Why now?

I've been getting a version of the same question lately, sometimes asked kindly and sometimes not: why is Mints suddenly talking about money?

Fair question, and here's the answer.

For nine years, this community ran without any regular income. No membership fees, no sponsors, no real budget.

That doesn't mean it was free to run. Every webinar you've joined took somebody (for years, mostly Annie) hours of finding the speaker, coordinating schedules, promoting it, and hosting it, on a Zoom license big enough to hold all of us, plus storage fees so the recording stays available after. Years of free programming have looked effortless because we made it that way and I personally covered the costs.

And the biggest investment here has never been money at all. This community has been kept safe and kind by a volunteer mod team. I can't even imagine the number we'd get if we tried to add up all the hours they've spent making this place great. Hours they could have spent with their families, or resting, or chasing their own goals. They gave them here instead.

As for the actual dollars: hosting, legal fees here and there, and software whose free tiers we kept outgrowing. Real email addresses, so the speakers we invited heard from an organization and not a stranger with a Gmail. A website before we ever had anything to sell, because looking legit is how you land speakers worth your time. We didn't have to do any of that, we did it because not charging you was never a reason to give you less. I mostly covered that gap myself, a couple thousand a year, give or take. I was happy to do it. I love this place, and it felt like a small price for something that does this much good. A Facebook group doesn't look like something that costs money to run, so I let it stay invisible.

Well, almost. A couple of times, when costs got bigger than normal, we did ask for one-time help, and the community showed up each time. That's just one example of how amazing this group is, and how much y'all want to support the space we've built together. It got us through some rough patches, it just couldn't change the basic math.

So what's changed?

More and more of you have been telling me lately that you wish this community didn't have to live on Facebook at all. I hear you. Me too.

Clearly we're not the only ones who feel this way, because Facebook itself is shrinking. Maybe you've noticed fewer posts in your feed, fewer comments, that sense that the room is emptier than it used to be. From where I sit, it's worse than it looks. When one of us posts in the group, Facebook decides who sees it, and I'm not kidding when I say we're lucky if that's 10% of members. There are 19,000 of us in there, and most of us never see each other at all.

I don't want Mints to die when Facebook does.

The other thing that changed is closer to home. I can't absorb the costs the way I used to. All this time, the safety net under Mints was basically me, and I'd love to keep being that net. It just isn't reality anymore.

So why not just let it wind down? Because Mints has never been a Facebook group to me. It's where one of us posted that she was weeks from losing her housing and got flooded with job leads, referrals, and interview prep from Mints she'd never met. It's where Mints have met their co-founders, and where others found the support and the nerve to finally work for themselves. It's where holiday giving drives have connected Mints going through a hard season with Mints who had a little extra to give. We haven't had the bandwidth to run one in a couple of years, and that's exactly the kind of thing I want back. People come here in some of the scariest moments of their lives. They also come back to celebrate their biggest wins. And all of that only works if we have a home no algorithm can take away from us.

So we're building one. The website, the blog, the member directory, Mints+. A place we own. And that, finally, is where the money question comes in, because a home has bills.

Some of the bills aren't new; they're the same hosting, software, and legal costs I was quietly covering all those years. What's new is everything on top. Working with sponsors means contracts, which means more legal work. Perks and in-person events add more still. And we now pay real people to do work that volunteers used to squeeze in around their lives, if it got done at all: operations, the blog, the newsletter. When everything was volunteer-run, tenuous was okay. It can't be tenuous now that sponsors are counting on us to deliver what we promise.

I stayed quiet about the costs for years because I didn't want anyone to feel hustled. I've realized the silence backfired. If you can't see what something costs, of course it seems weird when someone asks you to help pay for it.

Here's another thing I haven't been loud enough about: keeping the lights on isn't actually the goal.

I want Mints impacting policy and showing the world how much power moms have. I want us working with companies to get better benefits for working mothers, the kind you can actually use. I want scholarships for young moms who aren't in tech yet but want to be. I want training with real certifications attached, the kind that moves careers. I want in-person events that are worth your time, with child care, so showing up is actually possible. I want retreats. I want to pay our moderators, who have been doing this for free for years. They shouldn't have to forever.

All of that takes money. Not a windfall, just boring, predictable, monthly money we can count on.

That's what Mints+ is for. Ten dollars a month. Yes, there are perks, and we're making them better all the time. But it works less like buying a product and more like chipping in to keep something you love running. You've been getting the good stuff for free, maybe for years. If it's mattered to you, ten bucks a month keeps it going and builds what's next. The perks are nice, but they aren't why you're here.

If money's tight, don't give it a second thought. Nothing you love about this community is going away. Keep posting, keep commenting, keep showing up for each other. That part is free and always will be.

But if you've ever wondered whether your ten dollars would actually matter here, it would. It really would.

Nine years ago, this started as a little experiment, and then a few dozen of us discovered something that sounds obvious now: not being a man in tech is hard, being a parent in tech is hard, both at once is a one-two punch almost nobody was talking about. The moment we realized we weren't alone, this thing grew like wildfire. It's been growing ever since. Thanks for being part of it, in whatever way you can.

Darci

P.S. I'd love to talk more about all of this with you, which is a big part of why we're planning our first-ever Mints Town Hall for September. Keep an eye out in the group for the event post. Come with your questions, come with your ideas. I hope to see you there.

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Not in the group yet? Mints lives in our Facebook group (yes, we know, that's what half this letter is about, and we're working on it). Apply on Facebook. Every application is reviewed by a real person. Already in the Facebook group? Then you're already a member, no application needed. The optional next step is joining Mints+.