FAQ

What is 7 Cups?

7 Cups (originally 7 Cups of Tea*) is an online emotional support service. Through a secure, anonymous bridging technology, we connect those in need of emotional support with our network of Active Listeners, individuals from all walks of life who want to provide compassionate care. Connections to Listeners are private, one-on-one conversations initiated on demand.

A person seeking help can browse listeners by age, gender, country, language, religion, or topic. There are now over 500,000 trained volunteer listeners who provide support in 189 countries across 140 languages.

In addition to 1:1 listening, there is also group support, mindfulness activities, growth paths (topic-focused intervention steps for anxiety, depression, etc.), an AI chatbot (Noni), community forums, and a central feed that highlights the best content for you. We think of each of these as different types of digital medicine.

*We changed from 7 Cups of Tea to 7 Cups because it is generally better to have a short name and URL.

What is Active Listening?

Active Listening is a set of communication skills that demonstrate empathy, compassion, understanding, and respect. Active Listening is different from the normal listening we do in our everyday conversations. Instead of just “waiting to talk” or thinking about what we're going to say once our conversation partner stops speaking, active listening requires that the listener completely focus on absorbing, comprehending, and reflecting on what the speaker is sharing.

Active listening is a great technique to help people feel better when they are going through hard times, dealing with loss, struggling with health issues, or just need to vent. Because active listening directs all focus toward the speaker, it removes potential sources of stress, conflict, and discomfort that can happen in a regular conversation. Active listening means really good and focused listening, which includes reflecting back, empathy (imagining that you are seeing and experiencing the world like the other person and sharing that with them in your own words), and asking open-ended questions. This really simple, but powerful technique helps people explore issues and helps them navigate a path to feeling better.

How does 7 Cups connect Active Listeners with people in need of support?

Since all connections are on demand, our service is run like a marketplace. When an individual reaches out for support, we notify our available Listeners that a request has come in, what the user wants to discuss and how long they have been waiting. Listeners decide to accept the request if they have the time and the topic is a match to their lived experiences or interests. If an individual wants to connect to a specific Listener, they can request a direct connection by visiting that Listener's profile.

Is 7 Cups really anonymous?

Yes. 7 Cups is really anonymous. Listeners only know what is disclosed to them by the person they are helping. All contact information (phone, email, social media handles, etc.) are blocked from being shared.

Do Active Listeners receive training?

Yes. Listeners are required to complete an online course that helps develop Active Listening skills. The course also goes over certain scenarios in which a Listener may need to refer the person with whom they are speaking to a professional licensed therapist, counselor, or emergency contact. Once the course is complete and the test passed, listeners interact with a bot that acts like a student who is depressed. This provides the person with an example and exercise of what it is like to listen to another person on 7 Cups. Next, the person makes an oath to treat all people with dignity and respect and is then entered into our continuing education program via the Academy.

The Academy consists of 5 programs and over 70 courses. The programs involve both coursework and practicum or activities like listening to people on the platform. All of the programs result in a certificate. All programs and courses are free.

In addition to traditional coursework, we also provide listeners with Just-In-Time-Training (JITT). JITT uses AI and allows the listener to press a button to generate a response when they are stuck or unsure of how to respond. You can learn more about JITT via this video.

Can I become a listener?

We'd love to have you! Anyone can sign up to become an Active Listener. All Listeners must successfully complete our online course, which includes a mock chat. Sign up here to begin!

What's the story behind 7 Cups of Tea?

It's pretty simple. The founder, Glen, was sitting at his kitchen table talking to his wife about a problem he was having. Her close listening made him feel a lot better, and it occurred to him that he was incredibly lucky. For one, he is married to a Licensed Counselor. Furthermore, she was available when he needed to talk. Glen realized that many people do not have this same opportunity.

Not everyone has a friend or family member to talk to at all times, nor do they always feel comfortable doing so if they can. The only other real option is therapy, but that can be expensive and carries an unfortunate stigma, plus it involves scheduling. Glen envisioned 7 Cups of Tea as a third space to fill the gap between the two current options.

How do 7 Cups of Tea ensure that listeners are high quality?

