treatment Action Group and many TB survivors have worked for these changes for years. — 00:04:25 · Partners In Health
  • ★★★ Supposing Nerdfighteria's share of that change were 20%, John reckons advocacy created a bigger financial win for global health equity than Good Store and the Project for Awesome combined. (speculative) — 00:04:42 · health equity, Good Store, Project for Awesome
  • ★★★ How we spend our money is not the only thing that matters; how we spend time and attention matters too, and Nerdfighteria's TB advocacy made possible changes that could never have been bought or sold. — 00:04:52 · Nerdfighteria, tuberculosis

00:05:15 — Thanks to everyone taking part, sign-off

In the description and comments

Threads in this video

Where the stories that moved here went next

Mentioned

Central: Bank of Nerdfighteria · Good Store · Project for Awesome · tuberculosis

Also: Projects: Awesome Socks Club · DFTBA Records · Foundation to Decrease World Suck · Pizzamas · TBFighters

Works: Hank's Cancer Socks

Organizations: Danaher Corporation · Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria · Johnson & Johnson · Koidu Government Hospital · Maternal Center of Excellence · Partners In Health · Save the Children

Terms: doobly-doo

Concepts: child mortality · evergreening · health equity · maternal death

Places: Kono District · Sierra Leone

Products: Bedaquiline

Only in the description or credits: Médecins Sans Frontières · Navajo Nation · Treatment Action Group · United States

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