VERY IMPORTANT UPDATE: PLEASE READ

Dear supporters, recipients & anyone else who cares about this project,

Firstly, please allow me to apologise for how absurdly long it has taken me to get around to sending out this update. There are no excuses for my poor management of this project. There is context for my actions, which I will share further down, but I take full accountability for my inaction and any harm, disappointment or confusion it has caused. I recognise that I have a position of power & trust as the person in control of a community project that is valued by many, and I have not managed that position responsibly lately, and I sincerely apologise for this. Thank you to everyone who has been understanding and patient and has continued to care about this project despite my poor communication.

For those of you who just want to know what is happening to this project going forward, I will summarise that here. For those who would like to understand more about the context of this decision, whether to understand or learn from my mistakes if you are thinking about running a community project yourself, I will go into more detail about my personal experience further down.

WHAT IS HAPPENING TO THE PROJECT FROM NOW ON?

Summary:

• The project is being put on pause indefinitely
• This means I will not be sending any cards
• Please do not write any new cards. If you have cards you have already written, the PO box is still available to receive them for the time being
• The website will be updated to reflect this information as soon as I have the time and energy to do so
• If you are part of a group, or know people involved in charity/non-profit work who might be able to find a suitable group to take this project on, please contact me at newhomefortrcp@gmail.com
• If you are an individual, please do not contact me offering to take on the project. I sincerely appreciate how many of you want to keep this project going, and I love seeing that dedication, but this is simply too much work for one person, or even 2 or 3. I won’t be considering handing this over to a group of less than 4 people, and I’m ideally looking for a much larger group. This is because burnout is a real danger (as I have learned) and I want a stable and maintainable home for this project. The group will also need to be comprised of all LGBTQ+ adults, and be based in the UK. Physical proximity is necessary as all cards must come through one PO box
• The current email for the project will not be monitored. I unfortunately do not have the capacity to respond to questions at this time, as I get hundreds of emails that require a huge amount of energy to respond to. There will be an autoreply to anyone who emails the existing email directing them to this announcement and an FAQ about the changes
• If you do have some kind of urgent enquiry, please DM the twitter page which is being kindly managed by Rosie, who will pass along messages to me if she cannot answer them

More Info:

Regrettably, I am having to pause The Rainbow Cards Project for the time being, until I can find a sustainable group of trustworthy individuals with the resources and experience to maintain the new size of this project and it’s financial & time demands. The project now has over 1000 recipients, and requires me to send thousands and thousands of cards every year. For the past 3 years this has meant dedicating pretty much every single day of September, October, November and December to getting holiday cards sorted and sent. And this was when I had far less recipients than I do now. The project is now the size that I simply cannot run it myself. And I am not in a location or position in my life where involving several other people is logistically workable. So for the time being, the project will be put on pause. This means I will not be sending any cards. I also ask that you do not send any cards, unless you have some you have already written, in which case the PO Box is still available for you to send them to, and I will keep them to be used once the project is able to start again. I personally need to step back from this project for a multitude of reasons, and am not in a place where I can pour a significant amount of energy into it anymore. So I will be looking for a group of people I can mostly hand off all of the workload to. If and when this happens, I plan to remain involved in a leadership position, as I have experience running the project obviously and can provide guidance and logistical support. I will only be handing the project off to a group I can thoroughly vet, to ensure the project continues to provide the same level of safety to recipients, and I will also get in touch with recipients when this happens and every recipient will actively have to opt in to having their information shared with the new team, as I feel this is the best way to ensure full consent. The group will have to be in the UK, all living in the same area, and ideally will be comprised of people who have experience maintaining a community project, and an understanding of the large commitment this poses, as I don’t want people to make the mistake I did and bite off far more than they can chew in terms of workload. Ideally I will hand the project off to an existing community group who feel able to take this on as part of the scope of their group’s work, for example a queer mutual aid group of 10+ people who have co-ordinated projects together already. I encourage you to only reach out to me about interest in taking on this project if you have experience in the charity/non-profit sector as the project needs to be registered as a charity in the near future if it is to continue, and this is quite a significant undertaking. Realistically, I think it is unlikely I will be able to find a suitable team able to take the project on in the current climate, as it will require face-to-face meetings which are unlikely to be possible whilst covid-19 is still a significant risk. My priority is people’s safety, both the safety of recipients & the safety of whoever takes on this project, so I would rather it be put on pause for longer than rush into something that poses a risk to either the recipients due to insufficient vetting of the new team, or the team due to requiring too much travelling/social interaction during a contagious pandemic. So currently I am unable to give an estimate of when the project might be up and running again, but I will endeavour to make it happen as soon as possible.

