For years I assumed that if the work mattered, it should pay for itself: that a real leader draws a salary and never asks. I've come to believe something different.
I lead Collective Impact Labs, and I've chosen not to pay myself a salary out of it. CIL's donors give toward a mission. I don't want my rent to compete with that mission for the same dollar.
So instead of a salary, I'm raising personal support, the way people with YWAM or InterVarsity have done for generations. They aren't funded by the organizations they serve; they're funded by a community of people who believe in the calling and send them.
Backbone work is invisible when it's working
I build coordination infrastructure (shared language, shared data, shared governance, alternative capital structures) for networks of organizations trying to pursue something together.
That work creates real value. It reduces duplicated effort, surfaces invisible gaps, and makes it possible for twenty organizations to do together what none of them could do alone. But it does not create the kind of value the market prices well. The organizations that benefit most are often not the ones who hired me; they're the ones who were able to coordinate for the first time because someone built the conditions for it.
Funders fund programs. Almost nobody funds the connective tissue.
That's why it usually gets done off the side of someone's desk until that person burns out.
Not investors. Patrons.
I'm looking for a small group of people who believe in this work and are willing to make it economically possible. Not investors: I'm not building anything you'll get a financial return on.
This is what some call gospel patronage: the old idea that a patron makes a maker's work possible. It keeps me accountable, it keeps me free to serve the mission rather than my paycheck, and it turns funding into a relationship instead of a transaction.
"I will go down into the pit, but you must hold the rope."
William Carey said that to his sending community before leaving for India, and I've been thinking about it for years. Most of the work worth doing requires someone willing to go down, and a group of people at the top willing to hold on, even when they cannot see what is happening below and the rope is just quietly taut in their hands.
I'm asking you to hold the rope.
What partnering looks like
These are anchors, not constraints. Any recurring amount is welcome and nobody who wants in gets priced out. These are just the three that make planning possible.
| Level | Monthly | What it means |
|---|---|---|
| Anchor Partner | $500 | A monthly letter, a standing conversation whenever you want one, and a real seat at the table, including the right to tell me I'm wrong about something. |
| Core Partner | $250 | A monthly letter and an occasional call. The people who make the base of this sustainable. |
| Community Patron | $100 | A quarterly letter, and the knowledge that the rope has more hands on it than it did. |
What every patron gets
A personal update (honest, specific, and not polished for public consumption) about where the work is, what's working, what isn't, and how the support is being used. Access to everything I publish and research. And a direct relationship with me. I will not treat you as a line item.
Write to me first
There's no button on this page, and that's deliberate. I'd rather have a conversation with you than route you through a form.
So: write to me. Tell me you're in, and at what level if you've decided. I'll come back to you personally with how to send it.
Honest limitThis is a personal gift and it isn't tax-deductible. If deductibility matters for how you give, tell me and I'll come back to you if a deductible channel ever exists.
Tell me you're inNot ready to give?
You're just as welcome as a friend of the work. There's a monthly prayer and update letter, and you can be on it whether or not a dollar ever changes hands.
Add me to itThis is separate from CIL
Personal support is not organizational funding, and I keep the two apart on purpose. Money given toward my support is not a gift to Collective Impact Labs, doesn't appear in CIL's accounts as program revenue, and doesn't buy influence over anything CIL does.
If you're in a position to fund an organization rather than a person, CIL itself is almost certainly the better use of it, and I'd rather tell you that than take the smaller gift. The partner sheet says what CIL actually needs.
I also don't raise money for the bakery. It's a personal venture, and mixing it with any of this would be a conflict I don't want.
That's fine, and saying so costs you nothing with me. I'd still rather have you reading the work than feel awkward about a page.
I can't do this work alone, and I don't think I'm meant to.