August 2026 Community Update!
Dear Community,
I hope you all are well!
Things are good here. I’m off on a camping trip with my family today for the weekend. The whole crew will be together, which is a nice gift!
We celebrated our 13th birthday! Here is a video. Shout out to @soulfullyabutterfly and @Heather225 for doing such a great job with the festivities. And a big thank you to all who contributed and celebrated with us. It was a delight.
Our birthday always feels like a holiday to me. One of my favorite days in the year.
We also launched back us tool. Many of you have asked how you can support us. If you have resources, believe in our mission, and want to help, then please do! It would mean a lot to me. 7cups.com/back-us. It will likely take a while, but with enough monthly supporters we will hopefully get to a place where this can help cover some of the bills.
The free peer credentialing / certification program is also in process. We hope to finish up the curriculum in the next two weeks. I shared it with 2 people at SAMHSA and they were genuinely impressed. Our next step is to submit the curriculum and get official accreditation. One step at a time. We are getting there!
Last, I did my attempt at a short Way of the River video. Many of you gave me very helpful feedback. Thank you! I need to make several shorter videos and optimize them. I’ll keep iterating until we get there.
Have a lovely weekend!
GlenM
H
The Community Beacon has been a smashing success. We have seen so much enthusiasm for this campaign that I wanted to find a special way to recognize those who are serving at a high level. Beyond our All for One badge, I introduced the next tier of participation: the "Themed Week Trooper" badge as a milestone for 100 days of participation. Please swing back after this post to congratulate our first two awardees here.
The Welcome Committee is the friendly front line of 7 Cups, dedicated to greeting new members, offering guidance, and helping newbies feel at home. We are currently looking for passionate individuals to fill two vital roles:
1. Team members (you must be a Verified Listener): (Click here for details.)
2. Project Agents: Help lead behind the scenes! Assist in running team operations and managing committee projects. If you're already a team member, even better! (PM me for details.)
Listener Verifiers Project ring a bell? Are you a seasoned leader who has been on the Verified Listener Team before? I am looking specifically for people who have occupied the role of being a Verifier in recent years and can return to the team (even if only temporarily) to onboard and train new verifiers. My bat call post is here if you want to respond there, or you can just PM me! I’d appreciate all the help to scale this team back up.
Hope
July’s primary focus was on completing the Certified Peer Support Specialist Program curriculum. During the month, development work was finalized for Modules 11 through 19, including the creation of post-module activities. These modules have now been published within the dedicated Peer Support Specialist sub-community.
With this progress, the majority of the curriculum development phase is now complete. The remaining work involves finalizing assessments for the program, bringing us close to completing the first phase of development.
Beyond this, work continued on maintaining ongoing operations across academy programs and supporting existing initiatives.
SoulfullyAButterfly
This month, we marked 7 Cups turning 13 by concluding several events as part of a 13 Day Countdown to the big day! You can find the annual birthday video filled with community wishes here
We have also re-launched the LGBTQ+ Huddle as a 24/7 space for safer support, and are looking forward to launching further similar spaces and events to help expand support options across the community.
@GlenM
So many amazing stuff happened! I m so proud of being a listenerr here! Well done for all the good job you all are doing!
@cheerfulKiwi1776
@Heather225
I have pm you many times but you didnt answer✨️🩵🤗 I know you sre busy dont worry
@GlenM
So many great things!
@GlenM
Have a great weekend, are you going into the forest? To the coast? Both of those places soothe my soul.
We certainly seem to be blossoming as a community and growing rapidly. I think it is a great thing and the more people, who may be struggling, we can attract the better the world will be for it when we help them.
Namaste,
D.
@DireWolf62, Namaste my friend! We are going to the woods. Ideally we'd go to the woods at the beach, but this time just the woods. Have a great weekend as well!
@GlenM What great progress with the certified peer support specialist program! 👏 This is such wonderful news. I so look forward to this once it fully launches and is available. My only question is will this curriculum offered by 7 Cups be good enough to satisfy the requirements for certifications regardless of the state we are in? I've paused going the route in my state because I am so excited and looking forward to see how it goes here. I just hope my state is one of those states who's on board. Lol. Anyway, I guess we'll see once everything is complete. Please y'all tag me or notify my notifications once the peer support specialist program goes fully live. 😀
Anyway, thanks for all the updates and thanks to all of y'all for everything y'all do!
As for the whole backing 7 Cups things, yayyyy. Got a question though-- how come some people have like this orange icon next to their username to show they back 7 Cups. Mine shows as gray for some reason. Is that icon able to change colors or can be different colors. Because if it's possible, I would like a rainbow icon or even pink. 🤣😂🤣😂 Don't mind me. Just dreaming. Lol. But no for real, why are there these 2 different colors I noticed so far. Having a rainbow or pink heart in the palm next to my name would really make me happy. Hehe.
