Birthday Funds for Survive Late Stage Capitalism

Hi, my name is Bora, and I often go by Max.

I am a theatre artist, arts administrator, and maker of things that aim to broaden how people see the world around them.

I've found myself at a complete financial impasse which snuck up on me--and I need help.

I am currently concerned about the gift of an eviction notice for my birthday and worried sick about being unable to continue caring for my poor deaf doggo, Ludwig.

I am seeking financial support to pay the rest of my April rent by early next week and to get through the rest of April. You can read the story of how I effed up so severely below.

But first, here are a few ways you could help:

The details:

15% interest

$500 minimum (I want to make sure I am not borrowing so many small amounts that I cannot keep up on my commitments below)

I will share an anonymized loan report spreadsheet of how much I am borrowing overall and how it breaks down across my total debt burden so you have complete transparency.

While I owe you money, I will share a monthly income & expenses report to provide full transparency on my management of the financial support you've given me.

Total repayment in 3 months (contingent on SBA loan, see below) or 18 months (with monthly payments starting after the first three months)

I have some StoryPunk art objects available at storypunk.myshopify.com, with more coming soon.

You can see a list of services I am starting to offer through StoryPunk and book a 15-minute chat for a quick discussion to determine if there's a fit: https://calendly.com/maxkoknar/15min A full menu of offerings with more detailed descriptions is coming soon!

Regardless of whether you can help through any of the ways above, any resources, contacts, or advice you might be able to share that would guide me in the direction of potential clients, investment/loans, or financial gifts would be an incredible boon as I scramble to figure out my way through this moment.

I cannot stress enough how meaningful and valuable it is to have you introduce me and my work to people outside my networks who may be interested in what I'm trying to do and who may even want to help, even though they don't know me as you do. Feel free to forward this email or send any of the links inside to friends or post about it on social media! Your vote of confidence and boosting of the signal makes all the difference.

Now that's done, here's more of my story:

Since beginning a full-time art career in 2012, I've lived on the edge of survival, occasionally saving for emergencies but never achieving stability.

Taking on a leadership role at the Dragon Theatre in Redwood City, CA, in 2019 with my ex-wife added to the challenge. The $1,000/month salary often involved 60-80 hours of work a week and required me to continue pursuing contract work to make ends meet.

When we took over, we faced a $100,000 budget shortfall due to the departure of the company's angel donor. Still, we managed to balance the budget, stabilize the Dragon, increase my salary to $2,000/month for 2020, and reduce my freelance workload, aiming for personal fiscal balance by 2021/2022 for the first time in nearly a decade.

Then all those plans went out the window in 2020 when the Pandemic forced us to adapt, focusing on fulfilling the organization's mission by providing income and platforms for artists and fostering community connections in challenging times.

By the time I left the company in the summer of 2021 to save my marriage, the Dragon had produced close to 500 individual pandemic-responsive events, paid 100s of artists better rates than we ever had, received recognition via numerous media outlets including the SF Chronicle, AP News, and the American Theatre Magazine, and grown the Dragon bank account used for operating funds from $20,000 when I took over in 2019 to approximately $150,000 through charitable support and the revenue from our pandemic programming. By this point, I had also used up all of the resources I'd been able to squirrel away for survival to get the Dragon there.

After leaving, I transitioned into corporate team-building work, which helped me continue to survive, even with the financial aftermath of a divorce and the medical bills associated with the death of my dog Buster that would soon follow.

During this time, amidst personal turmoil, I began planning StoryPunk. A business that would merge my different artistic backgrounds and interest in technology to solve real-world problems through storytelling while modeling new practices that address the economic inequities in the arts industry that had become apparent to me during the Covid shutdowns.

The slowdown in team-building work during the 2022 Holiday Season led me to finally launch StoryPunk in response to an opportunity to pay myself in January 2023 to develop an inaugural creative project--the first professional theatre production in the United States that had a script created with AI assistance. The project, 'The Super Secret Society: a Playable Play,' took over my life from late December through February.

Due to the recent Silicon Valley layoffs and bank crises, the flow of team-building contracts never picked back up by the time all that was said and done. I was left to deplete my savings and max out my credit cards while seeking other work and recovering from the project.

As the clock began to tick down with no work in sight, I sought a personal line of credit as a last-ditch effort to cover rent and bills while putting out new offerings through StoryPunk and job hunting, I discovered a loan my ex and I had taken out during Covid to make some repairs to my mom's house had come off of auto-payments and gotten reported as delinquent; completely blowing up my credit score.

So now I'm looking for other options to get back on my feet--and the best birthday present in the world would be the gift of time to invest in StoryPunk.

I need to raise ~$2K by early next week to pay off the rest of my rent and an additional ~$4K by the 20th for the rest of this month's bills.

The Nitty Gritty:

My immediate outstanding debt that is past due or about to be is about $2,500, with a total debt load of about $11,000.

A Terminix loan from my past life, currently totaling just under $4000, fell off autopayments at the beginning of the year, resulting in a delinquency on my report and requiring ~$1400 to get caught up. It must have happened during the last banking changes while wrapping up my divorce process.

The fallout is that I am qualified for the bank loans I began seeking to get through this patch.

In addition, I need in the $1750-$2400 range for April living expenses. These include feeding myself and the doggo, insurance for me and the car, cell phone, gas cost required to get to all the work I can secure, meetings needed to get the job, etc.

This range assumes my car and dog remain well enough while pushing off the service and check-up visits for which they are overdue for a bit longer.

All that adds up to an average monthly expense range of $4500-$5500.

My ideal goal is to raise $16-18K this month to pay off most/all of my outstanding debt built up through the Pandemic and my divorce and then have a little wiggle room to respond to the inevitable delays due to the bureaucracy involved with my plan.

My Plan:

Get out of the current credit-crushing situation.

Then quickly clear up the dings on my credit report and finish incorporating StoryPunk.

From there, I start the process for an SBA Loan to pay back any loans I have received from individuals and buy myself at least six months' worth of runway to get the company dialed in.

Meanwhile, I will be selling Event/Experience Design & Production, Business Training & Consultation, and Photography services, which are about to go live through StoryPunk.

I also have a pair of mail-order 'immersive-story-in-a-box' experiences in the works. One is already in playtests and will be ready for sale by the end of April, and the other in mid/late Summer.

All in all, I am confident that once I get the gears turning for StoryPunk that I will be able to stand on my own two feet again, but--before I can get there, I need a boost up. I would appreciate any help you can offer.

Thank you.