Our application to become a listener includes many steps. Listeners must complete the Active Listening Training Course and receive a passing score on the accompanying quiz. Next, they help a bot that acts like a student who is depressed. They then make an oath to treat people with dignity and respect and are enrolled in our continuing education program via the Academy.

In addition, all listeners start with a low trust score. If they use harmful language, receive blocks, or trigger other indicators then they are immediately removed. See our safety fact sheet for more details here. If listeners are trying, but not doing as great as they'd like to do, then we send them coaching emails and also provide additional real-time mock chat help via Active Listening I and II.

We believe that the vast majority of listeners have big hearts and want to do a good job. We provide a lot of support to help them provide high-quality listening. Additionally, anyone can see how well a listener is doing simply by looking at their reviews' cumulative score, and by checking out the badges that they have earned.

How do I contact 7 Cups for subscription support?

For any billing issues, contact the 7 Cups Help Center or (844) 755-8757. Have other questions? Or suggestions for how we can make the service better? We'd love to hear from you. Please contact us with your thoughts.

Is 7 Cups a for-profit business? Or a non-profit?

7 Cups is a for-profit business. We also have a non-profit arm called the 7 Cups Foundation. We launched the business in 2013. 99.8% of what we do is free or at no cost. 7 Cups has never made that much money and we are a social impact organization, so the natural question is: why didn't you just make it a non-profit?

Running a nonprofit can work, but it is largely dependent on your ability to partner with people to make donations. Then if you build an organization based on that initial funding, each year, you have to ask them to write you more checks to keep the organization going. If they stop writing checks, then the organization cannot continue.

We partner with philanthropists who support our efforts, but I didn't want to put 7 Cups in a situation where we would be solely dependent on our ability to attract funding. Instead, we took a complementary approach where we generate our own revenue as a primary strategy and partner with philanthropsits as a secondary strategy. This allows us to chart our own path. If we keep figuring out how to generate income, then we can continue to survive.

The 7 Cups Foundation exists as a separate organization. You can learn more about it here: 7cups.org.

How do 7 Cups make money?

7 Cups makes money through selling subscriptions to online therapy and premium accounts. 99.8% of people who use 7 Cups do not upgrade, but a very small amount do and that helps us cover our costs. Additionally, 7 Cups sells branded versions or instances of 7 Cups to organizations like businesses and universities. We do not generate income through advertising and we do not sell user data.

Can you give me a quick overview of 7 Cups? Values etc?

Sure! Here is our alignment triangle. You can also find our culture guide and more on our values.

How is 7 Cups organized?

7 Cups has many different functions as an organization. You can find them all below in our organization chart. One of the things that make 7 Cups unique is that we have team members, leaders, listeners, and members.

The team manages the core functions of 7 Cups. There are over 1,000 leaders who play key roles across the community. This can involve things like leading discussions in group support rooms, reviewing forum posts, or writing articles or other forms of content. Many leaders first go through our leadership program in the Academy. If you're interested in contributing to our community's growth, please check out our Opportunities page.

How did 7 Cups evolve?

We believe that "the problem is the path." Planning is good and essential, but life is very complex. This idea suggests that the path unfolds or opens up before you as you solve the next biggest problem in front of you. We think of this like taking a water bottle from a cooler in a convenience store. You take one bottle out and then the next bottle slides down. It is the same thing with problems in life. We get smarter and stronger by solving the next biggest problem in front of us. We believe this makes us antifragile.

And that is what we have done on 7 Cups. Each new problem that surfaces we solve. The platform, with all of the features and how it operates, is a reflection of that problem-solving process. Together, as a community, we have solved tens of thousands of problems since 2013. When we zoom out, it looks more like the one below.

What makes 7 Cups different from other mental health services or apps?

The big thing that makes 7 Cups different is that we are a community of people looking out for one another. Most mental health services connect people seeking help with a therapist via teletherapy. We do this too and we think it is important to have therapists and other clinicians providing help, but we think that is just one part of the pyramid. We think members can help support one another in groups, listeners can help people 1:1 and in groups, and even AI can play a role in supporting people that are struggling. Broadly, we see the 7 Cups treatment team as community wide with each person playing a unique role in lifting others up.

