Back 7 Cups: Part I of Making 7 Cups Sustainable
Weve been talking about different ways we can help make 7 cups sustainable. If you havent yet, please read this thread (please also read this thread if you have questions as they have likely been answered in that thread). The first step we want to take in this process is the Back 7 Cups initiative.
Anyone who wants to support our mission will be able to ‘back 7 cups with a monthly contribution. Well have system messages, a dedicated landing page, and emails that provide people with the opportunity to support 7 cups in this manner. People will still receive perks (see below) for backing 7 Cups, but the emphasis is on backing 7 cups and only secondarily on the perks.
At the same time, well be testing another option that can best be understood as 7 Cups Premium. This option emphasizes the perks primarily and backing 7 cups/supporting our mission as secondary.
We are testing out both options because we are not sure which one will work best. It might be that one option works best in some situations and the other works best in others.
The perks will be spelled out in more detail in the coming days. What follows is a high-level overview. When you back 7 cups, or upgrade to a premium account, youll unlock personalized paths to help you grow stronger, increase confidence, and develop stronger relationships. These paths are comprised of series, or packs, that focus on topics like: relationships, calm and strong, mind over mood, physical health, and life skills. It also unlocks a number of singles or discrete paths that are designed to help you overcome specific issues. Moreover, people that back or upgrade will also access to bi-weekly group conference calls with licensed psychologists on topics like depression, anxiety, mindfulness, stress, and relationships. Additionally, they will receive a monthly email from me and the ability to participate in a conference call with me every month. Ill share what Ive been thinking about in life, Ill discuss ways to overcome challenges, and Ill also provide a sneak peak into future developments here at 7 Cups. Finally, the person will also receive 2 sustainability icons for their profile and the profile of one other person they select. This indicates that it is a shared gift given to ensure that 7 Cups thrives for years and decades to come.
To clarify, listeners would also be very welcome to contribute. If they do not have a member account, then they would just receive the above perks, but they would not unlock the personalize paths. Thanks @RocketsMom for asking.
Our goal is that these options will help get us a clear trajectory of sustainability. If these do not work as well as we hope, then well need to further tweak them and potentially add additional perks or options. Well also soon be rolling out the 7 cups for organizations initiatives shortly as well. We already have a major university on board and we are working with several other non-profits.
Again, please read the other thread if you have questions. If you have questions that have not yet been answered yet, then please ask them here and Ill be happy to provide more details. We are planning on releasing this new update later this early next week. Ill keep you updated!
Thank you!
@GlenM--I like what I'm seeing as it doesn't feel like we're making services "better" for those who pay...just adding little perks. I sent you a PM with some ideas I had that I wasn't comfortable mentioning here until after you look at them. Thanks!
There's no information to the other thread that you keep referring to.
Wow! I look forward to learning more about this! Keep up the great work :)
@GlenM
Hello, here's an other idea:
If we could prove with a study that 7cups is effective in improvement of the members' mental health, then we could involve committed major corporate and nonprofit donors.
@BriteSide I like this idea of sponsorships. We have our first study coming out this week in the Journal of Mental Health that compares 7 Cups to therapy. It is a pretty compelling study. I agree and I'll look more into corporate sponsorships.
@GlenM Please give a link to that article if you can. I'm a licensed therapist and very interested in the work you do here.
Not sure i understand correctly. Maybe as discussions and question over this new development arises i might get a better view on what it actually entails:-)
@WhenNo1CaresImHere--I think it will make more sense as it keeps moving :)
I don't like how you all are trying to start charging people...that was the great thing about this site...not getting charged and not being harassed by ads. As a member who has now turned into a listener, I'm pretty disappointed.
@BeautifulPrincess60
From my understanding it is not the idea to start charging people to use 7 Cups, at all. We just need donations to keep the site running like it does. This is quite normal and something you can see on pages like Wikipedia as well. It doesn't mean a difference in how people are treated or free access to our services. It just now means a way to help keep 7 Cups around for years to come. Thank you for being here and caring so much about our members and guests, I really appreciate and value that.
