🧧 July Newsletter (One Year of Membership)

Today's newsletter looks different – I'm dedicating it to sharing some reflections on the first year of The Tea Stand's membership program!

But first, our July calendar:

Volunteer opportunities & events in July:

🧺 RSVP to Teapotluck
🗓️ July 6 – Bushwick – 2pm

🪷 RSVP to Silent Sanctuary
🗓️ July 8 – Ridgewood – 7pm

🫖 RSVP to Tea Talk (topic: peace)
🗓️ July 9 – Bushwick– 7pm

🥬 Volunteer for Distro
🗓️ July 12 – BedStuy – 10:30am

🛖 RSVP to tea.haus
🗓️ July 18 – East Williamsburg – 7pm

🧧 One Year of Membership

On July 1st 2024, exactly one year ago today, I announced the launch of The Tea Stand's membership program. It was a day I had been planning for, and looking forward to, for months.

The vision was – and remains today – to financially sustain The Tea Stand through the membership program, via which people can make monthly donations and receive perks. It also serves to incorporate community voices into our programming, protect the non-transactional energy of The Tea Stand, and keep me/us accountable to our values.

A week after launching, a total of 25 people – mostly friends and family – had signed up to make monthly donations. Sadly, much of the gratitude for the people who signed up (thank you, i love you) was usurped by the scarcity monster and its insidious whispers: how dare you ask people to donate money, that signup was surely the final one, this will never work.

Looking back now, the first year of running the membership program featured a whole lot of self-doubt. Whenever a month would pass by without a new signup, it felt like a conclusive statement on the inevitable failure of the membership program.

But then, something would happen – an unexpected signup, an inspiring conversation with a Sipper or Steeper, a successful batch of Tea Boxes – and optimism and trust would fill the space where fear and insecurity had taken root.

When all else failed, simply being in a park or at a food distribution, surrounded by neighbors and nature, put everything in perspective. The membership program exists so that we can keep serving free tea, not the other way around (NEVER the other way around!).

In hindsight, not having clear goals for the first year was a double-edged sword. While it protected me from falling short of expectations, it also made it difficult to evaluate how things were going. The door was open for doubt to creep in as it wished, and boy did it creep in often.

Today, this tension between abundance and scarcity remains, though I'm happy to say that abundance is winning more and more often, especially as of the past few months.

Here are three of the many reasons why:

1. There are now nearly 75 people making monthly contributions to The Tea Stand, and about half of them are people I've met while serving free tea. These are people who stumbled upon The Tea Stand in the park, volunteered to serve tea at a food distribution, or attended one of our many other events. A year ago, I would've bet 10 pounds of tea that the initial 25 members represented close to the full extent of potential supporters. It's humbling and empowering to recognize just how wrong I was! (btw, you can now see the names of all of our supporters on our signup page.)
   
   
2. The perks we offer to supporters have improved significantly. The most obvious example is the addition of the Travel Cup back in March, which one Steeper said is his "favorite object he owns." (Happy to hear Pete, I'm with ya.) And also – discounts at twice as many small businesses (up to 6, and a 7th coming soon!), zines increasing in quality and page-length, and Tea Boxes full of local art and consistently delicious tea! More broadly, we've held true to our intention of only offering perks which encourage community participation and sustainable living (rather than exclusive "content").
   
   
3. If we can do it for one year, we can do it for two. Commitment is scary, especially when you have no idea what you're doing! As someone with no real experience in packaging, printing, design, and pretty much every other skill required to run the membership program, I was unsure how realistic it would be for me to ship out four Tea Boxes a year (each batch is ~30 hours of labor), publish a biannual zine, print hundreds of postcards at-home, etc. A year later, I feel so much more confident in my ability to learn new skills, develop well-organized systems, and ask for help when I need it.

As I sit here, holding these truths, I feel deep gratitude for all who believe in and wish to support this project, disbelief in how far The Tea Stand has come in just one year, and abundant affirmation that this is something worth doing. This is how I fend off the scarcity monster!

And yet – there remains a long way to go until The Tea Stand is financially sustainable. As this is my full-time work, the goal of the membership is not only to cover all operational costs (e.g. cups, the website, printing), but also to cover my cost-of-living. (I'm currently pulling from savings to pay my bills – you can read my privilege statement here!)

