“I started to think about a new model where people just paid for the work that they like,” Mr. Sanders said. To help with the journalism aspect, he brought in Dan Fletcher, a former managing editor at Facebook.

Beacon has a straightforward business model. A reader funds a writer for $5 a month and in return gets access to all of the content on the site. Since it went live five months ago, the site has signed up more than 100 writers and “more than several thousand” subscribers, Mr. Sanders said. Writers receive 70 percent of their subscription revenue each month, with another portion going toward a bonus pool paid out to those who wrote the most recommended stories. The company keeps the rest.

Among the writers featured on Beacon’s site are a group of freelance journalists focused on environmental issues who write for the website Climate Confidential. Another is Sion Fullana, a writer and photographer chronicling the lives of everyday New Yorkers.

Beacon’s founders sound a bit scattershot when discussing their fledgling business. Mr. Fletcher and Mr. Sanders compared their site to social media like Twitter (each writer has a short profile) and Facebook (readers follow writers). They then said it was similar to the crowdfunding site Kickstarter. In the same conversation, they likened the company to streaming services where users pay a monthly fee. To attract readers, Mr. Sanders said, “We had to build an experience that was as similar as we could to Netflix or Spotify.”

He said that the venture with Mr. Bauer was a logical next step, allowing them to test their belief that readers will pay for the kind of foreign coverage and investigative projects that many news organizations have cut back on because of declining readerships and advertising. While nonprofit news organizations like ProPublica and the newly formed Marshall Project are dedicated to this kind of journalism, many traditional news outlets are turning away from longer, more deeply reported articles.

If he successfully raises the money through Beacon, Mr. Bauer, 31 and a resident of Oakland, Calif., said he could focus on the stories he wanted to tell rather than those that might get the most clicks. Mr. Bauer was released from prison in 2011, but he said he still felt connected to his experience. He plans to publish at least three or four long-form stories a year that delve into various aspects of the American prison system. Among other topics, he wants to write about the boom in private prisons and why the United States incarcerates so many people. He also intends to travel to other countries to see how the American prison model is being exported elsewhere.

“I understood the gravity of what incarceration means,” he said. “When I approach a story, I’m seeing it through the eyes of a prisoner.”