I’m very sorry to anyone who feels upset or disappointed by this news. I also apologise for my terrible communication over the last few months. There is no excuse, and if in future I am in a role such as this, I will learn from my mistakes here and do better. I am incredibly grateful to everyone who has supported this project over the past 3 years, whether through writing cards or donating or simply spreading the word. This project has touched hundreds of lives and sent around 20,000 cards, and that has only been made possible by a huge amount of community effort. My life will be forever changed by the experience of running this project - it has taught my so much about myself and shown me just how willing people are to be kind and giving when provided with an accessible avenue to do that through. I hope to continue to be involved with community projects of varying kinds going forwards. This is not me being done with community support - in fact, I am taking a step back from this project precisely so I can continue to do this kind of work, after giving myself some time to recover from being so burnt out. I love supporting other LGBTQ+ people, and my commitment to providing support and connection to those who need it has never wavered, and I look forward to finding a multitude of new ways to foster community connection.

Once again, thank you endlessly to everyone who has supported this project. And to recipients: please know that you are so valued and cared about. This decision does not come from me not caring or there not being enough effort from other people, I have already had plenty of offers of support and aid to find a way to make this project sustainable, and I will do my best to find a good home for this project so it can continue to offer you the love and support you do. In the meantime, know that there are so many people out there who care. If there’s anything I’ve learned from running this project, it’s that most people are far more keen to help out those in need than most people realise. If you need support, don’t hesitate to reach out to your community, be it online or locally, because people do care, and there will be people who want to support you in whatever way you might need. It’s said so often it may no longer sound true, but it is: you really are not alone.

All my love and gratitude,

Ellis

(he/him)

Founder of The Rainbow Cards Project

MY EXPERIENCE

(for you to understand this decision better &/or learn from my mistakes)

Disclaimer: I am sharing this for transparency & educational purposes. I am not attempting to absolve myself of responsibility for my recent poor management of the project & lack of communication. I take full accountability for my actions & the resulting effects, and I am aiming to provide context, not excuses. I started this project knowing nothing about what running a non-profit would involve, running on enthusiasm and a touch of idealism. I want to shine a light on the reality of singlehandedly running a rapidly growing project like this, and the difficulties it can involve on a personal level which can then negatively impact the project. I am not looking for pity. In fact, I actively don’t want pity. As a visibly disabled person, I have received enough pity to last me a lifetime and it makes me very uncomfortable, so please do not pity me.

