April: A Month of Transition
Now that the Membership Program has been set up and the new Directory and Member-Only pages are live, we are in a time of transition while folks who have been on the HFHPN email group officially join the Membership program.
This post gives a summary of the Membership Levels to choose from, information about what the Transition Timeline will look like, and some answers to some frequently asked questions.
There’s a lot of information here! Read as much or as little as is actually helpful to you. And please let me know if you have any questions!
The Membership Levels
There is a more conversational description of the Levels (with a pretty chart!) on the Introduction & Benefits page, but if bullet points are more your thing, here you go:
There are three Membership Levels available: Active, First-Year Free, and Basic.
Active Level ($70 USD/year)
HFHPN email group
Support the work of the site for families and providers (including personalized responses and referrals).
Submit events/groups to HFH time-limited event and ongoing group pages.
Inclusion on monthly Family Event Newsletter for any events occurring that month or new groups.
Join Special Interest Groups
Attend almost monthly Newerish group
Attend monthly Last Tuesday Consult group
Directory Profile (if criteria is met).
Please note:
Active Level offers full access to all benefits available.
Contact me for a discount code for $20 USD off this year’s membership, if you wish, if you are an individual who offers most of your events or groups for free, or a non-profit organization who offers your services for free, as a thank you for increasing accessibility to CRAFT-based services.
This is intended to be an accessible baseline for providers…please consider adding Additional Support if that is within your means. (Read more about why I am inviting Additional Support in the FAQ below.)
Scholarships available.
First-Year Introductory Level (Free)
HFHPN email group
Submit events/groups to HFH time-limited event and ongoing group pages.
Inclusion on monthly Family Event Newsletter for any events occurring that month or new groups.
Join Special Interest Groups
Attend almost monthly Newerish group
Attend monthly Last Tuesday Consult group
Please note:
First-Year Level is intended for anyone who is new to HFHPN or has joined the HFHPN email list in the past year.
That said, if you have been around for a while but need to choose between removing yourself from HFHPN completely by not signing up, or signing up at the First-Year Level, please join at the First-Year Level and continue to receive the benefits for free for this next year.
There is no Directory Profile and you are not supporting the work behind HFH at the First-Year Level.
After your First Year you will have the option to continue your membership at the Active or Basic Level.
You can upgrade to Active or add Additional Support at any time. (Technically you could also “upgrade” to Basic, but that would reduce your benefits drastically… if you want to support the site, the better move is to add Additional Support.)
Basic Level ($40 USD/year)
HFHPN email group
Supports the cost and work behind the Helping Families Help website for both family members and providers.
Even if you don’t directly participate in the community of providers… if you refer family members to HFH to find CRAFT-based groups or events, turn towards HFH to find referrals when you can’t take clients, invite family members to write in to HFH to get personalized recommendations for services, or send family members here to learn about CRAFT-based studies they might qualify for… then you benefit from the existence of the Helping Families Help site too! Help support the work that goes into all of that with your contribution at the Basic Level.
Please note:
Contact me for a discount code for $20 USD off this year’s membership, if you wish, if you are an individual who offers most of your events or groups for free, or a non-profit organization who offers your services for free, as a thank you for increasing accessibility to CRAFT-based services.
Scholarships available.
The Transition Timeline
We’ll have a month, between now and the end of April (the 29th) for folks that are in the HFHPN email group to create Membership accounts in the HFHPN Membership Program. In that month, I will keep the access as open for possible for people who are in the email group but have not yet created a Membership account.
From now until April 29th:
Providers in the email group (who are not yet Members) will still have access to:
the HFHPN email group
any SIGs they are already a part of
ability to list events within the month of April (up to the 29th).
attend Last Tuesday consult group on March 26th and Newerish group in April.
