Hank Green and his brother John Green first started sharing educational content in 2012
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Their various channels, including "Crash Course" and "Sci Show," have amassed over 32 million subscribers
Their overarching media company, Complexly, is now officially a nonprofit
For over a decade, Hank and John Green have been helping students around the world pass their tests by breaking down everything from biology to history in entertaining yet accurate ways.
That was always the goal of their educational media company and its multiple YouTube shows, Hank tells PEOPLE. More broadly, the duo wanted to make educational content that was free, independent and trustworthy.
So, in 2012, Hank and theFault in Our Starsauthor foundedComplexly, which has now amassed over 32 million subscribers and more than 5.7 billion views across its beloved learning brands, including the ever-popular "Crash Course" and "Sci Show" channels.
They employ dozens of people to help them create content, research topics and ensure every video they put out is accurate, accessible and entertaining.
"It's a lot harder to make content that has to be right than just to make content that has to be interesting or capture attention," Hank tells PEOPLE. "If I wanted to make a video that's purely to get the most attention, I wouldn't wanna have that much allegiance to the truth."
As a company, he notes that they value accuracy "first."
"You have to have the fact-checking going on, you have to have experts, you have to have sources, you have to be able to show your work," he says. "Additionally, you're making content that's like, 'Okay, I have to teach you some chemistry, and I'm gonna be limited by what I'm teaching you in terms of how I can make this interesting.' There's always a bit of tension there, and it takes more work, and we're in a world of terrible information."
For years, the brothers ended their YouTube videos with a donation appeal in an effort to keep the content "free for everyone."
When Hank and John were thinking about how to continue evolving their content, they decided that "ultimately, the ideas interest me, not the payoff."
So, recently, Complexly became a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, securing its future and ensuring its audience can access its content without dealing with paywalls.
When thinking about how the business could evolve, they considered what it might mean for Complexly to become a nonprofit and how, once that change happened, they would not be able to undo it. So, together they went through the process of understanding what that would look like.
"It became so clear that if we really wanted to prioritize the mission, if we wanted to prioritize our audience, that this was the best way to protect that, not just, like, today, but forever," Hank says.
"Starting from that realization that there is a best way to make sure that we are beholden to our mission, to impact, to reach people with the best possible content, and reach the most possible people, over the goals of an investor or of an advertiser," he continues. "So we wanted our stakeholders to be very clear, both externally and internally, that the people we care about are the people learning."
Ultimately, they hope they're "making life easier for people who are learning and for people who are teaching."
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"I wanna be making stuff that makes learning easier and that makes teaching easier," he says, adding that he hopes "the only reason that a teacher is using it, is not because their school board told them that they have to, it's because it's good and their colleague or their student or their mentor told them, 'Oh, these videos are great, you should be looking at this if you're looking for resources.' "
"This is the reason why 'Crash Course' is probably in every school district in the country," he continues. "It's not because anybody told anybody to do anything, it's because it was good, and that's the only thing I wanna compete on. That's where Complexly lives, that's where we wanna live."
The payoff, he says, is knowing their videos helped others learn something or break down a complex topic.
"It's the feeling when the nurse at the dermatologist's office is like, 'Oh my gosh, you helped me pass anatomy and physiology, and that helped me get my nursing degree.' If I could share that with the world, it's amazing. It's so much better than money," he tells PEOPLE.
He emphasizes that making "Crash Course" is "the best thing I've ever done" — but acknowledges that there "are so many people" who played a role in its success.
"The impact is ridiculous. I cannot believe it," Hank says.
"All the people watching those shows are just watching because they wanna learn about the world," he adds. "Of all of your emotions, there's no better one to indulge in than curiosity."
He emphasizes that leaning into one's curiosity "never stops being rewarding, and it becomes more rewarding the more you use it."
"Head into the world, there are lots of ways to learn more about the weirdness of humanity, the weirdness of our universe, the weirdness of our countries, of our history, and that really enriches a life," he says.
The brothers are extremely excited about the next chapter for Complexly and the future content the now-nonprofit will make. Hank acknowledges that the change will allow them to continue to serve the audience that has supported them over the years.
"A lot of the reason that we could continue to do this work already has been audience support people have given, through Patreon or through fundraising campaigns, or we have a bunch of different ways that we raise money show to show," he says.
He shares that he wants to say "thank you because there's no way that we could have done all of the things that we have done without the support that we have already gotten."
"That's one of the signals that we were getting that the world was telling us this was the direction to go in because these people want to support the work that we do, and so we might as well make those donations tax deductible, reflect reality and also preserve ourselves for the future to make this a long-term stable thing that we know is gonna not start prioritizing advertising sales and it's really gonna be focused on this mission," he says.
Ultimately, he shares, they are beholden to the people who have donated to them over the years and "that's a better stakeholder to be beholden to because what they want is the same thing that we want, which is to increase our impact, and make it easier to learn and help people indulge in their curiosity."
Read the original article onPeople
