On Our Own was financed by Murfreesboro, Tennessee philanthropist Robert W. McLean, who earned less than $20,000 in five years but obtained $40 million in loans and borrowed another $10 million. In 2007, McLean became the target of an investigation by several federal agencies and was forced into involuntary bankruptcy by hundreds of creditors who claimed he owed them more than $20 million they invested with him. Later that year he committed suicide.