Another thing that makes us different is that 99.8% of what we do is at no cost. Most businesses cannot survive without charging most people for the service. We don't fully understand how 7 Cups manages to survive either but think the gift economy ecosystem idea has a lot to do with it (see the gift economy section below.

What is a gift economy? And how is 7 Cups a gift economy?

(adapted from a talk) 20 years ago, I got my license to be a psychologist. I had a rough childhood and I wanted to help others like me. But when I started my practice, I very quickly realized two problems:

#1 - I could only help as many people as there were hours in the day, and:

#2 - Most of the people who really needed my help couldn't afford it.

50% of Americans who want to see a therapist don't have access to one. In non-Western countries that number creeps up to 80%. I wanted to help more people, but couldn't lower my rates because I had a growing family.

I needed a creative solution. I looked at all my clients and there were a few people that were in severe distress and needed expert help, but the majority of people were dealing with everyday problems and were not in too much pain.

So I thought – what is therapy really? At it's very core, it's listening. Listening is a basic human skill.

Surely, we could train regular people, and non-professionals to help. That was a radical idea back in 2013, but I wanted to try it, so I created a website called 7Cups and started recruiting volunteer “listeners” to respond to online messages from anonymous strangers. I was the first listener, my wife was the second. People wanted to talk about their everyday problems – parenting struggles, relationship struggles, things not going right. Most conversations were short, but still – people were waiting 20+ minutes to talk to us. My friend - and a fellow listener - suggested putting a banner on the website: “The best way to help yourself is to help someone else. Become a listener.”

His idea worked, users became listeners, our wait times went down, and the community of listeners grew from a couple of dozen big-hearted people to now over 500,000 volunteers who provide free emotional support across 189 countries in 140 languages.

But here's where things get interesting – I'd always assumed that some listeners would charge for their services. I built that into the original platform – they could set their own rates, connect a bank account, and get paid.

But that didn't happen.

This strange ecosystem had emerged – people seeking help would also serve as listeners. They didn't want to charge for a service because they also benefited from it being free. Plus, many of our volunteer listeners were just altruistic people. They wanted to give to others because it was fulfilling and gave them a sense of purpose, new skills, and community.

And they were very clear:This service should be free.

I was surprised – because we assume that solving any problem in life means we have to pay money for it. Right?

But when I told my anthropologist friend Anderson about it, he said, “Oh yeah, that's a gift economy.” A what? “A gift economy.”

I looked it up.

A gift economy solves problems & generates resources WITHOUT the exchange of money.

Solving the world's biggest challenges isn't always profitable. Poverty. Homelessness. Climate change. Our disconnected communities. Our epidemic of loneliness…

What if we started looking at our problems not through the lens of lack of money, but giving?

Ancient pre-money cultures, like the people of the Kula Island ring of Papua New Guinea, ran on a gift economy. I'd give something to you - like this bracelet - you'd hold it for a while, give it to someone else, and then they'd pass it along. Many of the owners' names would be carved into the shells. The gift became more valuable as it passed through the community. These gifts strengthened their connections to one another and their social fabric.

Perhaps that sounds unrealistic, or nostalgic – but gift economies aren't just a thing of the past. When you really look, you'll see that gift economies are everywhere, hiding in plain sight.

Wikipedia is written, edited, and updated by hundreds of thousands of volunteers. Wikipedia sets the guidelines and offers a web platform. The volunteers give their time & expertise. We all benefit from reading it.

In addition to their community-led meetings, Alcoholics Anonymous encourages their members to sponsor others and to be a sponsees. A Sponsor helps their Sponsee stay sober through regular check-ins, emotional support, and knowledge of the 12 steps. And in giving back, Sponsors reinforce their own commitment to staying sober.

One of the coolest apps you've probably never heard of – Be My Eyes – connects blind & low-vision people with sighted volunteers. Through a live video call, sighted volunteers help find lost or missing items, shop for groceries, or read maps to navigate public transportation. There's obviously no shortage of sighted people in this world. Rather – it's a true surplus.