@BeautifulPrincess60, yes as @joyseeker said - the core 7 cups service is free and will always remain free. Organizations, however, do need to generate income to survive and 7 cups is no different. The goal is for us to be sustainable so we can exist for years and years to come so we can help an ever increasing amount of people. However, in order to do that, we need to find ways to make 7 cups sustainable.
@GlenM
That's understandable and yeah there should a revenue so the site can survive but research about the different methods businesses use and see what would set you apart because watching ads would make the site look cheaper, and i don't have a good feeling about a premium subscription because tons of businesses do it and most of the time it doesnt make them look good. reddit puts the daily donation goal every day so people can work towards %100 and that doesnt affect the site too much, and becareful with the added perks, make sure it doesnt draw everyone away from the goal of the site and keeps it unique.
@GlenM - Before I start, I'd just like to say thank you for all you and your team have done. This site has made a difference in many people's lives and has, I'm sure, saved a lot of lives, too.
I completely understand that as a site/company continues to grow, the funds needed to sustain such a site/company will also grow in size. I can't imagine the funds needed to keep everything working smoothly as well as the funds needed to ensure we keep moving forward. And it sounds like this has been discussed behind the scenes quite thoroughly, so please do not think that I am under the assumption that all the "what ifs" and possible outcomes haven't been explored by your team, already.
However, having said this, as a member and as someone who was unfortunately not a fly on the wall during the discussions leading up to this, I am left with my own personal concerns about the "what ifs" and the possible outcomes and I hope it's okay if I voice them.
1) A portion of the user base feels as though their concerns/suggestions fall on deaf ears. They feel as though suggestions and concerns have been raised many times before; only to be left unanswered, ignored, or simply dismissed. Now, having said this, I am fully aware that just because we have suggestions/concerns, this does not mean that you and your team are then required to respond publicly. Perhaps your team goes over each issue/concern that pops up behind the scenes, and, amongst yourselves, discuss the different suggestions without publicly acknowledging you've done so. And we're definitely not privy to your plan of action. Perhaps suggestions we've had that we feel have gone unanswered are simply in the works and/or still being discussed and therefore you are unable to discuss it further at that time. There are two sides to everything, I know. But regardless of the truth behind each action or nonaction, the feeling of being unheard is still real and it's a concern many of us have. Regardless how truthful or baseless it may be, it still resonates in a lot of us, your users. My concern is, would this feeling increase even more so now that there are some of us who can't "back" 7 cups? Would a certain group feel more listened to than the other? Would one group feel less important than the other? Less noticed? Or would this cause others to believe that because they are unable to put forth the funds to upgrade their account, that their recovery is not as important as the recovery of those who are able to? Would one group have more say than the other in what happens going forward? Regardless if one group would actually have more say than the other, or if one group is more privileged than the other, that negative feeling alone could be crippling. It could cause even more unease amongst some of your users and cause many to break off and find other sources of help or may even cause some to spiral.
2) In my experience with working for companies that had a free membership and a paid membership, often times I was (privately) instructed to dole out punishment differently depending on what type of user I was issuing the punishment to. If someone was causing trouble, but had put forth a significant amount of money, we were instructed to go easier on them than we would with a member who hadn't put forth any money. Now, if I were to confront these companies publicly, they'd deny it until the end of time. But, behind the scenes, they saw where the money was coming from and did their best to keep it flowing. Please know that I am not implying that's how it would be done here, but could even the prospect of it happening add quite a bit more stress and strain to your moderator team? Being a moderator is a thankless job, I know. They are already faced with criticism regarding activity, behavior, and how punishment is doled out. With this new feature, the moderators would now be faced with accusations of favoritism based on the premium/free membership. It would add a whole other sleuth of complaints/reports and, I would imagine, place your moderators into even tighter places than they find themselves currently. Regardless of whether or not the moderators' judgment would be affected by the account type or not, the fact that it could be perceived as such, I feel, may open a whole other can of worms that your moderator team, and inevitably, your admin team, will have to sort through.
