An open letter to you, our dear followers.
Some of you have been with us since the very beginning. Even back to the closed Facebook group that incubated the advert I started in 2014, and we made in 2016. Some of you have witnessed the entire journey, you know who you are, and so do I!
And many of you have joined us since. Welcome. This is going to be an interesting ride.
There is a new chapter starting now. It’s been building for a number of years, you’ve seen the changes. Some of you haven’t liked it. I understand. Many of you have kept cheering on. I’m grateful beyond words.
The work, in many ways, starts now.
Many people have come and gone on the team, helping in the ways they can. And I’m grateful to every one of them.
But meeting Emma, who now co-owns Human Milk with me, was the start of the crazy dream I’ve had for 12 years really coming true. You’ll hear from her a lot too. She is incredible, and this is now our common dream.
And before we launch a new campaign in a few weeks, I want to say a few words about the reasoning and work behind this pivot we’ve been meticulously planning;
FROM NON-PROFIT WITH MERCH, TO FASHION BRAND WITH A MISSION
The short way of saying it is that we have to perform a HEIST of sorts in order to change culture.
We are all under the heavy influence of marketing, whether we like it or not.
People who sell stuff for the sake of profit alone are REALLY good at it. And those of us who participate in public life because we want to make life better for everyone, tend to suck at it.
Because the thought of using marketing and commerce to influence people feels wrong. It’s tainted with gross mis-use.
But the truth is that marketing and commerce are neutral tools. They can work collectively towards our hopes and dreams being fulfilled, or be a hook that preys on our vulnerabilities, selling us the dream life, and delivering a car crash instead.
We believe we need to get REALLY GOOD at what we call "the game". Because the industries that sell to us on the back of our vulnerabilities are that good already.
Human Milk was never intended to be a big thing. It was meant to be a short video that shared some science, that I hoped a few hundred people would watch and feel inspired by. But it went a million miles beyond that.
Those of you who have been following for years know it’s been a windy road. Trying to raise money as a non-profit has been a very slow, arduous, and ultimately doomed job.
We all know what an afterthought women's health is, and how left behind breastfeeding is.
"No profit" they say. Therefore, apparently no point.
What a desperate way of measuring what matters.
None of us have been paid yet, in 12 years, despite our shop bringing in enough to create new designs and translations for educational materials, and build up the store, to try and raise more income to make more ads, and more resources.
Those of you who have purchased from our store; You are the reason we are still here today.
Personally, I’ve earned £250 in total from Human Milk the last 12 years. With it, I bought a trampoline for my son.
Every other penny has been put back into building the company (including our own skills), so that we can have a shot at playing industry at its own game.
And that’s the heist. We’re going in.
We want to be at the centre of the commercial world, being a problem for the people taking advantage of women and our children.
We’re building a company that has the potential to be a multi-million pound empire. But one that ACTUALLY redistributes the wealth, and changes culture for the better.
And the reason we're going there is that we want mothers to be equipped with so much knowledge and confidence that nobody can take cheap shots at them anymore.
Not everyone will be able to afford our clothes or accessories. Whilst we’ll always do what we can to offer products that are accessible, we simply cannot produce cheap things without exploiting much less visible women (80% of clothing factory workers are women), or using massive over-production as a tool to cause an artificial price decrease, with about 30% of the items ending up in landfill or incinerators.
In order to be ethical and sustainable, working to hand down a cleaner and more fair world to our kids, ironically, we have to become exclusive on some fronts.
But those of us who CAN afford to shop with Human Milk will be subsidising everyone who can’t, because that’s how we’re set up. We’re a social enterprise, with Customers and Beneficiaries.
The more profit we make, the more good we do, the more knowledge gets spread, the more societies change, the more women succeed at their own breastfeeding goals.
And the more women succeed at their breastfeeding goals, the more children and women survive, the healthier our populations get, and the cleaner our planet becomes.
Emma and I have zero interest in amassing obscene wealth. We have a passion for changing the way the world works.
Because the way it works sucks.
Will we succeed at it all the time? No. Are we certain we’ll succeed at all? Also no. Will we throw everything we have at it, over and over again. You bet.
And any investor who comes on board will have to be ok with change for global breastfeeding mothers and children being the top priority, alongside ethical and sustainable production and commercial behaviours.
We believe it's possible to ALSO build a profitable business that can really annoy the companies making a mess, and maybe even push them to change their ways too. Or not, whatever. But we have to keep building alternatives until the old, exploitative ways become obsolete.
I hope that these 12 years have shown you that Human Milk is built on passion, grit, bloody mindedness, honesty, messiness, sleeplessness, and a touch of madness.
On the desire to be here for our kids AND make an impact on the world we live in, and will pass on.
We’re taking back our power.
That’s the heist.
Do come with us.
With all the love,
Claire