Hello Everyone,

For the last few months, I’ve only been posting my posts and guest posts to my Patreon account. I’ve also been trying to work with both of our new blog members to create their own Patreon accounts; however due to all three of us dealing with issues of spoons and too much to do, we’ve been delayed somewhat in our ability to create the necessary content for their pages.

All three of us struggle with poverty issues related to disability – issues which can make it difficult to write and can make depression worse.  Additionally, even if the Patreons were set up, it can take months to build up donations. For all of us, the situation is near desperate. The social programs we rely on are not enough to live on since it doesn’t cover enough for us to be able to have housing and internet at the same time, and you can forget about replacing clothing that is falling apart, buying a winter coat, or even in some months, having groceries.

The original blog page I set up, while we lost some donations in the last few months, already has a base of donors. Because of everything else going on at home, I haven’t been able to keep up with my commitments to my patrons, simply because I haven’t had enough time to eat, let alone write.

In the interest of helping make sure we can provide the best content possible, and also to help two people struggling with an ableist, racist, transphobic, sexist, homophobic, classist, and so on system, get a little extra support each month.

In the interest of full disclosure and accountability:

• The Social Justice Garden will post their posts in the order that they are published, and each writer will be apportioned the amount raised by their post*
• Guest Posts – which are often donated by people hoping to help us our financially, will be split according to whatever agreement is made between the contact person and the author of the post.

In the coming weeks and months, we will be working on developing some ideas to encourage more people to become patrons in the hopes of reducing the financial burden all three of us face, as well as making it possible for all three of us to look into expanding the type of content we produce. Some of these ideas may include: a subscription service that would allow patrons access to private or early content, a special donor list on the blog, and so on.  We will also be working on updating the Patreon page itself to reflect the changes being made.

For those who don’t know: Patreon allows patrons to set a monthly budges that controls exactly how much you can be expected to pay. This means if you can only afford $10 per month and you donate $1 per post, but we publish 20 posts, you will still only be charged $10.

Patreon lets the author know how much each post is expected to earn, assuming none of the payments bounce.

This means there is an advantage to being one of the first posts published on the blog, as they will earn more than the ones published towards the end. The more posts are written, the less each subsequent post earns.  For the time being, the monetary division is a way to help encourage all three of us to write more, and to give us an added incentive to write quickly.

Any new donations to the blog would be greatly appreciated and would go towards helping three individuals belonging to vulnerable populations being just that little bit more secure.

Thank you.

And now back to our regularly scheduled content.