3) I appreciate the time and effort you've put into coming up with the perks that will be available if one upgrades their account and/or "backs" 7 Cups. It's quite apparent how much thought went into each one and I can see how beneficial it could be in helping others receive a more personalized care. It also seems like it would require a lot of work and time in order to implement all of this. Should we be concerned about other things on the site being left unmanaged and/or certain bug fixes/tweaks being halted while this is going on? With tweaks and fixes still being actively made to the rest of the site, would there be any concern on deadlines being pushed back because of this new implementation? Not implying that you would purposely neglect one side vs the other, but it would seem to me that this new addition could take quite a bit of manpower and hours into the implementation and the upkeep/management of it all, thus possibly taking attention away from other aspects of the site. Is there any cause for concern?
4) And finally, there comes the concern on what this means for the future of 7 Cups. I know you have assured several people already that 7 Cups will always have a free option and I know a lot of this is being done in order to keep it free. But I guess I can't help but be concerned. Not because I doubt you as a founder, or that I doubt the capabilities of the 7 Cups team, but because this has quickly become my home and I don't want to feel slighted if I am unable to contribute. I don't want my progress to be neglected because I'm not a "Premium Member". I don't want friends who are quickly becoming my family to feel unwelcome and end up leaving because they no longer feel like they are a priority here. I know good things can't last forever, and that's just a part of life, but I wanted to voice my concerns nonetheless.
Please know that I am almost positive you've most likely considered all of the aforementioned - but, like I said, I wasn't a fly on the wall during those discussions and I had hoped there wouldn't be any harm in voicing my concerns as a member and active user.
Thanks in advance for reading this lengthy response. :)
@ValentineLove, first of all, thank you for taking a very measured, calm, and clear approach. That makes answering questions like these way easier. I'm not sure if you saw my post on process or not, but you did a really nice job framing these questions. I appreciate you going the extra mile. Let me address each point:
1. I can understand that some people do not feel like we are moving fast enough on things. We have a really big community. We have hundreds of feature requests. Internally, we all compete for what gets done as well. This is part of having a small team. Let me share one example from today. @Heather has been wanting the group discussion tracker for weeks now. We'd get it up the product roadmap and then it'd be pushed back down for other urgent items. @devteam started working on it yesterday. We spent 10 minutes on our call arguing about how to do it in the most efficient way possible. It ended up taking quite a bit more time to do than we had hoped. So, we are already at the mid-week point tomorrow and behind on what we wanted to accomplish. Ultimately, it is all about prioritizing items. The feelings that some in the community have are feelings we have on our team as well. This is a consequence of having limited resources. The only upside - and I deeply believe this - is that constraints drive creativity. Sometimes having less is actually more because it causes you to be more innovative. That, of course, doesn't take away from feeling frustrated that more isn't getting done sooner. Believe me, we are all working as hard as we can on this. We just have limitations.
2. We will flat out not do this. Ever. 7 Cups is not like a normal company or organization. The culture is what makes our site great. If we compromise on culture, then we end up running the risk of compromising our mission. It won't happen.
3. See #1 above. It is the same issue. We have invested all of our resources - time, energy, money - over the last two years getting 7 cups to where it is now. We've solved an enormous amount of problems. It has been extraordinarily hard work. Now we have to solve the sustainability problem; otherwise all of this hard work that we've done will not ultimately matter.
4. See #2 - again, this is a question of culture and it is core to what we do. It is very important that all - whether people back us or not - feel very welcome here. People give to 7 cups in many ways - saying something kind to another member, checking in on someone, spreading the word about 7 cups, listening, playing a leadership role - all of these are awesome ways that people give to 7 cups and all of them, until now, are very valuable and not monetary in nature.
Yes, we've thought lots and lots and lots about all that you mentioned. I still continue to think about it - almost constantly. I'm very happy to hear that you have found safety and a family here. We exist for this very reason.