So how can we get to full financial sustainability? As always, strangers / neighbors / the universe are showing me the way forward.

A couple months ago, in the midst of Perpetual Brew, a stranger stopped for tea and started asking questions about how the finances of the project work.

I explained the membership program, the current price tiers, and the longer term vision for funding the project. We chatted for a while – over an hour, interrupted every so often by other visitors – but his main point was something like this:

"By having the highest donation tier at $9 per month, you're blocking your blessings."

I protested – "there's a pay-what-you-wish option!" – but as I sat with this idea over the coming days and discussed them with friend-advisor-chai-brewer Adin, I started to come around to the idea of offering a higher price tier.

There's intention in having $9/month be the most "expensive" tier – I wanted to reflect the type of people I seek to be in community with, like working-class artists and local organizers. Asking for more felt insincere and out-of-touch.

But it's not a matter of "asking for more"; it's about providing an opportunity for those who are able and willing to contribute in a more impactful way. And after doing some basic financial forecasting, it became clear that offering a significantly higher membership tier is all-but-necessary to sustaining The Tea Stand long-term.

And so: we are officially announcing the "Big Steeper" tier at $99/month!

Big Steepers will receive a handmade teapot by local ceramicist Lilian Wu of Gasworks (and additional teaware each following year), access to an intimate tea ceremony led by local tea practitioner Tim Chacko (in-person or virtual), and all perks offered to Sippers & Steepers.

In this way, Big Steepers are not only significantly supporting The Tea Stand, but also directly supporting local artists and tea brewers :)

In parallel with this new tier announcement, we're dedicating the month of July to our version of a "member drive."

Our goal is to reach $1,000 in monthly donations by the end of July. We're currently about $350/month short.

Here's one way we can reach our goal:

• 20 Sippers ($3/month) – $60
• 10 Steepers ($9/month) – $90
• 2 Big Steepers ($99/month) – $200

So, if you've been considering signing up, or know someone who would be keen on supporting The Tea Stand, consider this your official invitation!

If you're unable or uninterested in signing up as a Sipper or Steeper, here a couple other ways you can support and celebrate this milestone with us!

Come by our Teapotluck event on July 6th. We'll be launching issue #3 of bōcha (our best yet!), celebrating Perpetual Brew and all of the artists who participated, and saying some words about the membership program.

Also, we'll be posting about the membership program on Instagram throughout the month of July. Even if you're not a Sipper or Steeper, consider resharing our posts as an alternate way to support!

And of course, you can always volunteer to serve tea, donate tea, or make one-time donations via Venmo.

In closing... THANK YOU!!!

Thank you, reader, for your attention and care. Reading emails is somewhat of a lost art these days, but I would rather spend quality time with you here than for a blink-of-an-eye on Instagram (for now, I must do both).

Thank you to the 70+ Sippers & Steepers who I will forever regard as the "first flush" of supporters. You all provided much-needed affirmation, encouragement, and critical feedback (via our annual survey or otherwise) when this project was at its most fragile and vulnerable, I cannot express how grateful I am for your financial and spiritual support!

Thank you Adin, for helping design the membership program, coding up the pay-what-you-wish option, and keeping me sane and grounded over the past year.

Thank you Olaia of Unfound for demystifying the entire Tea Box process, suggesting the addition of locally illustrated postcards (shoutout Val, Parker, and Sophia for drawing them!), and all the creative direction over the past years.

Thank you Craig Mod, one of my biggest inspirations and "archetypes," for providing the template for our membership program and sharing so much wisdom on how to run one. Here are some of Craig's words thanking his own members, which I'd like to extend to you all:

I am tremendously grateful to everyone who has joined. I realize not everyone can afford to join, and I realize we’re all a bit bombarded by “memberships” and “subscriptions” these days. But ultimately — this is a good thing! A scant ten years ago this ecosystem barely existed. Now it’s ever-more normalized. This feels healthy. Directly supporting writers, artists, musicians, software developers, et cetera, feels like the final remaining puzzle piece of the last 30 years of independent creation.

Thank you for reading!

And thanks to June's tea donors: Mat & Parker.

Welcome our new Sippers & Steepers: Juniper, Addy, Tanya, Ray, Rebecca, & Taher.

Hope to see you at one of our events in July (calendar here).

Keep Steeping,
Miles 🍵