This summer, Arianna, who is one of our readers, wrote and produced a play at her college about sexuality which also included a fundraising ask for Scarleteen.
This month, Marlena, another Scarleteen user, surprised us with this incredible video she made as part of Project for Awesome, to do what she could to help support what we do and express her experience of what Scarleteen can offer to young people, particularly in a world which is so often unsupportive not just of youth sexuality, but of youth as a whole.
And now, in the last week, yet another fantastic young person began an ingenious self-designed fandom auction to help us here, an effort a host of creative, generous folks have hopped on so far to pitch in with.
We feel the information, support and services we provide for young people are things that young people truly are owed: things they should be able to receive for free from any of us who have the ability to provide them for them. Ideally, our hope is always that older folks with a greater ability to help support organizations and services financially do so that youth can simply take what they need from us as they need it and not have to worry about whether it will still be there for them or not tomorrow or next year.
At the same time, even though their resources are most often far more limited, we've had some young people step up now and in the past to do what they could to help keep us going. That's evidenced well by our fantastic and highly dedicated volunteer staff, all of whom are under 30. Young people have also given through our give-a-buck campaign (which sometimes also includes lovely thank you letters I keep on one wall of my office, letters which always make me smile). Over the years, some of our strongest donors have been those who used Scarleteen as young people, and years later, want to do what they can to say thank you and assure that we're here for other teens and twenty-somethings like we were for them.
We just can't thank all of you enough. Both for what you've been able to do to help provide financial support (support we think you really shouldn't have to give in the first place), but also because when you do things like this, it makes all of us who run and manage Scarleteen feel so great about what we do, have done and can keep on doing. All of the Scarleteen team love the work we do here, but it's hardly an easy job; it's one that asks a lot of our time and energy and requires intensely sustained motivation and determination, especially in a world where what we do and the way we do it is so often grossly unsupported, even though it's exactly what young people themselves are asking for. Efforts like yours are wonderful gifts. They're like having the most amazing alternative cheerleading squad an organization could ask for. Thank you.
Our thanks, too, to all of you, whatever your age, and in whatever way you've done it, who have already given us your support this year. Scarleteen has remained the kind of independent, grassroots media and free-range, progressive activism and advocacy we want it to be for all the years we have operated, and as we enter our 14th year, we are excited to be able to continue the work and service we couldn't sustain without your generosity. Thank you.
We're at the last day of end-of-year fundraising drive. I know how overwhelming it is this time of year with the flood of requests in your postal or email box asking for your support for so many organizations or issues. If you're like me, part of the overwhelm you feel is a deep desire to give to many of these when you know you can't possibly give all you'd like to to all of them, or even more than one or two, at best. Often enough, the most charitable and progressive of us also happen to have wallets whose skimpy contents are highly unreflective of our big-hearted desire to support the organizations and issues most important to us. I know that asking for even a little financial support is often asking a lot, which is one reason why I continue to keep Scarleteen one of the most cost-efficient organizations out there and continue to set our fundraising goals as modestly as I can.
This time around, we've unfortunately -- so far -- only been able to reach less than 1/3rd of our minimum-needed goal of $35,000. When we subtract the two highest donations from the $7,500 we've raised as of today, we're only looking at around $3,000 raised. Anything you can give will make a real difference.
If you can help out in the last days of 2011, we'd truly appreciate it. You can be sure every and any dollar you give to us will be stretched as far as possible to help us continue to provide the trailblazing, holistic sexuality education, information, services and advocacy for millions of young people around the world that we have since they started asking us for our help in 1998.
This isn't now or never. If you can't give now, but may be able to within a few months, that would be fantastic, too. Whether you can help out now or a bit further down the road, your contribution has real value.
If financial support isn't an option for you, we understand. But don't forget that as an organization without the budget to even adequately compensate one staff member, let alone have a paid staff of more than one, we always can use extra volunteers. For 2012, we could use any help you might be able to offer in the following areas, particularly:
If those are skills or services you can and want to offer to share, you can contact us here. Thanks!
Our very best to all of our readers, users, colleagues and allies as we wind up 2011 and enter 2012. We feel lucky to have you as members of our community as we enter another year of creating and supporting what we think is some of the very best sex and sexuality education on the planet for readers we strongly feel deserve nothing less. The very least we owe the young people in our world is to be half as awesome as they are, after all.
I'm writing today to make a modest funding ask of our allies and our readers capable of financial contributions on behalf of our volunteers.
