Hi there! This is Genesee, the author and designer behind Greater Than Neurons. I started GTN with the intention of it being a small blog that I’d update whenever I had the time. As I got more involved with developing the brand and evaluating my mission to help people it evolved into something much bigger than that.
In order to sustain this I’ve structured GTN as a business rather than a personal blog. Let’s be real, it’s basically a startup and I’m living like it. If you’d like to give any amount of money to help me grow this I would be eternally grateful, as this is a surprisingly expensive endeavor. I've had to take quite a bit of time away from it, and extra funds would give me more flexibility in creating more GTN content. Click the button below to send your support or keep reading to learn what your gifts are used for and what my future goals for Greater Than Neurons are.
Greater Than Neurons is a registered LLC, not a Non-Profit organization. I would love to take the business in that direction one day but that is way over my head at the moment. That means these “gifts” are not donations and can't be written off on your taxes. This is one of my sources of personal income. The business expenses always come first and foremost, I need to at least break even. The next prioritypersonal expenses like medical bills and rent, which there is more information about below. I aim to take as little as possible so that the funds can be saved for future programs that I have planned. I do not intend on making this my sole source of income, but I can’t pour from an empty cup.
Greater Than Neurons isn’t just a hobby, it’s a real, registered business. It needs to be in order for me to legally sell merchandise. When you add domain registration, website hosting, annual filings for the LLC, accounting for handling business taxes, and other necessary costs, it adds up to hundreds of dollars.
I put hours and hours into this brand. In order to do so I have to put in a great deal of time and energy that could be put into other gigs that I use to pay my bills. Unfortunately I am an American and so I pay thousands annually for doctors visits, ER trips, and medications. I do not receive financial aid for being disabled.
I have some big goals for Greater Than Neurons that I can’t execute without a budget. Keep reading to see what I’m saving for.
I’m one person speaking on my own experiences. I have a handful of diagnoses that I can write about but I don’t feel comfortable speaking on things that I don’t have personal experience with. I would love to be able to feature real, qualified professionals and other mentally ill people on this blog. I’m always open to discussing pro-bono content creation but ideally I would pay people for the posts they write because I value others’ time, effort, and expertise.
I currently only work with one company to produce the products in my shop. Because of that, my product selection is limited to whatever they have available. I have some ideas for other items that are more useful than shirts and coffee mugs but sourcing them will take some time and money.
This goal seems like a distant dream (especially with covid), but I’m hoping it isn't! When I moved across the country I felt so isolated without a job, school, or club to connect me with other people. Finding any kind of community resource or group that isn’t part of a church or recovery program is ridiculously difficult. I would love to be able to host casual art therapy groups where we can meet up, talk about our struggles, and work on healing with the support of each other.