Help the Perlene survive the pandemic!
*Update! We have a generous anonymous donorwho has committed to matching all donations upto $10,000!! So your gift goes twice as far!*
Letter from the founder:
I never, ever expected to have to do this. When I opened The Perlene, just weeks after the 2016 Presidential election, it was with $10k of my personal savings and a credit card. It was a dream and a risk, but I believed that womxn needed this, we needed each other, in order to make a big impact in the world, and have the rich, full lives we wanted. With little to no marketing, members flooded in immediately, and within months The Perlene proved itself to be both a force for good and a viable business.
I believe that loneliness is its own kind of pandemic. With The Perlene, I set out to create a space and community that fostered true connection, where womxn could be their whole selves, where we celebrated ambition and supported personal growth, where we formed honest, deep friendships and business relationships. I wanted to create a space of transformation, where it was a normal habit to ask for *extraordinary support*, to give generously and receive joyfully. I am so proud to tell you that this is exactly what The Perlene has become. Hundreds of womxn have been positively impacted by The Perlene... not to mention the families, clients, and everyone they touch. We were on the verge of doubling our reach in 2020, we built and moved into a larger space to accommodate our growth, and were developing even more programming to benefit the community at large... and now, as unimaginable as it is, this uniquely precious space is at risk of not recovering from this shutdown.
As an entrepreneur and community leader, it is difficult for me to admit that I cannot fix this myself (and yes, I do see the irony in creating a culture of asking for extraordinary support, but feeling deeply uncomfortable asking for it myself). It is hard to admit I have gone down every avenue to financially survive this pandemic, and while we have received some governmental support and rent relief from our landlord, and are working on even more "pivots"... right now, it simply will not be enough to get us through the rest of this year.
I am not asking for your help just to keep me in business. Businesses are not entitled to succeed. I am asking for your help to save the home of this extraordinary community of womxn, who are each making a difference with their lives and their work. The Perlene is living proof that magic happens when womxn band together. I have faith we can make it happen here, too.
Every dollar you donate will directly support this Native, queer, woman-owned business, its employees, and its members. We run a tight ship here, and every dollar counts. We don't want a single member to have to leave us for financial reasons, and your donations will help keep us all together. If the Perlene has made a difference for you in any way, or in the life of a person you love... please consider donating. I hope to invite you to the clubhouse someday soon, to show you the difference you have made. Thank you for supporting womxn.
With love and gratitude,
Kiki Teal Littlestar
Founder and CEO, The Perlene 
The Perlene is a social club and workspace for ambitious womxn who live wild lives as big as their dreams. The Perlene provides resources, love, and unending support for womxn business owners, womxn seeking to make change, and womxn who are mothers, and CEOs. The Perlene is a clubhouse full of lady secrets and magic, a community of boundless connection, a professional development and support network, and a group of friends to lean on and celebrate with. We are a community of 100 women looking to build each other up, and by extension, womxn everywhere.
A week before the COVID19 shelter in place order was enacted in late March in Oregon, The Perlene's clubhouse closed for the safety of our staff and members, but the community has remained strongly connected. We quickly shifted into an all digital space to provide much-needed personal and professional support for our members, and the community banded together to support members who couldn't pay their monthly membership dues. One of our greatest accomplishments through this crisis is that we have been able to retain close to all of our members through a member-led Perlena Donation Fund, payment deferral plans, and membership freezes.
In 2019, we made a calculated but significant financial risk to expand in 2020. Our built-from-scratch clubhouse in the Fair-Haired Dumbbell building was just completed in early March, where our new brand was also unveiled. We hoped to bring in 40 new members by June, and get to a total of 200 by the end of the year. But now, our recruitment plans have been stymied by a global health crisis, and a national economic down-turn. As a small business, we run tight on the margins, and the longer this crisis goes on, the harder it is for us to make financial ends meet.
We are starting this GoFundMe because we want to continue to support the 100 womxn, their families, and their businesses, who count on us. We will use these funds to bolster our operational costs-- to pay our staff, bills, rent, and additional safety measures for re-opening- and to create a Digital Membership option, to expand our business model for longer term sustainability. We are committed to the stability of this community; this fund will help us not only pay our bills, but more importantly, keep our community intact.
We know that as a community, we are better when we come together, and lift each other up. At The Perlene, we ask for extraordinary support, because we know that when one of us is struggling, what we need is hardly complicated for someone else to offer. Now, we are asking for your extraordinary support. A donation to The Perlene is not just a donation to this small business-- it is a donation to the many businesses and womxn who benefit from The Perlene's existence.
Your donation represents a commitment to keeping the heart of communities intact. If we've learned anything from this global pandemic, it's that we thrive when we rely on each other-- for a bit of flour or yeast from a neighbor, to grocery delivery, to business pivot support, to mental health check ins. Now, The Perlene relies on you, our larger community to help us through our hard time. We hope you'll help us reach our $25,000 goal in keeping The Perlene's doors open.
"Over the last three years, my life has been enriched because of The Perlene. I joined at a time in my life when I was craving more and deeper connections with interesting, talented, and hilarious women. I not only gained new friendships and experiences, I have gained an ever evolving family at The Perlene! It is the place I go for personal growth, to share my hobbies and professional expertise, a shoulder to cry on when life pushes back, and my favorite local spot to sip on some wine with my girls. The Perlene is my home away from home."
-Courtney Helstein,
Lobbyist
"There are so few instances in adulthood that lend themselves well to making true and deep connections. That's what makes the Perlene so special. It's a place for ambitious womxn who, yes are making moves and talking shop and swapping services and advice, but that's only the surface-level of what the Perlene has to offer. What it really is is a place of extraordinary support. It's a place where the societal lies of womxn-bashing-other-womxn cannot live because at the Perlene, we're genuinely excited about each other, we genuinely want to see other womxn succeed, we genuinely want to celebrate each other's wins, we genuinely want to sit next to you if you need to cry it out. We still live in a world where womxn are told their not enough, they're too much, and they're unworthy. The Perlene is place where womxn walk through the door and truly feel powerful, confident, and most importantly not even for a moment in it alone."
-Caitlin Brehm,
Creator and host of the celebrated podcast, "Roots of Lore"
