The Personal Progress Helper has grown in so many ways since it's inception almost 5 years ago. It started out as a little blog I made as a Beehive with a couple ideas, and now as a graduating Laurel, it's grown into a hugely popular site with hundreds of tools for young women and their leaders. I really want to continue to grow The Personal Progress Helper to reach more young women, families, friends, and leaders--but it has reached a plateau. Coming this Summer, The Personal Progress Helper will be receiving a major facelift. This has been a long-time coming, with a couple motivations behind it.
On the technical side, Blogger (which I love dearly) is no longer adequate for hosting all of the content of The Personal Progress Helper. I'm going to be switching over to a new host which will offer top-notch hosting that can do everything I need it to do including increased storage and security, eCommerce options (which means selling files directly from the website in addition to Etsy), custom template themes, and a billion other things that sound boring but do cool things.
And on the fun side, The Personal Progress Helper will be increasing the amount and type of content it produces. Until now it has primarily been a source of printable handouts and packets, which are great but don't reach the target audience of YOUNG WOMEN. Starting with this relaunch, there will be more posts specifically tailored to youth, with ideas and tips -- maybe even a meme here or there.
My hope is to have all of this finished by June 1st so it's ready to go in time for Summer!
The most exciting thing coming from The Personal Progress Helper upon the completion of this updated website is *drumroll please*
My Personal Progress Helper
This book is the culmination of my experience in the Young Women program. It's a journal/planner/coloring book/study guide designed to make Personal Progress fun and meaningful. It has multiple pages for working on each value experience and tools to plan and track your projects. This project is pretty near and dear to me because it's exactly the type of tool I wanted when I first started Personal Progress. And in a sweet twist of irony, I ended up basing a lot of the pages in this book on my own journal as a Beehive.
Some of the technical things that are good to know (and are subject to change):
Page count: 240
Dimensions: 8" x 10"
Color: Black and White (I really wanted to do it in full color, but that would literally cost 10x more)
Tentative Cost: $25 (group discounts will be available)
Tentative Release: July 2016
A PDF edition will also be available
And now back to the website -- and how it's all connected. I'm really excited to implement these changes, but it will take a decent chunk of money--between the hosting, the software, the design framework, and a bunch of meticulously calculated in-betweens--it's about $600 dollars. I've set up a GoFundMe page to allow others the opportunity to contribute towards this. Every little bit will be hugely appreciated. In fact, to show my appreciation, those who contribute $50+ will receive an early edition of "My Personal Progress Helper." You can contribute here:
Please note: Only adults 18+ are authorized to make donations. Youth under 18 are not allowed to make contributions.
There will also be a handful of giveaways on Facebook and Instagram in anticipation, so get ahead now by liking and following The Personal Progress Helper!
I'm so grateful for the support I've received through the years from thousands of young women and leaders around the world since the very beginning. And I'm excited about the unrealized potential The Personal Progress Helper still has.