What we're looking to do is to raise enough funds for all of our volunteers, who are able, to fly to San Francisco this April and attend the sex::tech conference together.
Doing so would allow them to appear on a panel we're giving composed of young adult peer online educators, in which they can talk about being educators and engage in a discussion with attendees which will, I expect, influence both attendees and the volunteers positively. I feel it's very important for them to be able to experience some outside, in-person recognition for the fantastic work they've done over the years and want that for them very much. This will also allow as many of us as possible to meet in person and do some important brainstorming about Scarleteen as a website and an organization. Many of them have never met in person, despite sometimes talking online for hours a day while working together, and that, by itself, would be a wonderful thing for them.
Over the last year, we've been exceptionally short-handed around here, and yet, our volunteers have kept plugging along, helping to serve the many users we do each day, patiently, generously and beautifully. It's not an overstatement to say that without them, Scarleteen would not be the same place, particularly when it comes to our direct services. Our text-in line, for instance, is now run almost entirely by two of our volunteers. I'd lose my mind trying to run our busy forums alone, but more to the point, I couldn't do it as well without their contributions and support. As well, I am blessed to be able to talk about our static content with them, having a constant, accessible panel of young people to check in with, and I've co-written articles with some of them that I think are some of the best content we have.
I also think they're exceptional people who I am so proud to have as part of our team. There's not a one of them who hasn't weathered at least one major challenge in life, some several, and done so with strength and grace, then turned around and used those experiences to help others. I admire them, and I consider them my peers, even if we aren't peers in age. I strongly believe our volunteers are sexuality education leaders now who will be even stronger leaders in the future, especially if they are supported well and given opportunities to work with others in the field early. Not all of them will choose that path, but several already have, and I'd like to be able to help them get as many opportunities to support their skills, talents and drive as possible.
I've had colleagues ask me in the past about choosing conferences, and my answer over the last few years has been that if I could only choose one conference to attend as a young adult sexuality educator, it would be this one. I find the group of people who attend the conference and present there fantastic and inspiring, I love how many young people are always there -- more than I have seen at any other sexuality conference -- and I always leave it with a brain bursting with new ideas and fresh energy. I think this particular conference benefits our field greatly, and would be of great benefit to Scarleteen's volunteers, and they to it. If I leave the conference with so many more new ideas and such renewed energy myself, imagine what might happen if nearly all of our staff could do so!
Karyn, one of our volunteers went in the past, and this is what she had to say about it:
Last year, I had the opportunity to attend sex::tech, a fantastic sex education and technology conference put on by ISIS, Inc. Although at that point I’d been a volunteer at Scarleteen for around six years, it was the first time I’d ever had the chance to connect in person with others working in the same field, and long story short, it was amazing. Even though the conference only lasted two days, I learned a huge amount and forged some really great relationships.
Aside from attending a variety of fantastic presentations and panel discussions, one of the best parts of the conference for me was getting the chance to talk to some of the young people attending – high school and college students from around the country. They were smart, funny, enthusiastic, and just all-around awesome, and while I talk to young adults every day as a Scarleteen volunteer, talking to them in person is a whole different kettle of fish, and a real eye-opener. Rather than just answering specific questions, I got to ask them some questions of my own, find out a little bit more about what they need and want when it comes to sexuality education.
In addition to meeting so many fantastic young people, the sense of community I felt was also amazing. I’ve always felt kind of alone in doing the work that I do (sex education isn’t just a hobby for me, it’s a career path), particularly online, when colleagues can be thousands of miles away and meeting in person is often impossible. My friends think what I do is cool, but they don’t quite get it; my family REALLY doesn’t get it; and my partner thinks I’m brave and amazing and smart and all those things, but he doesn’t really get why I’m doing this either (or quite how much it means to me). Spending two solid days with people who DO get it, who face similar challenges, was phenomenal, and the sense I got of belonging was incredibly valuable, and a real affirmation of why I’m doing what I do. On the long list of things I’m looking forward to about sex::tech this year, that feeling of community is way up near the top.
We already have financial support to get three of our volunteers there, but we'd like to move it up to six, including Joey, our wonderful longtime volunteer in Germany. To cover the costs of travel, lodging, meals and conference fees for volunteers which our current budget cannot, we're looking to raise $2,500 for this purpose in the next few weeks.
We always need help with funding as we remain an independent media organization which has never received any public funding or grants and which has always been supported entirely by private donations from individuals. Having recently finished establishing the Find-a-Doc database, a major and costly project, and having received a lower year-end fundraising result in 2010 than we needed, we are not currently able to pay for extras like this, even though something like this is, in so many ways, an essential. So, we're asking for your help.