@GlenM Thank you very much for your reply and I appreciate the time you took to respond to my post. If you're referring to the topic you edited in later on, I saw it only after I pressed reply and refreshed the page. I had been putting that reply together for several hours or so off and on and hadn't refreshed the page in quite awhile. I wanted to make sure I was concise in the tone and message I was attempting to express.
Unfortunately, some of my concerns remain unaddressed. I'm not sure if you were unable to fully respond to some of my concerns due to the nature of said concern, or, due to time restraints (not sure where you're at but where I'm at, it's rather late and past your typical office hours!) some points were skimmed through. So I'll take out the main point of the ones I feel may have been missed so that it isn't so overwhelming and paste them below. I tend to "go around the mulberry bush" as my mother would say when I'm attempting to address a point. So I apologize if it was difficult to find my underlying concerns in the sea of background noise.
(Please know that I am fully aware some concerns are a matter of "wait and see" or they may not really warrant a response and I am aware of that. I also fully respect your right to simply not respond to a concern and I won't be offended in the slightest if you choose this.)
1) "My concern is, would this feeling increase even more so now that there are some of us who can't "back" 7 cups? Would a certain group feel more listened to than the other? Would one group feel less important than the other? Less noticed? Or would this cause others to believe that because they are unable to put forth the funds to upgrade their account, that their recovery is not as important as the recovery of those who are able to? Would one group have more say than the other in what happens going forward? Regardless if one group would actually have more say than the other, or if one group is more privileged than the other, that negative feeling alone could be crippling. It could cause even more unease amongst some of your users and cause many to break off and find other sources of help or may even cause some to spiral."
2) "Please know that I am not implying that's how it would be done here, but could even the prospect of it happening add quite a bit more stress and strain to your moderator team? Being a moderator is a thankless job, I know. They are already faced with criticism regarding activity, behavior, and how punishment is doled out. With this new feature, the moderators would now be faced with accusations of favoritism based on the premium/free membership. It would add a whole other sleuth of complaints/reports and, I would imagine, place your moderators into even tighter places than they find themselves currently. Regardless of whether or not the moderators' judgment would be affected by the account type or not, the fact that it could be perceived as such, I feel, may open a whole other can of worms that your moderator team, and inevitably, your admin team, will have to sort through."
(As for 3 & 4, I'll simply respond to your replies as I think I understand what you were saying!)
3) You answered this one in a kind of round-about way, which is completely fine. Essentially you're saying you're actively working on things, but little fires come up here and there that push back deadlines even further at times. And basically, things will be tackled when they're tackled. Am I correct?
4) I believe you're saying that while you are aware that people may have negative feelings about this change, and feel like certain privileges can only serve to further separate us, that 7 cups will always attempt to ensure everyone feels welcome and equal here?
Bottom Line: I completely am aware that with some of my concerns, it's really a matter of waiting and seeing how things will develop, and that a reply can't really be given to certain ones because of this. I suppose I was just wanting to bring this to your attention because these were my immediate concerns and things I thought of and, as some may know of me, I'm not really one to stay quiet when I feel something should be voiced. Sometimes it's a curse, and sometimes it's a blessing. Depends on who I'm speaking with, I suppose. As I stated above, I respect your right to simply not address these concerns, (and perhaps that's what you were doing before) but I wanted to make sure that the core of my concerns were spelled out.
Thank you again for your kindness and prompt response.
@ValentineLove okay, one more volley on this, b/c it is 10 PM here and I still have more work to do :).
1. It is impossible to control how other people feel. Some small percentage of people may feel this way. Others will not. We cannot please all people 100% of the time. We can just do our best. Ultimately, all of us have to realize that we are part of something bigger here. We have a big job in front of us. I think what 7 cups does is remarkable. Free emotional support for tens of thousands of people each and every week.
To further clarify, I also don't agree or think that negative feelings are crippling. They are opportunities to grow. Keeping some people from having negative feelings is not a realistic goal for us. That is going to happen when you try to do something important. There is not another possibility. How the person copes with that negative feeling becomes an opportunity for growth. How we cope with negative challenges as a community, likewise, is an opportunity for growth for us as a community. Feeling positive all the time is not a pathway to maturation or growth. We don't grow when life is easy. We grow through trying hard things, experiencing negative emotions, and figuring out new ways of being/relating etc. Same is true here on 7 Cups.
