Running Costs
What it actually costs to run the CopeCheck network. All infrastructure is self-funded from the business — this isn't what sponsorship is for.
Current Monthly Infrastructure
The lights are already on. CopeCheck runs daily without any external funding. This isn't a project looking for survival money.
What Sponsorship Actually Goes Toward
Since the infrastructure is covered, sponsorship funds two things: getting the research seen, and building skills in people.
📣 Ads & Distribution
CopeCheck produces independent AI accountability research every day. That research doesn't reach the people who most need to see it — policymakers, economists, journalists — without paid promotion.
Sponsorship here funds targeted advertising to raise awareness of the CopeCheck network and get the data in front of the right audiences.
🎓 Paid Work Placements
Sponsor pays Ben. Ben teaches the placement student how to build AI-powered research tools hands-on. Ben pays the student a proper wage.
Short placements. Learn-by-doing. The student contributes to real, live research infrastructure — not a toy project or theoretical exercises.
This is skills training that actually builds something real. The sponsor's money creates a tangible outcome: a person who can build AI tools, and research that's better for having them involved.
The Honest Framing
A lot of funding pages are about survival. This one isn't. CopeCheck isn't at risk of shutting down. The infrastructure is paid for, the automation runs daily, and the analysis gets published regardless.
What sponsorship buys is reach and people. If you sponsor ads, more people encounter independent AI labour market data. If you sponsor a work placement, a person learns real skills while the research gets better.
Neither of those things happens without external support, because they're beyond what one person can absorb as a running cost. But neither of them is existential — they're upgrades, not lifelines.
If that kind of honesty is unusual for a funding page, good. It should be more common.