Facebook Publication Date: 8/9/2018 22:08

Hey everyone.

I have been struggling on what to say about this, and how to word it so people would hear and not get either angry, scared, or in any other way activated.

I am considering shuttering Lace on Race.

Make no mistake. I love this work. It has been, and still is a privilege to do this work. I grateful for each of you who have chosen to walk together, with resolve, resilience, reliability and love. Showing up for the mission. Showing up for each other.

Now I really need you to show up for this place, and, frankly, for me.

These last three months have seen good growth, and engagement. What it has not seen is contributions. June, July, and now August have seen declining contributions to the community. Like a 90 percent drop.

Lace on Race is headed by a real woman. Me.

I cannot do this work alone. And I cannot do it with this dynamic.

We experimented with a direct appeal and a formal advertisement; neither garnered enough to cover the cost of the ads themselves.

This is telling me something. That perhaps this is not as compelling as I hoped it was. If that is so, then I need to be able to find other ways to be in the world.

I am so proud of the work we have done here. But I am not arrogant or hubris filled enough to think that this work cannot be done by others in other spaces.

That’s not true. Not entirely. We are doing unique stuff. If there were people doing what we are doing here, I never would have started Lace on Race.

Six months in though, numerous appeals, and I cannot crack the nut of enticing people to show their commitment to this space by taking tangible steps to keep it healthy and sustainable. And I am tired of trying.

We are going to do our best to find new ways to ask you to walk with us financially. I don’t know what we could possibly say that has not yet been said.

People have encouraged me to set up Patreon. I have resisted. But someone also said that 300 reliable partners is better than 3000 observers. And that is about what we need, 300 reliable small donors to keep the doors open.

I have never been so direct with you as I am being right now.

God I love this space. I love the deep work we are doing. I would come here even if my name weren’t on it.

But I need your consistent and reliable support. So far we have not been able to achieve that.

I don’t want to write or engage with resentment. Neither do I want to be consumed for free, or close to free. Neither do I want to place the burden for the support I have received to such a small slice of people; people who I am grateful for, but who work out to be less than one percent of followers.

It simply cannot stand.

So I ask you, pointedly and directly, if this space has value for you, that you consider, strongly consider, supporting it tangibly. This month and going forward.

It will not exist otherwise.

Over the next weeks, we will roll out personal appeals, perhaps a second contribution platform–but if I do that, then I want to, frankly, be sure that this will not be an exercise in humiliation and added admin work, with no increase. Many people have said they would use Patreon. If I do it, and people do not step up, welp.

I really need you to do more than like and heart. That ad got over a hundred of those, but no engagement. That was discouraging, and reinforced the feeling that this place, as good of work as we are doing, may not ultimately be viable.

I would love to be proven wrong. Please consider walking with us, with me in a tangible way.

I love this work with all my heart. It is where I feel I am called. And I cannot do it without you.

Thank you for reading.

Edited to add this: two very gentle requests, for the sake of my self care and respect for me as a person:

1) please do not like or heart unless you have a strong intention/conviction to respond in a tangible way. I have said this before. I know you may feel as though you are giving ‘support’, but in fact it feels like the opposite. Multiple hearts and likes, but no actual actual action is a dissonance that hurts my soul.

2) I know that not everyone can support in a tangible way, but taking the time to tell me that, either in comments or by way of PM’s is not nearly as supportive as you think, and it comes with the added expectation that I will take care of your needs and feelings, prioritizing them over my own. I have resisted this, because it comes at deep emotional cost to me.

If you cannot/will not contribute, ok. I cannot control that. But asking me to tell you that it’s all right, or even sounding somewhat adversarial, saying things ‘well, I just will unfollow you then’ or ‘why do you ask for money so much?’ or inferences that ‘my life is harder than yours’ is less than kind.

I hope the majority of you or a significant minority of you, choose to partner with us. And I hope my setting boundaries around this will not inhibit you from doing so.

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