Vertical 3 of 3 · 2027 options

GEA Alliance media

The podcast, the Women of Mountaineering calendar and our storytelling are the newest vertical and the least structured. They are also the only part of the organization that produces something a stranger can buy, watch or subscribe to without applying for anything.

Where it stands

Calendar pre-orders

Bought at retail by the cover subject

At the printer

Not yet

Standalone sites live

0 of 2

Time-critical The calendar has a hard clock on it

Eighty pre-orders and one buyer taking fifty at retail, and it has not gone to print. A 2027 calendar has no value after roughly the third week of December, and print plus fulfilment needs weeks of runway. This is the one item in the brief with a deadline that does not care what the board decides.

Four options for 2027

A · Turn the film into a funnel, not just reach Recommended

The LOWA film premieres in three weeks and then tours the festival circuit. Right now that traffic has nowhere to land: no /film page, no attribution, no ladder between watching a film and giving monthly. Build the landing page, tag the traffic, and put a recurring-giving ask at the end of it. The June analysis named this precisely — the bridge from reach to donation is a product problem, not a messaging one.

Cost ~$8kRecurring donors 0 → 150Window closes in 3 weeks

B · Run the calendar as a real product line Revenue

Print 400–450, end free international shipping, and treat 2027 as the year we learn its actual unit economics. If it works, license the format for 2028 rather than rebuilding it from scratch each autumn.

Revenue $14–18kMargin thin until shipping is fixed

C · See Her Outside as a sponsored season Build

The podcast has been elevated to a GEA-level property in principle and has no standalone home in public. Give it a domain, a season structure with dated episodes, and a single presenting sponsor rather than ad-hoc mentions.

Sponsor revenue $15–25k/seasonCost ~$5k site + production

D · Close the content-to-partner loop Retention

We promise partners visibility and then do not systematically collect recipient and grantee content or route it to them. The partner portal now exists and updates itself, which means the hard half is built. This is about a collection habit, not a platform.

Cost process, minimal cashPayoff renewal rates on LOWA, Fjällräven and Title Nine

My read A now, B this week, D as a habit

A is the highest-value thing in this entire brief on a per-dollar basis, and it has the shortest window — the film is the single largest audience this organization will ever have had, and today it points at nothing. B does not need the board at all; it needs me to send files to a printer. C is a good 2027 build but it is not urgent, and I would rather not start it in the same quarter as the film.

This vertical is where reach turns into money, and right now it mostly does not. The film is the test case: if we cannot convert the biggest audience we have ever had into recurring donors, the answer is not more reach.