Who pays for The Overseen, and what they get

The Overseen is a nonprofit. In 2025 our revenue was $3.41 million. Fifty-eight percent came from foundations, 27 percent from more than 6,800 individual members and donors, and the rest from events, licensing our reporting to other publications, and sponsorship. We spent $3.27 million, nearly three-quarters of it on the newsroom.

That money pays for 16 people and the records requests, forensic work and legal review that our stories need. Every investigation we have published about phone surveillance, license plate networks or the companies that finance hospital equipment has cost more than a year’s membership revenue from the readers who asked for it.

Starting today, we will publish a small number of sponsored posts, labeled “Partner content,” from organizations that want to reach our readers. The first is from Tellwright Systems, a company we have reported on and will keep reporting on. We know how that looks. We discussed it for three months before saying yes.

These are the rules:

• Partner content is written by the partner, not by The Overseen. It is labeled at the top and bottom, and carries a different design from our journalism.
• No one in our newsroom writes, edits or approves partner content. It is handled by our development team, which has no say over what we report.
• Partners do not see our reporting before it is published, and get no notice of it beyond what any subject of a story gets: the chance to answer our questions.
• We will list every partner and the amount it paid on our funding page each year.
• If a partner asks us to change, delay or drop a story, we will tell you.

Partner content will be a small share of our revenue: we expect less than 6 percent this year. If it ever affects a decision in our newsroom, it will stop.

You can read about our finances, our largest donors and our board on our about page. If you have questions, write to us at hello@theoverseen.org.