Do you ever feel upset by the way Islam is represented? Do you feel like the media isn’t telling the whole story, let alone all our stories? That was us, too, until we decided to stop waiting and start storytelling. We launched Avenue M, a YouTube channel and media project that’ll be our voice in the world. And for the world. Serious, smart, compelling, raw, real. We take the world seriously.
But we don’t take ourselves too seriously.
And we need $12,000 to take Avenue M to the next level.
With $12,000, we’ll make it possible to produce three amazing new series, on a platform that’s free and accessible to huge numbers of people all over the world. A small amount of money with a massive impact. With your financial support, we’ll be able to provide the high-quality content we need, from video editing to research to guests, animation and advertising.
We need your resources to hit the ground running.
Because we have the experience, the track record, the audience.
The Avenue M team has worked with media from MTV to NBC, CNN to FOX News, BBC and Al Jazeera. Our broad experience means bring years worth of professional insights into the content we have planned out for the coming year. We know what’ll work, because we know very well what doesn’t. The success of our first series–produced on a minimal budget–speaks to our potential.
We launched Avenue M this Ramadan with out first series, Confession–faith is lost and found one minute at a time. (We promise you’ll be hooked.)
It’s a Ramadan series with an American spin. There’s a new episode every day, each only a minute long, and thirty episodes in total. The reception has been extraordinary. In just two weeks: Hundreds of subscribers. Tens of thousands of views. Emails and messages from viewers who felt, for the first time, like they weren’t alone, that someone else got what it meant to grow up Muslim in America. We’ve even gotten coverage on CNN!
And Confession is only the beginning. Our second project, Loud and Clear, talks about issues too few of us do. Watch the first video, just four minutes long: An Attack on Any Mosque is an Attack on All Mosques. Made with a limited budget, the effect was unmistakeable. Shared hundreds of times on Facebook, viewed over 67,000 times. It proves what we’ve felt in our work experience for years: Muslims yearn to have someone tell their stories, and are frustrated no one does.
Let’s do there. Let’s get there. That’s the spirit behind Avenue M: Working together to tell our stories, say who we are, and speak for ourselves.
We have so many more stories to share. So many more myths to challenge. So many more truths to tell.
Please join us! Contribute what you can, and share this message and this project with your friends and networks. But you can help in so many other simple ways: Watch and share Avenue M however you can–by email, by word of mouth, on Facebook or Twitter. (You can follow us on Twitter @AvenueMeem.)
The more views we get, the more subscribers we get; the more we share, the more we say, and the more we give Muslims a voice on a YouTube channel that reaches from one end of the world to another.
Let’s make it happen together.