Link TV Challenge Grants

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Are YOU up for the Link Challenge?

These days, it's hard to get a good return on an investment. But what if Link could promise you we'd double your donation?

This fall, we've given our viewers the opportunity to "give squared", with generous donors offering challenge grants to double the money donated to Link. And not only does your donation pack a bigger financial punch, but you also know it's going to a great cause -- keeping the independent media and diverse, international voices you know and love on the air and web, for years to come.

So make an impact and support Link TV with a donation today -- and take a look below at some of the Link superfans who have risen to the Link challenge, helping us build a better media.

Clay Taylor - $100,000 Challenge!

Clay has been watching Link for many years and appreciates the diversity of viewpoints and global perspectives on Link. Her background in journalism also gives her insight into the high quality of programming shown on the channel. Clay is offering this challenge grant because she wants to have an impact right now and deeply believes in what Link does.

Mark Waldron - $10,000 Challenge!

A 40-year old former classic rock, jazz and soul guitarist who used to tour a lot with his band, Mark is now paralyzed from the chest down due to an illness related to his diabetes. He watches Link all the time. He says, "I didn't know what was going on in the world until I started watching Link TV." He has been a contributor for a number of years and at first he was hesitant to be too public about the size of his contribution, because he knows many people are financially struggling. However, he decided it was important to do a challenge grant and let viewers know that he believes a large gift from someone capable of doing so can be essential to Link's survival. As a thank you gift, Mark asked for a Link TV bumpersticker to put on his Mom's Volvo.

Dean Cycon of Dean's Beans - $5,000 Challenge!

Dean Cycon is the owner of Dean’s Beans Organic Coffee Company, a certified 100% organic, fair trade and kosher coffee roasting operation in Orange, Massachusetts, USA. Dean has over thirty years of development work and activism in indigenous communities, including coffee villages, around the world. Dean is a co-founder of Coffee Kids (non-profit development group), and of Cooperative Coffees, the world’s first fair trade roaster’s cooperative. He created Dean’s Beans to prove that business can promote positive economic, social and environmental change at the third world source, and be profitable at the same time. Dean’s Beans has grown steadily over the past sixteen years and has stayed on its mission. The company designs and funds people-centered development projects in the coffee lands in partnership with the growers, and returns a percentage of profits to the growers as a Social Equity Premium. The company has received a Best Practices Recognition from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, the 2004 Sustainability Award from the Specialty Coffee Association of America, and numerous other recognitions for the quality of its products and the success of its social mission. Dean’s book about social justice, culture and coffee, "Javatrekker: Dispatches from the World of Fair Trade Coffee" was awarded the Gold Medal as Best Travel Essay book of 2008 by the Independent Publishers Association.