Join Our Circular Fashion Coalition
March 13, 2024
This week my podcast cohost, Laura, and I are trying something new. We are experimenting with a new way of funding our podcast in order to pay for our time invested and our production costs, a way that builds community and invites in a wide range of stakeholders- I’m talking to the businesses and organizations reading this newsletter.
In the summer of 2023 I had wanted to start a podcast, but I was too nervous to do it myself, mostly because I felt lacking in technical expertise. Throw me into a conversation with a stranger and I’ll have a great time, but how to record, how to edit, how to publish, etc, those were all daunting questions to me. Then I met Laura (through a LinkedIn meet-cute) and we decided to start a podcast together. Thankfully, not only is she a great human and fun to talk to, she is a super tech adapter, always picking up new apps, new skills and figuring out how everything works online.
Anyways, we started the podcast last August and have released 19 episodes since then. Like most projects I dive head first into (that’s my style), I just want to get into it and feel relaxed about accomplishing it. Once I’m well stuck in, I always have the realization that it’s more work that I thought, and this holds true for the podcast. Like many creative jobs, the fun part of recording conversations turns out to be only about a quarter of the time we spend creating it. There are many tasks related to prep and post for each episode, larger season-building activities and finding sponsors to help us pay for the time we spend creating the podcast. If it was just hopping into a conversation once a week and uploading that conversation directly for your listening pleasure, it would be something I think we could both happily do for free. But the reality is that each episode takes us each about 5 hours of additional work when you tally it all up. Crazy right?!
So, we have been experimenting with different types of sponsors. For our second season, Repair Across Industries, we have 2 sponsors. For an upcoming shorter season - to launch in April- we have one sponsor who partnered with us on the whole thing.
For our next long-form season we want to tackle a big topic- the circular journey of clothing. We want to explore key elements of the circular economy: resale, repair, recycling, design for circularity, and we will also dive into more nuanced topics like returns, fiber-to-fiber recycling feedstock challenges, landfills and measuring impact. Our goal for the season is to share a holistic and in-depth look at how the circular economy works, or could work, for the fashion sector.
We are taking a unique approach to our funding for this- we are democratizing it. Instead of asking one or two sponsors for big dollars, we are asking many for small(er) dollars, $1,000 to be exact. We are asking our network of companies participating in the circular economy to find $1,000 in their marketing or R+D budgets to help us tell this story. In exchange for this investment, each company or organization will get an audio advertisement during the season, but maybe more importantly, they will also gain membership to our exclusive season coalition where we will be fostering connection, collaboration and entry into the circular economy.
During each week of this podcast season (May-July) we will launch an episode on a specific topic, for example resale, and we will also host a members-only group meetup where we will share resale strategies, best practices and vendors from our combined 30+ years experience in this industry. Every week members can join these meetups to learn from us and each other; they can bring their questions, challenges and successes to share with the group and continue to foster a tighter circular-focused community.
This is open to any and all organizations working towards a circular economy, whether it’s a big brand trying to set their strategy or a tiny material recycling start up trying to gain momentum. The more diverse our group of stakeholder members, the better. For vendors (those companies who sell services or products related to each week’s theme) we will have a short pitch session as part of every week’s meeting. This will give those who have built solutions a chance to share directly about their offering, which will also provide valuable context and connections to those looking for solutions. Aside from those short pitch-sessions, we will ask the vendor-members to hold back on their ‘sales-mode’ and participate as a curious and engaged individual member.
Laura and I are really excited about this new format because its a twofer- it will pay for our production of the season and it will foster community, something we’ve heard many of you ask for over the last many months. We hope that the $1,000 is indeed a low enough barrier to entry for those who want to join.
To be honest, we have no idea what the response will be, and I am personally exhilarated by this unknown. Of course I hope it works, but I’m also prepared to fall on my face having tried something new. I have enough experience under my belt at this point to know that I will look back on this a year from now with rich learnings and insights, no matter how it goes.
If you are interested in learning more or joining, please do so below:
Join here
Learn more here
And, if you look into it and decide not to join, please tell me why so I can learn from your perspective. You can reply to this newsletter directly or email me: cynthia@moltevolte.com.
The Podcast: Toys
Check out our new episode on toy repair with Catherine Bhattachar of Tiny Earth Toys. I can’t wait to check out their modern (and ungendered) dollhouses.
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Until next week,
Cynthia
cynthia@moltevolte.com