2. No. I was clear on this. We are not going to ask mods to treat people with upgraded accounts any different than they would treat anyone else. I also don't agree that it'll be challenging to address these issues. We've addressed and overcome thousands of issues. This will be minor in comparison.
3. Yes, that is correct.
4. Yes, we want all people to feel welcome at 7 cups!
I have to get back to other things now. If you have other follow ups, then please PM me. Thanks!
I'd like to see a study done before anyone (including Listeners and Members) begin putting money into this. In my experience, it feels like some people here are not volunteering with the same goal in mind. It runs the gamut from flirting to genuine help sometimes even in the same day and from chat to chat.
Now I'm not saying that we should shut the whole site down because I realize the importance of 7 Cups and the mission that it has set out to fulfill. When I started here with another account last year, I felt welcomed and wanting to be able to at least try to be focused on starting my recovery; however, after meeting a guy who was obviously high during a chat, I lost faith in the services here. Why am I still here? I'm trying. What people must realize is that there are some people (like me) who have an extremely difficult time opening up even after such a long time. It's not just cut and dry or cut and paste. It's real life. It's why I advocate for paid training.
Being able to be here is very important as mental health is always on my radar. Don't get me wrong. I've met a lot of great people here who still put up with me when I have a hard time trusting everyone else; however, a lot of them don't stay long. From what I've been told, listening is not all its cracked up to be at some points. Would be great if there was some sort of listener system so that people could be checked in on or even checked up on. I know this probably doesn't belong in this conversation; however, I'm saying it.
@ValentineLove -- Great points! I read every word. Sometimes I feel like if I wasn't able to pay and someone else was that I wouldn't get the same treatment.
@NorthDUKEStar Good feedback points. I'm not sure what you mean by listener check in system. Do you mean listeners checking in on members regularly? or do you mean us checking in on listeners? We encourage the former and we do the latter.
One of the strengths of 7 cups is that it is comprised of real people. We are the real deal. We are authentic. We try. We struggle. It is what makes 7 cups approachable. When you are real you also have limitations too. Sometimes people don't do the best job. If they want to do better, then we help them get better. If they do not, then we ask them to stop listening. It is a balancing act, but, again, this authenticity is a key part of what makes 7 cups work.
@GlenM
Thanks for getting back to me. You've explained everything.
As for advertising, it should be something that doesn't have viruses or anything attached it. Some of those can make sites very insecure. A donate button would be a better idea.
From the previous thread: We can look further to these organizational models for guidance. The Samaritans are sustainable because they raise $11,000,000 in donations each and every year. That sounds like a lot, but I actually believe it is pretty minimal considering all the good that they accomplish. We can learn from them here and create our own ways for people to donate to 7 Cups.
I've always seen similarities between Samaritans' and 7 Cups' aim and values myself (as a volunteer and trustee of a branch). The major difference is there's intentionally no sense of a community given the confidentiality guidelines. The 50-something-year-old caller with extreme emotional problems would never know that he or she was talking to an 18-year-old about deeply profound and intense feelings, and nor does it matter in that setting.
Each of Samaritans' 199 physical branch/centres are independently registered charities, each with its own director and board of trustees. Essentially branches are franchisees - the rent, phone bills (reverse call charges are expensive), publicity, volunteer recruitment etc are all funded through donations and fundraising events run entirely by volunteers. I believe the money Head Office makes is spent on developing the overall brand, research, policy, partnerships - important stuff to keep the mechanisms in place. So in one way or another, I can empathise(!) with you on trying to keep an organisation afloat without damaging its core values and overall brand.
I know you said that you aren't interested in advertising, but given the sheer volume of traffic the site draws in, it could be quite a lucrative consideration. Not necessarily in an insidious and visually distracting way, either.
