A lot of people who use the Charley Project database do not realize that it is run by one person who lives in a trailer park in Indiana with her husband, two cats and a dog. It is my vocation and I have been running it my entire adult life. In October this year, the Charley Project turned twenty years old. Numerous cases have been resolved as a direct result of the database, and everyone involved should be proud of that. This five-minute documentary from 2019 and this long form article from 2018 talk about how it works, and some of those cases.

Years ago I asked regular users of the site to contribute a voluntary subscription fee of just $3 a month to keep the Charley Project going. Many people responded and I have been incredibly grateful; you have kept the site running and helped pay the subscription fees for the numerous databases the adminstrator uses to help in her research and kept the lights on in her trailer home and the internet connected.

Due to inflation, PayPal taking a bigger cut than they used to and the fact that the administrator’s husband (a silent partner these last two decades) no longer makes as much as he used to, I am going to have to ask for more support. The alternative is to paywall the database, or cover it in advertiserments and probably make it difficult to read, which I don’t think anybody wants.

Would monthly supporters be willing to raise their subscription fees to $10 or $15? This can be done on Paypal, CashApp or Venmo. Or you could contribute to the GoFundMe some lovely people set up.

In exchange you get a free database of over 16,000 cases, updated regularly over the past twenty years, the most detailed missing persons database on the web. And I’ll be able to fix my furnace and take my dog to the vet.