Hello! Amanda here. 👋🏻

We released some exciting changes to the Affirming Business Institute website and course learning platform, and I wanted to share everything we did the last few weeks!

The short version is that we moved to a new LMS that gives us some new features and an updated learning experience for businesses, our certification badges no longer expire, we are no longer offering social media and blog features as a part of our packages, and we're adjusting our pricing as we launch. 

Here's the long version! 👇🏻 (read to the end for an insane perk we're giving to the first 30 photographers who get listed! Spoiler, it's a really big discount).

We've moved our courses to a new learning management system (LMS)

All current and future ABI courses are now being hosted on an LMS with a cleaner learning experience and additional features from our old one. We'd been really struggling to use our previous LMS, and quickly realized that it wasn't aligned with what we needed for both our businesses and our internal team running things on the backend. We're really pleased with our experience with Kajabi so far, and are really excited to start digging into everything we can offer to certified businesses with this new experience!

Our badges no longer expire

When you complete a certification course through the Affirming Business Institute, your business receives 2 years listed in the Affirming Business Directory, a certificate of completion, and a badge for your website. Previously, badges expired with your directory listing after 2 years. Now, your badge only states the year you got certified, and the only thing that expires is your directory listing. Whenever you recertify and renew your directory listing, you'll receive a new badge with an updated "Certified on" date so your badge always stays recent.

Social media features have been removed for now

We decided to pull social features as something you get when you enroll in our program. We made this decision because our audience is still small, and features from us don't have much marketing value right now. I know pulling features isn't ideal, but it contributes to us being able to make the next change!

We're lowering the price of our Queer-Affirming Wedding Photographer Certification

We're bringing down the price of our Queer-Affirming Wedding Photographer certification, badge, certification, and 2yr directory listing to $199.

We made this change for a few reasons. When we set our original price, we looked across the industry and intentionally priced our programs significantly lower than comparable programs. While that price made sense considering our operating costs to keep ABI up and running, as well as other courses/directory prices on the market, we decided we want to offer a price that was even more accessible to businesses, especially in the early stages of ABI. 

Our new price equates to about $8 a month for our full program.

As a thank you to everyone who's already enrolled in our wedding photographer program, we've issued a partial refund for the difference between what current learners paid and what we're charging now to make sure this isn't something that just affects new enrollments. 

**Note that applies to course completion, not enrollment!

What these changes mean going forward

The Institute is now in a better place to support the work ahead.

We have a cleaner, more intuitive learning experience for our course, a simplified approach to badging and certifications, and a better setup for future courses.

We really believe that queer-affirming businesses can make a big difference for the LGBTQ+ community in the wedding industry and beyond, so Allison and I are committed to making ABI the best Institute and Directory out there for y'all.

We can't wait to see what the future brings!

- A