Premium accounts/benefits sounds like a good idea. For instance, Habbo Hotel offered (offers, I'm going back 10 years) a completely free online social environment for all. It also offered 'Habbo Club' membership at 2.50 a month, the perks included a special badge beside your character and a selection of outfits non-'HC' members could enjoy. Also, as mentioned before, a 'Donate' button/function would be a practical and unobtrusive way of obtaining revenue.
@GlenM I'm gonna be real with you on this, because I don't like sugar coating things when I say them
In it's current state, I cannot see myself supporting 7 Cups monetarily.
It's not because I don't want to become I definitely would, but honestly I have not been satisfied with the direction that the site has been going.
Now earlier this year when I joined, would I? Probably yes I'd consider it, but recently there have been multiple decisions that don't sit very well with me along with the general state of the site (like quality of listeners) that make it very difficult for me to make the decision to give the site any of my hard-earned money.
@n0thing14--I respect your position on this. And, it is hard to want to support something we do not fully agree with. That is why it will not be required. The site has to stay funded in some capacity....otherwise, it will not be here for any of us in the future--whether we pay for the use or not.
@n0thing14 I understand your perspective. The site has gone through a lot of changes. I can understand if you disagree with some of them. I'm biased, but I believe we've accomplished a tremendous amount of good and we are only getting better at what we do. Quality is something we always focus on, but, now with the new design up and apps underway, we will be focusing on quality much more closely again in the coming weeks. I'm sure you understand this, but purely from a statistics stand point, it is very very hard to ensure quality across 130,000 conversations each and every week. Considering the amount of people we support, I think we and our listeners do a remarkable job. That doesn't mean there isn't room for growth. We have plenty of room to grow, but in order for us to grow we have to also be aware of our strengths.
One last point - you'd back 7 cups in part for where it is now, but mostly because you want to help us reach our mission of building out a free emotional wellness system for the world. That is what you are doing when you back us. You are helping us get there.
@n0thing14
I agree. Sometimes it feels like people treat this as a hookup/dating site, which is strange. It might actually be because it is free, allowing folks to join without any commitment. Paying a fee can cause people to consider more what they are joining and hold it in a more respectful regard.
At the same time, I would not want to support a dating/hookup site. But perhaps a fee would deter it from becoming one further.
As for checking in on listeners, isn't that what the rating system is for? It seems to work fairly well.
Overall, this site is awesome. I have had so many positive interactions.
@AuntieLili I used to use a photograph of myself on this site. I used to get members focus on my appearance, flirt, ask if we could chat elsewhere/exchange personal information..
Ever since I changed my picture to the current one, that stopped. Maybe some of the GRs I've accepted have gone quiet yet remained online is because of that - who knows. I know a few fair female listeners using a photograph of themselves experience inappropriate "hey you look good wanna chat on kik" sort of conversations. It is natural that a subjectively nice looking listener will attract attention like this. Removing photographs of listeners wouldn't 100% solve that issue, but would have a big impact on the point you make. I can guarantee that similar services to 7 Cups experiences that, anonymous/faceless or not, to some degree.
Listeners using it as a free dating chat service isn't acceptable, and that's where quality control comes into it.
@SpencerT I agree. My first ever conversation I took as a listener, was with someone who was sexually inappropriate. What made it worse was that I was shaking with anger because I had been sexually abused when I was younger. Why would I want to support I site where I can't even feel safe? I didn't even have a picture of myself (though, find it terrible that others have experience the same and were told to change the picture of themselves -_-
@SpencerT
AMEN to this. I brought up this issue a LONG time ago. I noticed listeners who used pictures of them self (especially young women) complained about perverts hitting on them. I mentioned using a new picture. I quickly got jumped on by a Mod who said I was blaming the victim and I should be ashamed. And this Mod is WAY HIGH in the food chain of this site. I was baffled. It is common sense. Take away the visual cue and you eliminate a LOT of the issue. I use a picture of a MONKEY. How often do I get hit on..... uhhhh never!