A long journey

by Justin Ohm, DC

This has been a long journey. We knew we had a huge responsibility to spotlight the treasure trove of archived articles with a new website but we didn’t think it would be this much work.

If you aren’t aware, my mom started Pathways to Family Wellness magazine in 2004 because she was frustrated with all of the magazines in the waiting room of her home office. You see as a chiropractor she believed that the body is intelligent and symptoms were not to be suppressed but rather appreciated for what they are, your body trying to adapt to a stressor. Why would you want to surprise that?

As a woman who got things done, she decided to do something about it. So she started her own magazine, and Pathways was born. I use that word very deliberately because she often described Pathways as her seventh child. Yes, there are six of us, and yes, Pathways took a tremendous amount of her time.

After 18 years, there is a highly curated list of 1200+ wellness articles that can help anyone expand their understanding of vitalism, salutogenesis, chiropractic, parenting, birth and informed decision making. We needed to make this content highly sharable, look beautiful (like the magazine), and searchable (both internally on the website and online with the major search engines).

I remember early on in the conversation, the company we hired to help in this endeavor asked the question: “how will you monetize this website?” The magazine (like most magazines) was seeing declining subscriptions and we were undercharging for the subscriptions that were still there based on increasing costs of materials and shipping. Still, questions of monetization didn’t feel right to us. This wasn’t about creating a new revenue stream for the magazine. It was about getting this content out to the next generation of families.

We decided to make everything, all 74 past issues, free for everyone, and rely on a supporting membeship fee which gives you early access to the most current issue and its content. Can readers just wait a few months and get it for free? Yes, but then you wouldn’t be supporting Pathways and everything it stands for. We believe people want to support the organizations that stand for the values they stand for.

Please feel free to take a look around, and if you’re so inclined, consider becoming a supporting member. It’s an incredible value and it supports Pathways to continue to offer ad free content that promotes family wellness, informed choice, and birth skills.