If you'd like to help us out with this, you can use the donation link at the top of the page, or click here. If you want to earmark your donations specifically for this purpose, you can leave a note in the memo section of your donation. That would be fantastic, because I know the volunteers who will be able to attend because of you would love to thank you personally.
As usual, our biggest thanks to the people like you who help us do what we do and who help us keep growing so we can get better and better at doing it, which certainly includes doing what we can to support our fantastic young volunteers!
This a guest post from Shay at The S Spot for the Scarleteen Blogathon
I do a lot of work in my real life with sex education and promoting safer-sex practices (i.e. getting people to use condoms). Some of you may even recall that The S Spot got it’s start as an educational sex column in a campus newspaper!
I feel that when you’re talking to someone about sex, you can’t just try to scare them with the facts about sexually transmitted infections, HIV, and how accidental pregnancy will “ruin your life”; but a lot of sex educators focus on just that.
I remember one time when I picked up my younger brother from school, I asked him about his day and he told me that there had been an assembly about sex ed. I asked him if he had learned anything interesting and if he had any questions about anything they talked about (figuring that he might be more comfortable talking to me, his older sibling rather than a “real” adult like mom or dad). He did have a few comments about funny things the teachers had said and how uncomfortable many of them had looked. Then he said, “I didn’t know that condoms don’t protect you from infections or AIDS”.
I was flabbergasted. I pressed him for more details – there are some diseases that a condom might not protect you from (depending on where the sores/outbreak is occurring) – but I still wanted to know “what exactly did they tell you?”
My brother then went on to explain how the presentation had showed slides with microscopic views of condoms, revealing that they are full of little holes that might stop sperm but wouldn’t stop infection or disease transmission. “So”, he concluded, “in that case, I don’t see the point of using them.”
I was stunned and very disappointed – not only had this “safe sex” presentation focused only on the negative risks (nothing about the positive things about having sex), but they had outright lied to these junior high and high school kids in an effort to make them even more scared of having sex.
Ironically, depending on how many other students left the presentation with the same attitude as my brother (“if condoms don’t protect me, why bother using them?”), they actually did MORE damage than if they had said nothing at all!
I took a detour on the way home so that I would have enough time to explain to my brother what was wrong with what he had been told at school that day. I explained to him about how condoms work, why some girls are on the pill, what kinds of infections there are to be concerned about, what other forms of barriers exist – anything I could think of that a young almost-man might need to know about the sometimes tricky world we live in. But I also told him that the reason why he needs to know all these things about how to protect himself, is because sex is fun and when he meets the right girl he’s going to want to try it. I told him that I wanted him to know these things so that when the time came when he wanted to have sex, he wouldn’t have to worry, because he would know what to do. He would know that he should use a condom, where to get one, that buying them is nothing to be ashamed of, how to put one on – and then he would be ready to have fun.
Not every student who attended that presentation had a “cool” older sister who was willing to take the time to explain the correct information about birth control, STI’s, and prophylactics. So what happens to these unlucky kids? Do they go out into the world having unprotected sex until they get infected with something serious? Do they end up at university and read someone who writes a newspaper column like mine? Maybe, once they’re older, they end up at The S Spot and find the answer to their questions.
Or, if they’re clever (and connected to the internet) they’ll find a site like Scarleteen!
Scarleteen is a pretty bad-ass site where anyone (though they cater to teens) can go to learn more about sex and to find support for their issues, concerns, and questions. You can read more about them HERE. Scarleteen is the cool older brother/sister who is there to give teens honest and open information about sex – the negative aspects (like STIs) and the positive aspects too (like the fun – woo!).
The weird thing is, Scarleteen is the highest ranked online young adult sexuality resource but it’s the least funded! Since the youth who need this site most are also the least able to donate, they are calling on people who CAN afford to donate.
What Scarleteen Needs: Last year, Scarleteen needed increased donations in order to get through the end of 2009 and into 2010, in large part because private donations for a few years previous had been so low and left us in a very financially precarious position. We increased our financial goals to reflect the need for a minimum annual operating budget of $70,000. Thanks to generous contributions from our supporters in response to that appeal, while we were not able to reach that level, we were able to raise what we needed to not only get through 2009, but were able to use the funds wisely to sustain the organization through 2010. Our goal now is to continue to work toward that annual operating budget. Ideally, we would like to see a minimum of $20,000 in individual donations each year to combine with funding from private grants. In order for that to happen, we need for current donors to keep giving, and we also also need to cultivate new donors.