@YourCaringConfidant yes that is the goal. We are going to go for Florida first because they have the most stringent requirements. Once we get that accreditation then each state should be easier. It still takes several months for each state to review, but the goal is to keep moving forward. There are still some supervision pieces we have to figure out.
I'll update you soon on the different color front!
@GlenM Sounds good. Thanks! 😀
@YourCaringConfidant Thank you again for the support! We’ll share more information about the Certified Peer Support Specialist Program, including how it aligns with individual state certification requirements, once everything is finalized and ready to launch.
Regarding the Backer icon, the colors are part of a system-designed badge system and cannot currently be customized individually. The badge automatically changes based on how long someone has been backing 7 Cups:
• Bronze: 7 Cups Backer.
• Silver: 3-Month through 6-Month Backers.
• Gold: 1-Year through 4-Year Backers.
• Platinum: 5-Year through 9-Year Backers.
• Diamond: 10-Year Backers.
That is why you may see different-colored icons beside different usernames. You can also hover over a person’s Backer icon to see their badge level and how long they have been backing 7 Cups. Please let me know if any questions!
@GlenM Thank you! And how is it counted? At what point does it begin? Does it back track, because I have backed 7 Cups in the past and gave years ago. After my most recent donation once you posted, I got one badge and then it was retracted and now I have this one. Do donations have to be continuous or is it based on the initial time someone first donated? How can one know what current month they are in? Is the new different color badges for backing 7 Cups automatic then as time continues to pass since it's based on time or what? Just making sure I understand. Thanks for breaking everything down for me. Appreciate it.
@YourCaringConfidant all good questions! Let me answer them and let me know if I miss anything. Yes, any that gave in the past we provided an extra month going backwards because this is now a new campaign. We had to change yours out because you had been supporting for a long time so you were in this wrinkle that we hadn't solved. We needed to update you to the new system, which is why you received the updated badge. And, yes, on this new campaign the colors change as the months / years go by. So the colors will update as mapped out above. When you hit a year, for example, the heart will change to gold. We want to add more colors so the gaps are not as big, but we also wanted to get this up sooner than later, so this was a bit of a compromise.
Also, we need to add all of this to the badge pages too. Thank you for all of your support and help! I very much appreciate it!
@GlenM Thanks for trying your best to get me to understand, but my brain still doesn't get it. You said all that and I did like you said and hovered over to read the description of the color meanings. So me getting the silver for 3-6 months is an updated badge on the system so my years ago doesn't count? 🤔 I don't know how things work on your end. But I did the bare minimum donation this time to see if anything went different since it's a new month technically. So people with bronze (looks orange color to me) would have silver then technically in the month of September? Since my current badge is silver for 3-6 months backing, what month am I in now? I don't get it still, Glen. Sorry. Like how would I know? 🤔
@YourCaringConfidant yes, sorry we had to update all legacy people to the new system, so the time it tracks is from now forward. Silver is 3-6 months. Bronze (what you are seeing as I think orange) is for one-time support contributions. They expire in 1 month. For people that support us monthly bronze is 0-2 months and then it turns silver etc. I hope this helps!
@GlenM Wait, I didn't know it expired. So a person who donated last month in July got the bronze orange icon. If they don't donate in August this month then they would lose their bronze icon. ??? How come I see gold (yellow gold looking color icon) then for 1-4 years next to some then? If I didn't test donate this month then to test and see if anything changed then I would have lost my silver icon. Oh, I don't like this at all. The only way is if someone just does monthly or remember to donate at least once a month to keep their icon. So if they miss a month then it expires, now they have to start back at orange (bronze) and continue a streak onward that only goes based on time. This doesn't sit right with me. I mean, I don't care I'll donate a few dollars here and there as I can but expiring colored icons that's time based that we only get over time because of a lack of backing 7 Cups one month isn't cool. I don't like that, personally, but y'all have your reasons on your own side. 🤔
@YourCaringConfidant Thank you for sharing your thoughts on this! I totally understand why that would be frustrating, but I have some good news that will hopefully clear this up: you do not lose your progress or drop back down to bronze if you miss a month. Sorry for the confusion!
@GlenM Lol, you should have specified that. Look 👀 at you getting to see how my brain 🧠 is when I'm constantly overthinking little things and reading too much into things. Your last comment definitely clears things up for me now that I know. The whole expiring thing threw me off, but ok, I think I got it. It is what it is. Thanks for answering my questions and being patient with me as my brain was struggling big time. 🤣 Lol.
