I’ve had my Ko-Fi for just a couple months now, and I am so grateful for the experiences I have had so far. I first posted about why I started a Ko-Fi account in May, and in that short time I have been so blessed to witness the outpouring of support from my loved ones.
So firstly, I want to thank you for being one-time supporters. Recurring subscribers. For commissioning me to read your birth chart, and sharing my writing with your friends. It has made such a huge difference in my life (and bank account, sincerely!) to have your love and support.
I wanted to take some time with this piece to explain why I chose Ko-Fi as my platform of choice over other options, and why I think it’s perfect for teachers, especially queer folx of color, who are creators and know that their worth isn’t being valued by the system in any way.
How I Chose Ko-Fi
During the pandemic, I was asked by my school district to create curriculum for the first six-week unit of US history. I recruited a friend of mine whom I work well with, and we decided to build curriculum together for the rest of the semester as well. We had really great responses, and other people also reached out to ask if they could use our work. It gave me the idea to perhaps share more of my work with other people and make things easier for fellow teachers, but I didn’t quite know how to go about it.
I noticed on Twitter that teachers were frustrated by platforms like Teachers Pay Teachers, finding it difficult to find quality, antiracist, trauma-informed curriculum. Others recommended that teachers set up Patreon accounts, which first gave me the idea to perhaps consider setting up a Patreon like other teachers out there to share my existing writing and perhaps upload curriculum.
But as I started to look around, I had a feeling that I should do more research before settling on the most popular platform I knew. Patreon seemed like it had a strong existing base, people were familiar with it and how it worked, I appreciated their very excellent blog on insights about how to use such a platform, but I still wasn’t entirely sold. Upon further research, I noticed that Patreon seems caught between its very sincere mission to help creators, and to generate profit based on the demands of their ultimate stakeholders, the venture capitalists and angel investors which meant that there seemed to be frequent conflict between Patreon and its creator base when platform fees when up or other issues like censorship of creators for NSFW content or “anime-like” art. These things didn’t inspire trust in the long-term that I would be valued as a queer woman of color making noise in public education.
I took a brief look at Liberapay and I really admire their approach! Being a European nonprofit, they are able to maximize the amount of money that goes to their users and I think it’s great that all materials or resources associated with the Liberapay account should be open source, democratizing information. I appreciate its existence, but it still didn’t feel like the right platform for me personally. That said, it looks really wonderful for others so this may be a better fit for your needs than mine!
I heard of a platform called Comradery, and again I admire its mission of being a cooperatively-owned subscription platform that aims to put resources into the hands of the people invested in it. They have a bold mission and they aspire towards deep collectivism, but as I did research earlier this year, they seemed too new and in development for me to be invested in. I don’t have the time and energy right now to build a community — I already do that five times a day in the classroom! Since my initial research, it looks like Comradery is in pre-alpha stage so I encourage others who have interest in an anti-capitalist, collective ownership model to take a look.
Buy Me a Coffee also looked great! I would say it’s Ko-Fi’s closest competitor and offers similar services. For me, they both top Patreon because you can use it like a ‘tip jar’ where supporters can pay you once and the metaphor of buying someone a coffee (or item of your choice) makes the whole thing really friendly and intimate. As someone whose day job is incredibly stressful and dynamic, I didn’t want to feel pressured to generate regular content on Patreon while also navigating classroom and workplace antics in a pandemic year or beyond. I like that you don’t have to wait on these platforms until the end of the month to get your payout, and there are certainly advantages to Buy Me a Coffee over Ko-Fi for some folks, like accepting more forms of payment or having more access to things without needing a membership.
That said, I ultimately decided on Ko-Fi because I loved how cute the interface was, its features for types of posts I could include, and I appreciated being able to offer Commissions or a Shop. I liked that I could accept payment through a Paypal account or credit card via Stripe, and for someone who’s new to this financial side of things, that felt within my capacity to figure out. It hit all my needs and to be frank, it just ‘felt’ right.
