What options are there for payment?
In a gift economy ‘gifts’ flow such that everyone benefits, and all needs are met. We encourage you to think about how you can contribute to this spirit of generosity according to your own circumstances.
Everyone has unique gifts to offer to the world; perhaps you can be of service in your local community or have skills that might be of use to our coaches, to offer in exchange. Please share your ideas with us.
Writing a testimonial and sharing our work so others can benefit is also a way of “paying forward.”
And our coaches do depend on an income to live, so if you ARE able to make a financial contribution your generosity will allow us to help others. We have shared our thoughts on what makes a ‘fair payment’ below.
How much should I pay?
We don’t have a simple answer to this. Coaching prices vary enormously, from around £75-£300/hour for self-funded coaching, and often very much higher when an organisation is paying.
Our intention with this website is to allow you to decide what’s fair for you, based on your personal circumstances and the value you get from the coaching we provide.
As a guide – if your income is average or above, we suggest 0.25% of annual gross income as a fair hourly rate for coaching. So, if, for example, you earn £40,000 that would be £100 / hour or £150 for a 90 minute session. If you can pay above this amount, your generosity enables us to support others who are less able due to their present circumstances. If you’re on a low income, you’ll know best what you can afford.
What happens to the money I pay?
100% of what we get through the website goes to our coaches. There are no administration charges. The income is pooled and distributed to our coaches by an external fiduciary each month. This means that your coach never knows what you’ve actually paid, so their attention and care towards you is based on your intrinsic worth as a human being, not on what you can afford to pay.
How many sessions will I need?
Coaching most often involves working on something that you’d like to change or make progress towards. Whilst some coaches take a ‘problem-fixing’ approach, we prefer to think of coaching as releasing the potential for the future you would like to unfold.
One coaching session may help you to shed new light on a situation and even to fix an immediate problem, but new similar problems may keep surfacing until you have done work at the root cause level. For transformational change that makes a difference in the long term, we recommend a series of sessions over a longer period.
We understand that you may not be sure that coaching is right for you, so please just book one session and get a feel for it. Your coach will discuss what you’d like to have happen and will plan your coaching journey with you. Our experience is that if you are looking to bring about lasting change, eight to twelve 90min sessions can lead to real transformation.
How long are sessions?
Both neuroscience and our experience suggest that 90 minute sessions are most valuable. Science tells us that we are at our most aware and alert when our brains are operating at an alpha brainwave frequency. This is when we can access more reflective, expansive, intuitive and creative thinking. This is in contrast to beta brainwave frequency – our ‘doing’ mode. Spending too much time in beta limits our expansive thinking and can lead to stress. Alpha brainwaves are activated in 90-min intervals. Clients often arrive at sessions in “busy beta” mode and it can take up to 30 minutes to settle into an alpha state, so a 60-min coaching session may allow only half an hour of high-quality thinking.
We realise, of course, that it may not be easy to find 90 minutes in busy schedules, and you may want to begin with a shorter session to get to know your coach and find out how they work. So we do offer some shorter slots.
Can I contact someone to get more information before booking?
Yes, absolutely. We understand that you may not be sure whether coaching is for you or have questions you’d like to ask us. You can contact us by email at these addresses:
General enquiries: info@giftbasedcoaching.org
Heather: heather@giftbasedcoaching.org
Geof: geof@giftbasedcoaching.org
How should I prepare to get the most out of my session?
We suggest that you find a comfortable, private spot where you can switch off from any distractions and you are unlikely to be disturbed. We encourage you to make time before the session to settle your mind and gather your thoughts. You may want to consider what would you like from the call and, if relevant, what has arisen since the previous session? You may also like to allow time after the session to reflect.
We use the zoom online meeting platform for our coaching calls. The email you receive from us confirming a coaching session includes the zoom link for the session. If you are unfamiliar with zoom we suggest you view these videos which explain how to get set up.
Is “gift-based” some kind of tax dodge?
People do actually ask us this! The answer is, no – our coaches pay tax on everything they earn through this website, just like everyone else. We use the word “gift” to make it clear that we offer our coaching to everyone, irrespective of ability to pay, and trust in our clients to reward us fairly.