Open Access and Shared Responsibility: Why I’m Trusting the Soul Professional Movement to Stand on Its Own

Over the past few weeks, something has shifted for me in how I see the future of the Soul Professional Movement. 

A subtle pattern kept repeating itself, and I almost missed it because it didn’t feel dramatic on the surface. Someone would send a contribution to the Soul Professional Movement or pay for a program and donate the spot without being asked. With a kind note that in essence said, “I believe in this. I want to help sustain your vision.”

And it wasn’t just once!

Then last week, something even smaller — and somehow more significant — happened. I shared an article on Substack about my competing energies and, with only twenty-five followers, someone contributed financially to support the Movement. Simply because they believed in my work. 

Twenty-five followers.

That was the moment it clicked for me.

The Soul Professional Movement was about resonance.

I’ve had thousands of followers at different stages of my career. I’ve built memberships with hundreds of paying members.

And here’s something I don’t think we talk about enough: there were seasons when people paid for membership and never showed up to a single call. They didn’t attend the gatherings. They didn’t log in to the portal. They simply wanted to support what was being built. Their payment was their vote of confidence.

At the time, I thought of it as passive income. Or loyalty. Or alignment.

Now I see it differently.

They weren’t buying access. They were sustaining something they believed should exist.

And that is a completely different energy.

When someone contributes without being asked, without being sold, without being incentivized, it reveals something deeper than customer behavior. It reveals conviction. It reveals reciprocity. It reveals that my work, the Movement, is landing in a way that goes beyond transaction.

That realization has been building quietly in me for months.

For ten years, I have personally funded the infrastructure of the Soul Professional Movement. The technology, the hosting, the production, the backend systems, the administrative commitments — the unglamorous but necessary costs that keep a global ecosystem functioning.

The annual cost to sustain that infrastructure is about $25,000, and that number does not include my time, staff time, office expenses, or the unseen hours of vision and leadership that go into holding this space.

I have carried that willingly. I believed in the mission enough to invest in it. I still do.

But the pattern of unsolicited contributions forced me to ask a different question: What if this was never meant to be sustained by one person? What if the fact that people give without being asked is evidence that the model itself wants to evolve?

For years, like many entrepreneurs, I have operated within the traditional framework: build value, create offers, sell programs, generate revenue, use that revenue to fund the larger vision. There is nothing inherently wrong with that model. It works. It is predictable. It is familiar.

And yet, something about it has felt increasingly misaligned with the heart of the Soul Professional Movement.

This Movement was never meant to be exclusive. It was never meant to be gated by financial capacity. It was always meant to be a place where people could explore their gifts, test ideas, and find community without first proving they could afford it.

The more I listened to the quiet contributions — the $80 pledge, the $100 donations, the small monthly gifts from people who didn’t owe me anything — the more I realized that what was happening wasn’t charity.

It was participation.

And participation feels very different than sales.

The Soul Professional Movement was never meant to be reserved for the people who could afford me. That was never the mission. My mission has always been to help people bring their gifts into the world, especially the ones who know they are meant for something more but don’t quite know how to build it. 

And if I’m honest, most of those people don’t have unlimited resources. Many of them are outside the United States. Many of them are navigating real economic constraints (especially this past year). Many of them are rebuilding after loss, divorce, career disruption, caregiving, or simply a lifetime of putting themselves last.

But after a decade, belief alone is not the right foundation for sustainability. Open access without shared responsibility has effectively become a private subsidy. That was never meant to be the long-term design.

There was a season where my one-on-one consulting and paid programs supported the infrastructure. In mid-2023, I leaned more heavily into private work. Not because I wanted to compete with my own community, but because the bills needed to be paid. And being honest, there was always a slight tension there. My personal work and the community sometimes felt like separate lanes running side by side, even though they were born from the same philosophy.

Year-end 2024, I dropped the paid membership and made everything free. It felt aligned with the times. People were hurting. Economies were tightening. The idea of building a conscious business community behind a paywall felt misaligned with my deeper values. I wanted anyone who needed it to have access to foundational business education, community support, and a safe place to create.

And I remember very clearly what it feels like to need that.

I was a single mother navigating seasons when money was tight, and the future felt uncertain. I knew there was something inside me that wanted to be built, something bigger than survival, but I did not always have the financial means to invest in high-ticket mentorship or exclusive communities. If I had found a place like the Soul Professional Network during those years, I would have leaned in. I would have been grateful beyond words.

That memory matters to me.

It shapes how I see this next evolution.

The Network needs to remain open. It needs to be a place where someone can come in, learn the basics of business, ask real questions, explore ideas, and feel seen without calculating whether they can afford to belong. At the same time, the reality is that infrastructure costs money. That is not spiritual bypassing. It is simply the truth.

For a decade, I have paid those bills. Now I am ready to give that responsibility over to the community. The word I keep circling around is stewardship. I am not stepping away. I am not dissolving my role. I am still the pioneer. I am still the facilitator. I am still the voice articulating where we are headed. But the weight of sustaining the infrastructure does not need to sit solely with me anymore.

The ultimate design was always this: a global, open-access ecosystem where anyone, regardless of geography or financial position, could access foundational business education, community support, and a safe place to create.

Not just those who could afford me.

When I began noticing the unsolicited contributions, I started paying attention to a deeper pattern. And strangely enough, it took me back to my children.

My kids understood shared responsibility before I did.

They grew up in a global digital world. When they were teenagers playing Minecraft, they would ask for small amounts of money to donate to creators who built worlds and tools that made their experience better. I struggled with it at first. Why pay someone when you don’t have to? 

But my children understood something instinctively that I was only beginning to grasp.

If someone builds something valuable in a digital ecosystem and you benefit from it, you contribute what you can. Not because you’re forced to. Because it’s fair. Because it keeps the ecosystem alive.

That is the model I now believe the Soul Professional Movement is stepping into.

If someone can afford two dollars a month, that matters. If someone can afford one hundred dollars a month, that matters too. It is not about equal amounts. It is about shared participation. 

It is about creating an ecosystem where those with capacity support the container, so those without capacity still have access.

If the Movement is truly global, then access must remain open. It cannot be restricted to those who live in stronger currencies or more stable economies.

But open access does not mean free of responsibility.

It means shared stewardship.

If one thousand people contribute one dollar a month, the foundation is strong. If fifty people contribute $38 a month, the infrastructure is sustained. The math is not dramatic. It is collective.

If it does not sustain itself, then perhaps its season is complete. I say that without fear. I say it with faith.

If it is truly valuable, it will be sustained. If it is not, it will naturally contract. That is not defeatist. It is honest, and I am in a surrender mindset for this next phase. 

The next phase includes ambassadors hosting in-person gatherings, leaders stepping forward to help guide us, volunteers contributing time and talent to the daily activities, sponsorships helping with scholarships and education efforts, and a shared commitment to building something that outlives one person’s effort. 

This Movement was born from my non-profit roots with a global vision. I want this to be a place where people find mentorship, connection, and support without feeling excluded by their financial situation.

This is not about dismantling what we've built. It is about aligning the structure with the philosophy I have always preached. It is about allowing the Movement to stand on its own feet, so I can leave it to the world.

And I believe it can.