‘The Office’ Actor Returns $110,000 in Kickstarter Donations for Never-Made Stanley Spinoff

“The Office” is remaining closed for the time being.

Leslie David Baker, a series regular on the popular NBC comedy series announced on social media Thursday that, three years after a Kickstarter campaign attempting to fund a spinoff show based on his character, he will be returning donations received to fans.

In 2020, Baker launched a Kickstarter campaign for “Uncle Stan,” a potential spinoff of “The Office” based on his character Stanley, a grumpy office worker at the fictional Dunder Mifflin Paper Company. According to the description, the series would focus on Stanley as he reluctantly comes out of retirement to help his nephew run a motorcycle/flower shop business. The campaign launched with a $300,000 crowdfunding goal, and raised $336,450 by the end of its run.

In a post on Instagram, Baker said that, although he still intends to make the project, he will return $110,629.81 in donated money to backers. In the update, Baker explained that the project stalled indefinitely because of the COVID pandemic and the current WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes. Although Baker intends to resume work on the series once the strikes continue, he decided it was the best course of action to refund backers. He further stated that although $336,450 dollars was pledged to the project, only $110,629 was actually received by the campaign, and no funds raised were pocketed or used for personal gain.

“In light of the current economic situation, we felt that this was the best course of action,” Baker wrote. “You will receive a message notifying you of your refund as soon as it is issued and you can expect to receive it over the following weeks. We will also be contacting Kickstarter to facilitate expediting this matter. We have remained in constant communication with our backers via direct messaging and rewards have continued to be fulfilled during this time.”

“FYI, although the total funded amount shown on our Kickstarter campaign page was stated as $336,450.53, that was not the actual final amount we received,” the post continues. “A large portion of backers’ pledges were lowered, or completely dropped and never collected once the campaign was completed. The final amount that we received from Kickstarter was exactly $110,629.81. The funds were never used for any purposes other than reward fulfillment and backer refunds, and have otherwise remained accounted for and untouched in the account.”

Developed by Greg Daniels for NBC, “The Office” ran for nine seasons from 2005 to 2013. Based on Ricky Gervais’ British series of the same name, the show starred Steve Carrell as Michael Scott, the Scranton, Pennsylvania regional manager of Dunder Mifflin. The cast of the show was rounded out by Rainn Wilson, John Krasinski, Jenna Fischer, B. J. Novak, Ed Helms, Mindy Kaling, Craig Robinson, and Ellie Kemper. Baker joined the series as a recurring actor in the first season, and was promoted to a regular for the second.