Dear friends,
In November of 2019, I launched a new project. As of now, over 250 folks have signed up to be a part of it. It’s a wonderful group of folks — a smaller group who are taking a deeper dive with me into creating a digital community, and who are also supporting my music, writing, and other work in the world. Check out the video below to hear a bit more about it. I had no idea, of course, when I launched this in November of 2019, that the pandemic was on the way and most of 2020’s scheduled events would be canceled. And no idea that the nation and world would then begin actively wrestling with dismantling entrenched systems of racism, with all the tumult that requires. Here we are, and I am even more grateful for this community.
If you would like to try this out, I would warmly welcome your participation. Just click this button right here:
Over the last several months, I’ve been sharing stuff with the Patreon community as I create it: Songs like The Way It’s Done, that isn’t on any of my albums, or Here For You, a new song I’ve written about the time of the pandemic. Audio book chapters of the first several chapters of my book Worldchanging 101: Challenging the Myth of Powerlessness, adding a chapter a month as we go. Occasionally, I’ll share recordings of covers I love.
Every month we have a video chat with the folks who are part of Patreon. Folks have also gamely responded to my request to introduce themselves, and I’m getting to know this community of folks, which already includes people from New Zealand, Australia, Scotland, and Germany, as well as the U.S., as well as watching folks begin to interact with each other.
Lately, I’ve also been sharing ‘Monday Music’ and ‘Wednesday Words.’ Those are 8-12 minute videos, delivered to your inbox for an encouraging word. On Mondays, I share a song and talk a bit about it, and on Wednesdays, I go to my bookshelf and find a poem or two, or a few paragraphs from a couple of books I love, and talk about how they intersect for me.
The support of this community has also made space for me to offer projects to wider audiences, like the pandemic project, Sustaining Our Spirits, where I interviewed 25 artists and asked them to share their music/photography/poetry, as well as their thoughts on making it through challenging times.
In these days when physical CD sales are no longer much of a thing, not to mention gigs themselves, Patreon is a platform that is allowing lots of artists to continue their work, and giving their listeners and supporters a way to keep them going. Patrons kick in whatever amount they would like each month, from one dollar up (and can increase or decrease that whenever they want to).
On my Patreon page, everyone who contributes, at whatever level, gets the same thing, and the range is from $1 to $125 a month. It’s deeply moving for me to feel like my work is valued by folks, and it is providing a way for me to keep doing what I do.
It’s also really fun for me. It’s great to have a place to share things that feels like it’s a bit more private than social media, and I’m really enjoying the bonds that are beginning to form between other people in the group. Of course, I’m also grateful to folks who just use it as a way to support my work, but don’t really participate in the other parts. That’s deeply affirming.
If you’re interested in knowing more, click over to Patreon to see how it works. You can change your pledge or cancel any time you like. Thanks for believing in me and my work enough to read this far. I hope you can join us.
Hope to see you soon!