@YourCaringConfidant Not at all! I wasn't being very clear so this is my fault. I think your brain was working perfectly well. This is fairly complicated. I could have done a better job communicating it. This conversation helped me learn! We are getting there!
@GlenM Yes, we'll just say it's your fault. Do better. Lol, but it's ok. I forgive you. 😆😁 Thanks again, Glen. Good luck to y'all on your end doing the hard stuff. I'm just existing here. 🙃🫠
@YourCaringConfidant
🤣🤣🤣
@SparkyGizmo Lol Sparky 👋, I need to take my behind somewhere now and relax. My poor brain hurts. 😂 Like why couldn't Desiree just accept and go with the flow of things and not dissect every little thing and go on her merry way? Lol.
@YourCaringConfidant
I think you have a big, beautiful, juicy, tender, lumpy, super duper, smart brain! 🧠 And *hold still* cause' Imma' *hug* ❤️ that too, darn it! 😊
You asked very good questions 🌟 I enjoyed the question and answer session here with you and Glen! You both rocked that and it was very informative. I appreciate both of you having tenacity, taking that one all the way and knocking it right out of the park!
I'm confident many of us will be asked all of the very questions that you posed to Glen so yippieeee!!!! 🥳 I am most grateful as now, I'm in a much better position to answer questions for others should they come up. Team work, makes the dream work. *hugs* ❤️ @GlenM 's 🧠 brain too!
I appreciate you both! ❤️
*high fives* 😊 and *hugs* ❤️ and....still laughing 🤭 about the Glen blaming
@SparkyGizmo Oohhhh man, you crack 😂 me up! But I definitely receive your huggies 🫂 🤗 👐 and brain 🧠 massages too if you really want to be nice. Something like the gif below will do. Lol. 😆 Thanks Sparky for your kind words. I know right--- boy, oh boy, was Glen patient with me trying his best. Bless his heart. Lol. I'm telling myself be content with the responses since it clears some things up way better for me. I'm still going to unfollow this thread though in hopes my brain fully turns off and stop thinking. I hope people found our little exchange hopeful. One thing you better know about me is Desiree is going to be who she is and I can't pretend to understand something when I don't. Anyway, my friend, know I appreciate you and I thank you for the hugs and love. Hope you're enjoying your day. 🥰😘
@YourCaringConfidant
❤️❤️❤️
@YourCaringConfidant great GIF! and not giving up until you understand something is a key strength. that is something I've worked hard to teach my kids. far too many people just move on without understanding things. it takes courage to keep asking questions to get clarity! Hats off to you Desiree!
@YourCaringConfidant you are doing far, far, more than just existing! Shining a very bright light that fills others up and supports our community. And I very much appreciate you!
@GlenM Yea, so my brain is broken or something. Because you said orange is one time backing. It's like my brain in interpreting your wording that the orange icon is only good to show for the current month a person backed 7 Cups. Then it's like I'm taking it as orange icon is different than bronze but really I thought bronze was just appearing as orange on my end. Now my brain has to go look on the site for other people to see if I see any more colors or find a color icon that's different than the orange or yellow gold colors I see already. Oh the joys of being an overthinker. 😂🤣
@GlenM Above you said silver is 3-6 months of backing, then hopped to Gold for 1-4 yrs of backing. My question is what about > 6 months but < than a year? Would those just be silver too? 🤔
Don't mind me. My brain isn't turning off and I'm complicating things. 😂🤣
@GlenM
It is exciting to see all the hard work that everyone continues to engage to further make the 7 Cups community as always as it is and to further support so many efforts. Reading that the peer support certification is advancing and seems to be nearing completion at least in terms of curriculum is wonderful. And the response from the few people from SAMSHA that were introduced to it only makes it all the more exciting for when it is officially launched and available to be completed. It is one of the things I can't wait to be a part of in the future. I wish you all the best with the rest of making it a reality 💙🙏
@Ivy229 thank you Ivy for your faith and optimism! We will work hard to make it a reality!
@GlenM
Thank you all so much for giving us these updates on a regular basis!
@amiablePeace77, you are very welcome, Ami!
@GlenM
Thank you everyone for the updates and for all of the hard work, both in the back of the house as well as the front of it. 😊 ❤️
*high fives* 😊 and *hugs* ❤️
@SparkyGizmo, thank you, Sparky!
Oooh we are getting closer to the peer support modules! I can't wait!
@Heather227 if you need onboarding help please let me know!
@Heather225 y'all have such similar numbers lol
@TovaCares76
you are a legend, and thanks for your help so far too!`
@TovaCares76 your help would be very welcome! Thank you for offering it!