This minimum budget is exceptionally cost-effective for the level of service we provide, especially compared to other organizations and initiatives whose budgets are far higher, including those which do not match our reach and our level of direct-service. If you would like more details about our budget and expenses, just contact us via email and we’ll gladly share that information with you.
A $100 donation can pay half of our server bill for a month, or half the monthly cost of the text-in service, or can fund any kind of use of the site, including one-on-one counsel and care, for around 10,000 of our daily users. However, we very much appreciate donations at any level.
If you can, please support Scarleteen by clicking here.
You probably know Scarleteen has been the premier online sexuality resource for young people worldwide since 1998. We have consistently provided free inclusive, comprehensive and positive sex education, information and support to millions for longer than anyone else online. We built the online model for teen and young adult sex education and have remained online for nearly eleven years to sustain, refine and expand it.
What you might not know is that Scarleteen is the highest ranked online young adult sexuality resource but also the least funded and that the youth who need us most are also the least able to donate. You might not know that we have done all we have with a budget lower than the median annual household income in the U.S. You might not know we have provided the services we have to millions without any federal, state or local funding and that we are fully independent media which depends on public support to survive and grow.
You also might not know Scarleteen is primarily funded by people who care deeply about teens having this kind of vital and valuable service; individuals like you who want better for young people than what they get in schools, on the street or from initiatives whose aim is to intentionally use fearmongering, bias and misinformation about sexuality to try to scare or intimidate young people into serving their own personal, political or religious agendas.
To try and reach our goal, we're asking our supporters to consider a donation of $100 or greater. If that isn't possible for you, what you can give will still help and will still be strongly appreciated. To donate now, click on one of the links below. If you'd first like more information on why we're setting the goal we are, what Scarleteen has done in the last year and during the whole of our tenure, our plans for 2010, and what the scoop is with our budget and expenses, keep reading.
Had around 1 million overall hits to the site each day from an average of 25,000 unique users daily. Scarleteen has a very high page-load rate as compared to other websites: on average, our users load 3.5 pages each when visiting Scarleteen. Since 2006 alone, our site has had over one billion overall hits and nearly 70 million page loads.
Currently, Scarleteen is the #1 ranked site by Alexa for teen sexuality education/information and for general sexuality advice for users of all ages. It is ranked 27,823 of all websites internationally, and is ranked 11,210th in the United States (on 10/12/2009). Our core users are international, 15-24 and diverse in their race, gender and sexual orientation. To see some of our user testimonials, click here.
To find out more about our educational philosophies and model, you may want to read Scarleteen Is..., What Is Feminist Sex Education?, On Innovation and Inclusivity in Sex Education, A Calm View from the Eye of the Storm: Hysteria, Youth and Sexuality or look at our general about page. If you've never taken the time to just look around the site as a whole, please do!
Engaged in over 4,000 conversations with young people on our message boards, providing them factual and friendly answers on contraception, sexual anatomy, safer sex, sexual health, masturbation, interpersonal relationships and other related topics; helping them through struggles like pregnancy scares or unplanned pregnancies, STIs, sexual harassment, rape and intimate partner violence or abuse; talking them through relationships and breakups, family conflicts, gender, sexual identity or body image issues and their sexual decision-making; discussing political issues pertinent to sexuality and youth rights. Most posts at the boards are answered within a few hours, some within minutes. Many of our board users return to the boards again and again for more help, to engage in deeper discussions or to talk with or support other users.
In total our boards have over 43,000 registered users who have posted over 60,000 topics: all have been answered by one or more of Scarleteen's staff and volunteers. Our boards are fully moderated and a safe space for young people. To help protect our users from potential harassment, they may not share personal information like full names, e-mail addresses, messenger or social networking handles or personal webpages. Managing and moderating the message boards often requires the bulk of our staff and volunteer time.
Answered nearly 100 column-length young adult questions in our Sexpert Advice section, which is also syndicated weekly at RH Reality Check. There are around 900 Sexpert Advice columns in total published at the site. However, our advice queue typically has over 500 questions waiting for answers. In order to catch up with this backlog, we need the funds to acquire more staff to handle the high demand for the longer, in-depth answers our advice column provides and our users are seeking there.