I began this project back in 2017 as a very different person living a very different life. I have multiple chronic illnesses, and from mid 2014-2019 I was unable to leave my house. At my worst I was so unwell I couldn’t feed myself or brush my own teeth, and rolling over in bed was about the limit of the physical activity I could tolerate. When I began the project, my health was just beginning to turn a corner, but I was still entirely bedridden. I was in bed 24 hours a day and had no social interaction aside from online, and a handful of visits a year from a few friends. I began the project because I had just enough energy to be able to do the necessary work at that time, and had no other aspects of my life demanding my energy, as I wasn’t well enough to socialise, study or work. The project provided me with a clear sense of purpose and connection with the world for the first time in years, and it was wonderful. I was a little intimidated when I had 200 recipients within the first couple of months, but I took that as evidence this was something our community needed, and I used that knowledge to push myself to work harder, reach more people, send more cards. In the first 6 months of the project I sent over 3000 cards, all whilst trying to balance my precariously improving health. I dedicated all of my energy during the last 4 months of the year to getting holiday card stuff done, and on the final day before postal deadlines, I worked for over 12 hours straight with one of my friends, only finishing at 5am. Even with all this work, I still needed a significant amount of help from my parents to get everything done in time. And even then, I experienced a worrying physical crash after I finally finished the work and was able to take a break. I spent all of January very unwell, my immune system seemingly weakened by overwork resulting in me catching multiple viruses which caused ripple effects in my health for several months afterwards. In hindsight, I probably should have realised at this point that this workload was not sustainable, but I loved the project so much and was so proud of the work I was doing that I wouldn’t even consider the idea of pausing it or scaling back. In 2018, the project continued to grow, but at a slower pace, and I thought that with decorating the envelopes less and making a few other changes, I could make it work. Over the course of the year I sent thousands of birthday cards, and then again I spent all of my energy during the last 4 months of the year working on holiday cards. Then, after a video spotlighting the project that was put out by the BBC received over 1 million views, the project went from 400 recipients to 800. By this point, I had sent out 2018’s holiday cards - over 4000 cards to over 400 recipients, which seemed like a huge amount, and now I was faced with the prospect of doing double that the following year. Instead of being relieved when the work was done, I watched the media attention with a mixture of excitement and dread. I was so pleased that people seemed to care so much about this project - and by extension, supporting vulnerable queer people - and I was so incredibly grateful to all the amazing people who were donating and sending cards as a result. But simultaneously, I watched my growing list of recipients with growing trepidation. I couldn’t sleep at night due to stress, my insomnia becoming the worst it had ever been, which in turn worsened all the other symptoms of my chronic illnesses. I cycled between refusing to think about the project in the daytime - to the point that I told my loved ones to stop asking me what I was going to do about all the new recipients because it filled me with such immediate panic - and then spiralling into awful anxiety about it at night when I had nothing to distract me from thinking about it. Again, I fell ill with multiple viruses as my body tried to recover from how I had overworked it, but I couldn’t even let myself rest as I was still trying to send around 30 packages of birthday cards a month in January, February & March. After conversations with concerned loved ones who could see better than I could how seriously this pattern of overwork was affecting my health, I made the difficult decision to only send Christmas cards that year, and finally stopped working on birthday cards at the end of March. This had an immediate positive effect on my health, as I was now able to get some much needed rest and the relief of having made a decision allowed me to stop panicking (to some extent) about how I was going to continue the project. By May, I was starting to leave the house for brief trips on a semi-regular basis for the first time in 5 years. And by the summer, I was often making it out the house for an hour long outing around once a week. This might not sound like much, but for me it was huge. I was finally getting to spend time outdoors, getting to have a coffee in a cafe, going to shops for the first time in half a decade. In September, I went to my first social gathering since I was 16, also the first time I had visited a friend’s house in those 5 years. It was amazing. I had also just come out as trans, and at the end of September I began taking testosterone, another amazing change in my life. Then it was October, and time to pour all my energy into Christmas cards. I went from leaving the house most weeks to not leaving the house even once in over two months. This was because I simply had no energy to spare, every ounce of it that I had went into the project. And don’t get me wrong here: this was my choice. I chose to begin this project. I chose to keep it running. No-one was forcing my hand. Yes, I definitely did (and still do) feel a sense of obligation to the community to keep it going, a fear of letting people down if I did stop it, but it was still my responsibility to put the brakes on if I couldn’t handle it anymore. For Christmas 2019, I sent over 8000 cards to 800 recipients - double the previous year. I did have a few people come and help on a couple of occasions, and again my parents helped quite a bit, but I did almost all the work myself. This time I’d made sure that everything would be done earlier, and so I had about a week before Christmas to myself.  Then on Christmas eve I celebrated my 22nd birthday by going out for a meal - the first birthday I had left the house on in 6 years. I went to my first new year’s party ever and had an amazing time and was buoyed by my progress. Starting testosterone proved transformative for my physical health as well as my mental health. Because testosterone affects the way you build collagen, and my primary illness is collagen based, I suddenly started building strength very quickly and was achieving new milestones all the time. During the first 3 months of 2020, I was seeing friends regularly and now had a social life for the first time since I was a teenager. In the back of my mind, I knew that this was going to be where I had to choose: if I wanted to keep making this kind of progress I needed to stop putting all of my energy into this project and start putting all of my energy into my health - doing physiotherapy, working on processing the trauma of the past 5 years, building a social life, and relearning how to be an active member of my community. In March I was discussing my options with my friends, trying to figure out the best way to preserve this project whilst also taking care of myself. I had started to accept I needed to hand it off to a group and only really be involved on a guidance and leadership level. The thought of attempting to do another Christmas pouring all my energy into it filled me with visceral panic. It sounds dramatic, but there’s music I can’t listen to without feeling anxious simply because I listened to it a lot whilst working on Christmas cards. I was (and in many ways still am) so burnt out that even thinking about the project made me want to curl up in a ball and cry. Thoughts about the project were so tied to the memories of how physically awful I felt after every Christmas season, how hard I had pushed my body and how every night I struggled to sleep because my body hurt so badly from overworking it. This project that I was (and am) so incredibly proud of, that I had poured my heart and soul into, that felt like my baby, one of the things I am most proud of in my life, was now a thing that I couldn’t think about without feeling overwhelming anxiety. This was, and to some degree still is, so painful. It is so upsetting to love something so much and to have worked so hard on it, but to have worked so hard on it to the point that it is a source of a lot of stress. And then the pandemic turned everyone’s lives upside down, mine included. It felt particularly devastating on a personal level because I had only just started to get a taste of what life outside my bed was like, and then suddenly it was unsafe to go out and I was once again spending all day every day in bed, even though I was well enough to be going out. This hit me very hard, and I spent a couple of months seriously struggling mentally. And the project was in the back of my mind the whole time. I knew I needed to put an announcement out, that I was failing my recipients and supporters by not communicating, but I just couldn’t do it. I was at my absolute limit of what I could take mentally, and the pressure of crafting the perfect way to announce such a drastic change to this thing I love so much, that I knew people would be very disappointed by, was too much. So I avoided thinking about it the best I could. And then in June things started to improve bit by bit, and I promised myself I’d get an announcement sorted. And then life happened. I met my partner & was able to see my friends at a distance finally, and it seemed like I was always either busy or recovering from being busy. Because although my health is hugely better, there’s still always a recovery period after doing things. And this pattern continued throughout July & August. And to be completely honest I’ve been very anxious about putting this out. I know people will be disappointed, and I regret not communicating better months ago. But the mistakes have already been made, now I recognise what I need to do is own up to those mistakes, share my experience to help others avoid similar mistakes, and make a plan for how to make things right going forward - and this announcement is the beginnings of that.