Gift economies like Wikipedia, AA, and Be My Eyes work because of a SURPLUS of talent, labor, and goods.

We humans aren't used to thinking about surpluses or abundance.

But there are hidden surpluses of goods & talent all around us. For me, gardening is a chore. But there are lots of people who would garden for free. Community gardens are a gift economy. A surplus of gardeners GET a plot of land to use, they GIVE their labor, and the community GETS free food. That's how nature works too, by the way, the original, biggest, and best part of the gift economy. The air we breathe, rain, and sunshine are all free.

7 Cups relies on a surplus of caring, compassionate humans. The listeners GIVE their time & attention and they GET free training and the satisfaction of helping someone. Users GET free emotional support and GIVE participation on research and anonymous data. Because we have so many people on 7 Cups, we've partnered with major research universities in the U.S. Those academics & scientists GET access to participants and anonymous data and in turn, GIVE back research that advances mental health.

Money never changes hands, everyone benefits, and importantly – there's no hierarchy in a gift economy. You give & receive gifts indirectly, without keeping track of who owes what.

If you give blood to a blood bank, it's not like you say “You give me blood now and I'll give you my blood later.” We humans have a surplus of blood. We give blood with no expectation in return. My daughter was born premature and needed a blood transfusion and I'm very thankful for that person that helped save her. This same process is true for organ donation.

And I bring up those two examples to prove a point: a gift economy isn't just a cute, well-intentioned, do-good version of a SUPERIOR market economy.

Gift economies can be innovative, world-shifting, life-changing, life-saving systems.

So think about the biggest problems in your life right now. I'll give you a second to actually think [pause]. Forget about spending any money to fix it. Put your wallet away – and instead, take a second look around your community. Because if YOU need help, I bet others in your community do too.

Is there a system you can tap into? And if not, is there a system you can create? You drive my kids on Monday, I'll drive your kids on Tuesday. You make dinner, I'll host the playdate. Most parents are already part of a childcare gift economy.

But you could also imagine a city-wide gift economy for basic things - like a furniture exchange or basic car maintenance. There are a LOT of retired men out there who would love to help. We could create a free exchange of oil changes, tire rotation, and car washes. You pay for your supplies but the labor is free. Small gifts like these strengthen our communities & compound over time.

But – I also challenge you to think bigger than this. Because gift economies can also free up the highly-trained, specialized experts of market economies to do better for everyone. The only reason we have the internet – THE INTERNET – is thanks to open-source or freely given code created by a surplus of computer geniuses. The Internet works because of the open-source gift economy. So let's think big.

70% of healthcare costs are tied to behavior change - heart disease, many cancers, substance use, and many mental health issues. You don't need a medical degree to help someone stop overeating, stop smoking, or start exercising. People just need social support. If we had a gift economy for fitness & health, we might see fewer patients in ambulances & emergency rooms for preventable illnesses. Doctors, instead, could focus their energy & expertise on the hardest cases.

Can you imagine a gift economy for affordable housing? Or transitional housing to get people off the streets & into stable living situations. How many homes & apartments are unoccupied right now? How much commercial real estate is up for lease? The housing market wants you to focus on scarcity.

Look for the surplus instead.

That's the lesson here - the world is chock full of talented people and every single one of us has something to give.

By tapping into each other's strengths and living with a spirit of generosity, we'll create a better world – together – for everyone.

Thank you.

How can I create my own gift economy?

Here are the 3 steps to create your own gift economy:

1. Name the problem that you would like to solve.

2. Find the Surplus - Identify the group of people that will volunteer and work hard to help you solve the problem.

3. Find the People in Need - those who are struggling and need help solving the problem. Invite them to connect with you and your group of volunteers and provide feedback on how you can improve.

A key part of the 2nd step is finding the surplus. There are surpluses of goods and talent all around us. We just cannot see them. We need to put different glasses on or shift our perception so we can begin to identify them. When we see the abundance around us we make the invisible visible and become more aware.

Can you share more on how the 7 Cups gift economy or ecosystem works?

Yes, please check out this overview video.

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