Generated fresh static content. So far this year, we have posted 42 blog entries, half of which were penned by young adult volunteers, and have added more than ten new full articles to the site. Some of our most recent articles include Positively Informed: An HIV/AIDS Roundup, Boys Do Cry: How To Deal With a Breakup Like a Man, An Immodest Proposal, Chicken Soup for the Pregnancy Symptom Freakout's Soul, Let's Get Metaphysical: The Etiquette of Entry, Give'em Some Lip: Labia That Clearly Ain't Minor and Love Letter. We have also added several new youth-written articles this year, and updated several existing articles to be sure our information is accurate and timely.
Excluding the message boards (where there are tens of thousands of pages), Scarleteen currently contains around 1500 pages of content: articles, advice answers, blogs, external resource listings, polls and more. We are not able to pay authors for articles, though we often are queried by authors we'd love to hire who have great ideas. An increase in our budget would allow us to provide more new articles and to further diversify Scarleteen's editorial voice.
Received media coverage: In the last year, Scarleteen was mentioned by/in Salon, Glamour, BUST magazine, Medill Reports, TIME Magazine, City on a Hill Press, The San Francisco Chronicle, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The New York Times, Utne Reader, CBS News and other outlets. To see some of this and more media coverage for Scarleteen in previous years, click here.
Provided direct community education and outreach: In the last year, Scarleteen director Heather Corinna gave talks to sex education students, sex educators and sexologists, youth and/or their allies via presentations at or for the University of Texas (NSRC Regional Training), the sex::tech conference, the American Medical Students Association, Harvard College, the NARAL Youth Summit and Garfield High School directly reaching around 350 total participants. In addition, through the CONNECT program for Washington Corinna currently directs through Cedar River Clinics, direct to-youth sex education was provided on an ongoing basis both to Cedar River young adult clients and homeless teens in Seattle at Spruce Street SCRC, a secure residential shelter. In 2010, Scarleteen will inherit the CONNECT program and continue Seattle-based direct outreach. We also have plans to continue providing information and education both to youth and other educators via conferences, summits and other public outreach opportunities nationally. In addition, with the help of a student intern, Scarleteen is preparing four informative pamphlets for print and distribution to clinics, schools and other groups which serve young people on sexual readiness, consent, managing sexuality after rape or abuse and on how to be queer and trans friendly.
In 2009 we ran a pilot program to train young adult peer sex educators online. To find out about that program and see what trainees had to say about their experience click here. We want to provide two more sessions of the training for 60 trainees in 2010. We have also just debuted a new SMS service for young people to text sexuality, sexual health and relationship questions to us and have them answered on their mobile phones. For more information on the text-in service, click here. As with all of our services, both of these new services are provided at no cost to youth.
On top of continuing the existing services we provide, we would like to continue to grow, adding new sections, functions and levels of service.
What We've Got & What We Need: As of November 1st, 2009, Scarleteen has received approximately $42,000 in grants and donations, the bulk of which has come from a single private grant. Only around $8,000 of that total has come from individual donations, $3,000 of which was from a single donor. To meet our needs for 2009 and the start of 2010, we need $70,000 in total financial support. Our goal now is to raise at least $24,000 in the next two months to meet our needs and cover the costs of 2009, as well as to walk into 2010 on financially healthy footing.
Beginning next year, we will require a minimum annual operating budget of $75,000 and the revenue to support it. While that is a substantial increase from our existing budget, it is essential: our existing budget cannot adequately sustain our staff or the organization as a whole. That new minimum budget is also still incredibly low: it accounts for the site running at a total of around $200 a day to provide all of the services we do to all of the young people and their allies who use them.
75K is exceptionally cost-effective and reasonable for the level of service we provide, especially compared to other organizations and initiatives, including those which do not match our reach and our level of direct-service. To find out details about our budget and expenses, and to compare them to other budgets and expenses of both similar and opposing sex education initiatives, click here.
Please make a donation if you are able, and consider the value and level of the services we provide to young people in doing so. A $100 donation can pay a major chunk of our server bill for a month, or half the monthly cost of the SMS service, or, can fund any kind of use of the site, including one-on-one counsel and care, for around 10,000 of our daily users. However, we would very much appreciate your a donation at any level.
We'd be grateful if you'd share our appeal with your own networks to broaden ours, and let the people who care about you know why you care so much about us.
In advance, we thank you for all you can give us and all you do or have done in support of Scarleteen. We fully intend to keep doing all we can to give just as much back.
If you would like to support us in some other way, such as through advertising, sponsorship or by volunteering your time or if you have any questions about donating, we'd love to hear from you. You can contact us via e-mail here.
From February 14th through March 15th, one of our regular donors has agreed match the donations we receive up to $350 per donor, and/or up to $3,000 total.
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