What’s Changed for Me Since Joining Ko-Fi
Let’s start with the big one: I’ve made money! A solid amount of money that I’m very happy with. From an abundance mindset, I have been extremely grateful for the lifestyle I currently lead on the budget I had prior to experimenting on Ko-Fi, so I’ve been able to receive everything with such deep gratitude and joy. Thank you so much to my eight recurring subcribers, five supporters who ordered a natal chart reading, and eleven individual supporters. Every time I get a notification, it means the world to me.
Since endeavoring on this project, as a teacher who has not felt seen or supported by any part of the institution, Ko-Fi has given me the freedom to work on the projects in and out of the classroom that are more in alignment with my purpose and what I feel like my loved ones and my community need. I’ve been able to offer natal chart readings, which has helped my people gain a deeper awareness of self! I’ve had the time and space to write more deeply about my experiences as an educator and share them with others. And I’ve had the opportunity to actually tackle other projects that I’ve wanted to do all year but didn’t have the capacity to do during the school year.
I think that Ko-Fi is a great platform for a queer educator of color like me because the truth is that all BIPOC teachers are clearly a minority in a profession that is still 80% white. And in these cultural wars over teaching key values of justice in the classroom obfuscated by disorienting arguments around critical race theory, more than ever, the efforts of educators who believe in social justice, liberation, and abolition need to be deeply valued and nourished. I can’t say by any means that I’m a perfect teacher, but I do know that my voice is an unfortunately necessary one for as long as US education is shaped by hegemonic structures of punishment, compliance, and the myth of meritocracy.
As a teacher these past four years teaching Humanities and Health Education, I’ve had the joy of being able to deconstruct outdated notions of sex and gender. Students and I have talked about boundaries, signs of abuse, and healthy, loving relationships. We discuss healthy nutrition and movement, and I make sure we cover being careful about fatphobia and too easily associating weight with good physical health. Students have made podcasts interviewing immigrants in the community, and used primary sources to piece together and navigate the difficult parts of US History, like the Tulsa Race Massacre or the genocide of Indigenous peoples through California Missions. We’ve also affirmed and find beauty in history, finding courage in the narratives of incredible Black women like Ella Baker and Ida B. Wells. We’ve examined myths about college and success after high school, and made sure we talked about how to properly assess one’s hard and soft skills for the working world, how to code-switch when we choose to, and how to dream big in alignment with our values. We’ve pushed each other every day to build a world in which we don’t need to rely on punishment to aspire towards the behaviors we want for a truly inclusive, trusting, and collaborative classroom.
Teaching is truly a joy when I get to explore the world as it is and as it could be with my students. I want to keep doing that for as long as I can, but I need so much more help to do so while figuring out basic income needs, paying off my student loan debt, and feeling resourced when I am knocked back on my heels (which has been unfortunately often these last few years). Ko-Fi helps keep me focused and it really helps me feel not so alone. I feel more seen when I am able to keep working on class curriculum, writing, and projects that express my many identities as an educator and meaning-maker, an abolitionist and a dreamer of more plentiful futures.
What’s Next
My hope for the rest of the summer is to continue experimenting with joy, pleasure, and agency. I want to continue working on the things that feel easy and full of possibilities. Some things I have in the works for July:
— Instagram and Google Classroom resources for students to navigate postsecondary plans;
— a Discord server for antiracist/abolitionist educators to collaborate;
— natal chart readings for loved ones and friends;
— building new curriculum for the 2021–2022 school year;
— sharing educational resources around boundary setting, and uplifting design and PBL-based curriculum;
— a book club for women who want to build wealth and end generational curses;
and I’m also taking a lot of time to rest and break! I’m eating better, working on movement, dancing, writing, going on walks, and connecting with people in safe contexts. It feels really good to do things when they feel right, and this summer has been truly wonderful. I’m so grateful to be able to take this time for myself and to invest my energy in places that feel right rather than feeling forced to do work just because some higher-up told me to.
So that’s the update for now! Thanks so much for supporting me so far and I look forward to sharing more of my updates soon.
