Photography blog raises $1m for poor New Yorkers in a week

When photographer Brandon Stanton started his Humans of New York blog in the summer of 2010 he had no idea it would become a global phenomenon.

With a mission to create “an exhaustive catalogue of New York City’s inhabitants”, Stanton set out to photograph 10,000 New Yorkers and plot their images on a map, but the blog soon evolved into something else. By interviewing the subjects and including their thoughts – hopes and dreams – alongside the images a sort of anthropological document manifested, and now, thanks to a hugely successful Indiegogo campaign, the blog has morphed again.

Stanton launched a campaign on Jan 22 to help fund a group of students from the Mott Hall Bridges Academy in Brooklyn to go and see Harvard. In less than an hour he had raised $100,000. In a week he broke $1,000,000.

The Indiegogo campaign, which will run until February 10, is continuing to raise money that will now be channelled into scholarship funds for Mott Hall Bridges students.

You can donate here.