When Tortoise was founded in 2018 – at my kitchen table – we hoped to make a lasting difference with reporting that was honest, fair and completely unbiased. At the time, there seemed a pressing need for such a project. We weren’t to know then that the need would only grow much greater in the subsequent five years.

Has there ever been a time when the mainstream media has been so polarised? So shaped by the political interests of its owners? When it has been harder to make sense of what is going on around us?

Who speaks now for the undecided? Who really weighs the arguments of all sides, and presents them in a way allowing the audience to make their own minds up with all the facts presented to them?

We do. Or at least we think we do, and we hope that you do too. Your support allows us to:

Londongrad revealed how ex-KGB agent Alexander Lebedev and his son Evgeny partied their way to power at the heart of the British establishment

Crispin Odey uncovered the serious allegations of sexual abuse against one of Britain’s richest and most powerful men

Campus Justice explored multiple instances of institutional failure to deal with sexual abuse at one of the world’s leading universities

Nazanin: Trapped in Whitehall followed the machinations and missteps over an unpaid debt which compounded the plight of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe

Sweet Bobby went in search of one of the world’s most sophisticated catfishers – and ended up one of the world’s most listened to podcasts

Our case for Judicial Review Tortoise submitted an application for Judicial Review of the Conservative party’s refusal to disclose information about the way it chooses its leader – and Britain’s prime minister

The Arms Race Tortoise’s global campaign to accelerate the distribution of Covid vaccinations to those most in need was supported by influential people from politics, science, business, sport, arts & culture, including Bono, Gary Lineker and Richard Curtis and many more

The Westminster Accounts Tortoise and Sky News have launched the Westminster Accounts, the first fully searchable database of the money being used to lubricate the machinery of British politics

Hidden Homicides How many women are killed – but not counted? Through painstaking research, Tortoise illuminated a scandal hidden from view and was able to push for real change