help keep the vibe

🥰

help keep the vibe 🥰

WIDGET

TL;DR

The main goal for us is to keep creating this event’s where we find community and fun.

If Friends Club or Hi/Ed has impacted you, please consider making a one-time or recurring donation.

Your support helps us:

  • Keep Friends Club small and intimate

  • Grow the team behind the scenes

  • Pay contributors, crew, and organizers with more care

  • Protect the meals, art, music, and shared spaces

  • Keep building a gathering that feels human, intentional, and alive

Any amount helps and means a lot.

Thank you for helping us keep this going.

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monetary donations is not obligatory and WILL NEVER IMPACT YOUR PRESENCE/PARTICIPATION IN THE COMMUNITY.

We use Zeffy because it allows 100% of your donation to go to Hi/Ed. At checkout, Zeffy may have asked for an optional contribution to support their platform. That contribution is separate from your donation to Hi/Ed and can always be adjusted by

why we are asking..

Hi friends,

We are still processing the beautiful weekend we shared together. After a much needed decompression, and many conversations with you and amongst ourselves, we have a vulnerable ask. We really appreciate you taking the time to read it.

One of the clearest things we heard this year, in person and through your feedback, is that Friends Club feels special because it is small, intimate, connective, and deeply cared for. We feel that too. Seeing the vision come to life, and hearing how meaningfully it landed for so many of you, has been validating, encouraging, and truly heartwarming.

The thing we are building does not fit neatly into the usual models. Most festivals survive by growing larger, adding major sponsors, selling alcohol, expanding vendors, creating VIP tiers, or finding more ways for people to spend money once they arrive. Other community-led gatherings, like the Burner community, often work because attendees are responsible for bringing and funding much of the food, music, infrastructure, and programming themselves.

Friends Club is part of Hi/Ed, a non-profit organization, and is trying to exist somewhere different.

We do not have a clear model to follow for the kind of gathering we are building, so we are trying to create one that better reflects what we value. Something small but expansive, intimate but ambitious, thoughtfully curated but not overly commercial, and cared for by everyone who is part of it.

We want Friends Club to be a place where people bring their best ideas, big or small, and feel encouraged to contribute something true to themselves. A place where people can try on new ways of connecting, expressing, creating, collaborating, and being. A place that gives people a real sense of belonging and ownership, because they are not just attending something. They are helping shape it.

Many of you have told us directly how meaningful Friends Club has been to you. Hearing your stories makes us believe more than ever that this work matters, and that its impact reaches beyond the weekend itself.

The honest part is that, at the current size, this model is not yet sustainable.

This year, even with higher ticket prices and nearly doubled revenue, Friends Club still lost money. Costs rose across the board, our team grew, and much of the work is still underpaid relative to the time, skill, and care required. The care people feel on site does not happen by accident. It takes months of planning, relationship-holding, creative direction, logistics, problem-solving, and stewardship.

Kara and I are excited to keep doing this work, and we believe in it deeply. But for Friends Club to continue growing in depth, quality, and impact without growing much in size, we need more space, time, and support to keep building the model.

What has become clear is that Friends Club is not just an event we are trying to fund. It is one part in a larger community-building project we are trying to make sustainable.

Community contributions may be one piece of that model.

If Friends Club or Hi/Ed has impacted you, and you have the means, we invite you to make a recurring or one-time contribution to support the organization.

Your contribution helps us:

  • Keep Friends Club small and intimate

  • Grow the team behind the scenes

  • Pay organizers, crew, contributors, and artists more sustainably

  • Protect the parts of Friends Club that create deeper connection, like communal meals, shared gathering times, and keeping attendance intentionally limited

  • Create more room for people to bring their ideas to life

  • Keep exploring a community-supported model that does not rely on the usual festival revenue streams

We are not asking you to save Friends Club. We are inviting you to help us continue building something of substance, something we believe can keep shaping how people connect, create, gather, and care for one another.

Any amount helps. A recurring contribution, even a small one, gives us more stability as we continue figuring this out.

If you believe in what Friends Club is becoming, this is one way to support its future.

You can contribute through the link below.

With love,
Paul, Kara, and Hi/Ed