"These people needed to know each other:" How a healer transformed her spirituality podcast into a paid membership site

Alyssa Malehorn wanted to find people on her same wavelength.

A spiritual teacher and psychic medium, Alyssa had started a podcast with partner Zack Fuentes called Raw Spirituality in the spring of 2017. It was a way to share insights on core concepts of spirituality, like “awakening”—your initiation on the spiritual path—and “ascension”—a process where one moves to a higher level of consciousness.

Soon, her listeners started reaching out via email to ask questions and discuss those concepts in more detail, which gave Alyssa an idea:

She wasn’t interested in being the ultimate authority on what it means to take a spiritual path. Instead, she wanted to be able to share her own experiences while encouraging others to do the same. And she knew that for someone exploring their relationship with spirituality, having a solid support system was crucial:

From people getting started with their own spiritual awakening, to more advanced seekers expanding their understanding of consciousness or healing their relationships, Alyssa knew she wanted to offer them education, guidance, and support:

After hearing from some of her podcast listeners, Alyssa knew she wanted to build a community where members could feel accepted and share their stories and experiences without judgment.

But she wasn’t sure where to start.

Without knowing any alternative, she turned to Facebook, where she created a group for Raw Spirituality Podcast listeners. But almost immediately, it didn’t feel right. Like all social media, Facebook offered too many distractions. It was also very time-intensive, and Alyssa was constantly running into problems:

Besides, Alyssa, who can be sensitive to both online and real-world environments, says the energy felt off:

At the same time she started a Patreon, where people could contribute however much they wanted to support the Raw Spirituality Podcast.

But that didn’t feel right either:

Striking out with both a Facebook group and Patreon, Alyssa wanted to find a way to bring people together so that they could share their experiences, stories, and journeys together in a safe, supportive environment all their own.

That’s when she discovered the solution.

In addition to building a community, Alyssa wanted to offer resources for listeners of the Raw Spirituality Podcast. She had been offering a handful of online courses through her own website, but that proved to be a challenge. Without a thriving community, people didn’t stick with the programs.

Soon, a friend suggested she create a Mighty Network. Here, Alyssa could find a home for her growing community of listeners and offer her online courses in one place.

When she saw how easy it was to set up and get familiar with her new Mighty Network, Alyssa was ready to take the plunge.

Within a few weeks, she migrated her 650-member Facebook group to a new Mighty Network. She followed a proven playbook for moving her Facebook group that she learned about from Mighty Networks. She posted links to explain the move and set a deadline so that everyone would be joining her new Mighty Network simultaneously with a live event:

To make her new Mighty Network awesome, Alyssa moved her free online courses to the Mighty Network.

There were about 30 different video lessons in the “Awakening & Ascension Library,” covering topics like energy centers and the divine masculine and feminine. It also encompassed roughly 40 different free guided meditations.

Alyssa kept all of these resources free, organizing them under the no-cost Awakening and Ascension offering. And while she previously set up one-time payments and lifetime access for her paid online courses, with a Mighty Network, Alyssa was finally able to offer ongoing paid subscriptions to these courses:

Here’s how Raw Spirituality’s subscriptions are structured today:

• Awakening & Ascension Library – Free
• The Awakening & Ascension Library gives members free access to video lessons, meditations, and mantras, including:
  • A guided meditation and mudra (or gesture) library
  • Video lessons about the awakening and ascension journeys
  • Video lessons about soul mates and relationships
  • Video lessons about frequency and meditation
  • Video lessons about psychic senses and intuition
  • Video lessons about spirit guides and angels
• Explore + Expand – $29.99/month or $329.99/yr. with a 7-day free trial
• The Explore + Expand Group is for those who are ready to merge their spiritual life with their everyday life. Benefits include:
  • Early notifications about special offers and announcements
  • More than 50 bonus Raw Spirituality podcasts
  • An extensive meditation archive
  • Access to live events, including broadcasts, meditations, Q&As, class recordings and more
  • Special communications from Alyssa and Zack
  • Monthly New Earth Broadcasts, where Alyssa shares what’s important and supportive for ascension
• Lightworker Academy – $249.99/month or $999.99/year with a 3-day free trial
• The Lightworker Academy is an intensive course designed to help healers strengthen their energy systems at their own pace with video lessons, guided meditations, group coaching calls and more. Benefits include:
  • Exclusive content, only for Lightworker Academy students
  • Six modules that provide students with tools to explore, encourage, and support the embodiment of their larger soul self
  • 24 video lessons
  • 33 guided meditations
  • Bimonthly group coaching calls with Alyssa
  • An archive of group coaching calls
  • Daily support in a private group
• Manifesting Spiritual Partnership – $249.99/month or $999.99/year with a 3-day free trial
• This online course aims to help people who want to upgrade their relationship into a spiritual partnership with video, audio and written lessons, and group coaching calls. Benefits include:
  • Access to exclusive content, only for Manifesting Spiritual Partnership students
  • 37 video lessons
  • 21 written lessons
  • 42 audio lessons, including guided meditations and hypnosis
  • Access to twice monthly group coaching calls with Alyssa and Zack
  • Daily support in a private group

What distinguishes the free and paid programs is not just the freshness of what’s produced or direct access to Alyssa, but the people each program attracts. The paid programs tend to attract people motivated to meet each other and share their stories and experiences. It’s another (nearly unstated) benefit.

Additionally, Alyssa gives potential members a chance to explore the paid offerings before committing:

With her Mighty Network, Alyssa has finally found the right home for Raw Spirituality for herself and her followers. It’s given her the opportunity to have her online courses and community in the same place, which means less work:

It’s also given members a way to create their own connections. In fact, Alyssa notes that while some questions are directed to her, most of the conversations are just happening among members (as she wanted to be the case):

The number of those members is growing, too. Raw Spirituality now hosts about 1,238 members, double the number of the members Alyssa started with.

It turns out that she was able to grow faster and add more people by moving off a Facebook group, even though many people told her initially that no one would follow her to a new platform.

They were wrong.

Today, she points everyone she meets to her Raw Spirituality Network, including visitors to her personal website, people visiting in-person at her meditation center in Austin, Texas, as well as her newsletter subscribers:

Transitioning to the new normal has been surprisingly easy for Alyssa:

One of the biggest surprises moving away from social media has been the tone and connections happening in the Raw Spirituality Network:

She also notes that the Raw Spirituality Mighty Network plays to her strengths, particularly as a person who operates her business from an intuitive perspective:

With the Raw Spirituality paid programs and free community in place, what’s next for Alyssa? For now, as her programs essentially run themselves, she’s able to focus on writing a book to be released this summer, while also stepping in where she’s motivated to nurture students on their spiritual journeys:

1. Beware the naysayers. There will always be folks who tell you what you’re doing won’t work. Be confident in your approach, whether you’re starting a community from scratch or moving your established following in a Facebook Group.
2. Meet members where they are. Give your members options for how to get involved and figure out what’s right for them as Alyssa does by offering a range of plans with different offerings, all with free trials to try them out.
3. Co-create with your members. They’re awesome. Alyssa acknowledges that she doesn’t have all the answers, and you don’t have to either. Leaning on your members and incorporating their feedback can strengthen the overall community.