As I said, I’m not sharing this for pity, or to absolve myself of responsibility for my mistakes in the handling of this project. I want to provide context so that the people who value this project understand why this decision is necessary, and that it is not in any way down to me not loving this project or stopping caring about this community or not valuing my recipients and supporters. I am so proud to have created this beautiful thing that has enabled so many people to touch each other’s lives. I am so proud to be part of an amazing community that is so ready to come together and support each other when given opportunities to do so. I am so inspired by everything I have learned from this experience, and I’m excited to find other ways to foster community and tackle issues facing LGBTQ+ people. I already have several ideas of things I would like to get involved in to continue my community work in a more sustainable manner.

I also wanted to share my experience in case someone could learn from my mistakes. Burn out is unfortunately so common among marginalised people who see the suffering in their communities and are so desperate to address it that they end up forgetting to take care of themselves first. I know I am just one of many, many marginalised people who has overcommitted out of passion only to cause harm to themself and in turn end up not being able to support their community in the ways they’d like. It is far, far better to do something smaller but more sustainable than take on something huge and end up so drained you’re unable to do anything at all.  

If you're thinking of starting or getting involved with a community project/nonprofit, here are some of my suggestions:

• Seriously consider your exit strategy. Have a plan for what you will do if you stop wanting to (or simply can’t) run the project anymore.
• Make a list of signs of burn out to look out for, and commit to stopping or dialling back your workload as soon as you notice any of them.
• Talk to people you trust and ask them to hold you accountable for taking care of yourself, and ask them to tell you if they notice any signs of burn out, as the people around you may notice before you do.
• Have a plan for what will happen if you project grows rapidly. You never know how big something will get. Set yourself a limit of how much you can commit to, and don’t be persuaded to exceed that, whether by external forces or your own passion/enthusiasm.
• Make sure you know how to say no. If you are someone who feels too guilty to tell someone you can’t do something for them, this will be a problem, as no matter how much you are providing, there will always be more that people will want you to do.
• Make sure you have balance in your life. Make sure the project doesn’t impede your ability to socialise and have time to yourself and partake in your hobbies.
• Ideally, don’t run it alone. Obviously it isn’t always possible, as it wasn’t in my situation, to involve other people, due to location or physical limitations or logistics. But wherever possible, share the workload. Even if it’s just getting someone else to run your social media or maintain the website, it takes some of the pressure off.
• A bit of stress is normal, but once that stress starts negatively impacting your health (mental or physical) in any way, that’s where you seriously need to consider changing things.

I hope if you read all of this: thank you. Thank you so much to everyone for your ongoing patience and understanding. The three years of running this project has been a wild ride and I am so grateful for everything the experience has taught me. I hope someone out there will learn from my mistakes, but please don’t let this discourage you from getting involved with projects in your community. There is so much good to it, so much value, so much to learn and so many people to help. It’s just about making sure your involvement is sustainable, and that if it stops being good for you then you take a step back. Remember: in order to take care of others you have to take care of yourself first.