Providers in the email group (who are not yet Members) lost access to the following when we went Live:
Member Only pages on the website (specifically Submit your Group/Event page, sign up for SIGs)
Ability to submit ongoing groups (as they would continue past April)
Ability to show up in May’s Family Event Newsletter (even though I will be inviting submissions mid-April)
Starting April 22ndish (a week before April 30thish):
I will start reaching out to anyone who is a part of the email group but has not yet set up a HFHPN Member account to do so. While I will encourage providers who have been a HFHPN member for more than a year to join at the Active or Basic Level, the First-Year Free option is also available if that is what is needed.
Starting April 30thish:
I will start removing anyone remaining on the email group who has not yet set up a Member Account from the following HFHPN benefits:
the HFHPN email group itself
Any SIGs they are enrolled in
Any events or ongoing groups that are not supported by an Active or Free Membership Level.
I’ll be communicating along the way of course… I don’t want to catch anyone by surprise… and I very much want everyone to be a part of the community who wants to be!!)
Frequently Asked Questions
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Information from the Beta Testers ranges between 5 to 10 minutes (tops) for the First Year and Basic Levels Members… and that includes careful reading the Membership Agreements.
For the Active LeveI Members, if you are creating a Directory Profile in the same sitting, it will take longer, about 25 to 30 minutes total. That said, if you don’t have the time to do the whole thing, you can always set up your Account now and circle back to create your Directory Profile at a different time.
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The site and community has grown a lot over the last few years, and the work along with it!
I love the Helping Families Help website and believe in the good it does… and… running the site from the Nov 2018 through Feb 2024 has cost over $11,000 USD out of pocket. That amount includes initially porting it over into Squarespace, the initial redesign, a name change, the upgrade to 7.1, SEO work, domain names, hosting fees, email campaign costs (i.e. the Family Event Newsletter), directory costs, and paying for the good work and time for assistance with answering the emails from families.
There has absolutely been support along the way… over $6000 USD from contributions from old directory listings, Patreon members, and occasional donations. For which I am incredibly grateful! (Thank you!)
But there is still a sizable gap. And those numbers don’t take into account the time I put into running the site. (Which is also time I’m not seeing clients. Or doing anything else for that matter.)
As you can imagine… I spend a lot of time, effort, and intention into doing the work for the website and provider community… and the more it gets utilized by families and providers, the more work there is. This is a fantastic problem to have.
It’s also one I need help with.
So that’s where the new HFHPN Membership Program comes in. The paid Memberships are a way of making this website, and this provider community, sustainable for all of us in the long run.
And, if we can make this sustainable as it is, that will allow me to take on more… to grow it even more.
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At Active Level Only:
• A public Directory Profile (if criteria is met)
You can have up to three locations or contacts for your organization listed under one Membership Profile if you provide in-person services and want to show several addresses.
When family members write in to HFH asking for help in finding CRAFT-based resources, Carey responds to them with targeted recommendations based on their family role and location, and she uses the HFHPN public Directory to identify resources that are local to them.
Active & First-Year Levels:
• List CRAFT-based ongoing groups or time-limited events on our Ongoing Groups and Family Events pages
When groups/events are first posted I add them to the monthly Family Events Newsletter which is sent to over 2400 families monthly, receives an open rate of 47-51% (compared to an industry average of 37%) and a click-through rate of 7-11% (compared to an industry average of 1%). (Comparisons according to Constant Contact's Feb 2024 averages for open and click through rates for Health and Wellness businesses.) I take these numbers to mean that the newsletter is going to families who really want the information!
I also post the Newsletter information on Facebook. Honestly, there’s not a ton of followers there (I’m not really active) but it does get posted to a few specific groups for family members.
• Attend the Last Tuesday Consult group, the Newerish group (great for asking other CRAFT-based colleagues questions about outreach suggestions), and special interest groups (SIGs).
These opportunities help you connect with your community of CRAFT-based providers… and the best referrals are from people who know you and admire your work!
Active, First-Year, and Basic (that’s everybody!):
• Post to the HFHPN email group (listserv) of providers to let folks know what you are offering, if you wish!