With 8,000+ subscribers, a 50%+ open rate, and one email that led to $50,000 in funding, this is the newsletter strategy behind a movement that changed a country’s curriculum.
*Content warning: sexual assault
This story is part of Valuable: a Kit series featuring creators building businesses worth more than money.
When Chanel Contos was 15 years old she received consent education.
But it was too late.
After the curriculum was presented, all it did was help Chanel and her friends collectively realize, now that they knew about consent, that they’d all already been sexually assaulted.
Chanel marched up to a teacher the next day and told her that they had needed this consent education earlier. “She basically told us,” Chanel says, “that this was only relevant now because we were mature enough to hear it, and that ‘those sorts of things’ happen to ‘girls like us.’”
Ten years later, Chanel is the founder of Teach Us Consent, the organization that successfully mandated consent education into the Australian national curriculum and provides digital education to an average of one million people per month around the world.
“In a world that’s so fast paced and click bait-y, with hot takes and five second clips,” Chanel says, “it was really important to me to give space to the topic and give it the nuance it deserves.”
Chanel also turned her first master’s thesis into a book called Consent Laid Bare. The book was incredibly successful, and men and women tell her often how it changed their lives. She saw there was an appetite for more, and there were people willing to go deeper.
So she decided to start a newsletter.
Their email strategy: They write for the dinner table, not the algorithm
Chanel also turned to email after watching friends lose their social media accounts overnight.
“It was just such a stark reminder that you don’t own your channels if you’re using these big tech platforms,” she says. “They can just choose to change anything at any time for any reason.”
And even though Teach Us Consent’s content is educational, its sensitive subject matter meant it was constantly getting flagged, wrongfully censored, and taken down.
“So I had this moment,” she says, “of realizing we can’t really rely on the big tech platforms too much. It’s really important to own our own audience and provide a platform for more nuanced information for people who want it.”Chanel chose Kit for her newsletter.
When it came time to choose what to write, Chanel says she and her team started by thinking about the newsletters they liked reading the most.
Then they thought about what would be most useful to their subscribers. The goal was for readers to finish every email feeling like they’d learned something interesting enough to bring up at dinner with friends.
After some trial and error, they landed on two types of content: expert-written deep dives and an advice column called Unsolicited Advice.
Topics so far have ranged from misogyny in gaming to advice about how to help children set body boundaries at holiday gatherings.
But Chanel says some of their most effective emails are ones she didn’t expect.
When things would get really busy and they wanted to keep to their content schedule, they’d repurpose their “go-to” content, the 101 kind of stuff. It was more a survival mechanism, but Chanel realized it was actually working.
“The most basic content always hits,” she says. “To us on the team it’s so obvious: like the principles of consent and sexual coercion. But the whole point is that the world hasn’t received this information yet and they don’t know it.
You become an expert in your own thing, and you think you need to always refresh your content, but it’s always reaching new audiences and sometimes I think the simple stuff can go the furthest.
The emails go out every Thursday evening , and Chanel and her team see that consistency as important to building and growing their connection with the people on their list.
Chanel is proud of paying her writers and contributors well, and her original vision provides the newsletter’s heart and purpose.
Her goal with the newsletter is to center the content around the organization and cause, not herself, especially as they expand into the US. “In Australia,” Chanel explains, “Teach Us Consent is very associated with me personally, and with our US expansion we want it to be a standalone organization for the purpose of sustainability and longevity.”
Next, they’re planning to use the tagging features in Kit to segment their audience based on country location to further customize their content, and plan to join the Creator Network “for growth and more content collaborations.”
Their results: 50%+ open rates, 8,000+ subscribers, and a direct line to their community
So far their newsletter open rate is consistently over 50% (and sometimes even over 60%) and they have over 8,000 subscribers, with a goal to grow to 20K by the end of the year.
Photo caption: Some of Teach Us Consent’s recent subject lines.
“We get really good feedback,” Chanel says of their email replies. “We also love when people share an alternative perspective or ask a follow-up question for a future newsletter.”
She loves that the newsletter offers a place where they can really dive deep and connect. “It’s for our hyper-interested people,” she says. “We don’t mince our words in our newsletter.”
Chanel thinks of social media as the place for the topline message, and for speaking to people who are new to the topic in a way they can receive. She tries to speak their language so they can hear the message. “But once someone is subscribed,” she says, “they want to be here, they want to learn, and we’re going to teach them.”
She can’t imagine operating now without a newsletter.
The newsletter is so important to me. Owning your own audience and getting direct comms and resources and messaging out to people who care or who want to be part of change and be change agents themselves is vital. It’s like equipping and up-skilling a little army of consent warriors. Our newsletter’s been so pivotal to our growth in the US and it’s really helped us connect with people in the industry.
One of those newsletters even led to them getting $50,000 in funding.
Their advice: Don’t underestimate what one person (and one email) can do
Her advice for any creators who want to get the messages in their inbox to go further and even create change? “I think the key is to always have an answer to whatever is being raised as a problem.”
They are always intentional about proposing a solution and having a clear action for people to do. Every email ends with practical advice, local resources, or actionable tips so their readers aren’t ever “ left in despair given how heavy some of these topics can be.”
Chanel says a petition can also be really impactful.
“A petition, by the way,” she says, “is also a really good way of getting newsletter subscriptions. Don’t forget to put a consent tick box.” That’s something she didn’t know to do the first time she did a petition that gained 50,000 signatures, and does it differently now.
She also says to not underestimate how powerful one person can be.
“Reach out to your old school as an alumnus,” she says. “You can have a lot of influence in a really direct way which could then impact hundreds or even thousands of people, even if it’s not this crazy public facing thing that’s getting major media attention.
“I think a lot of impact can be made in individual ways just by directly asking yourself: What privileges do I have in terms of who in a position of power will hear me speak about this?”
When it comes to what Teach Us Consent is worth to her personally, she says her favorite days are the ones where she isn’t on her laptop. She loves being in community with the people who can create systemic change and the people she’s trying to make that change for.
Like the thousands of trauma-filled testimonies from girls she’s received over the years, the girls her old teacher once said weren’t “ready” to receive consent education yet. “It means a lot to think about my teenage self who got shut down when I tried to get consent education taught earlier,” Chanel says. “But now it’s for everyone.”
If you or someone you know has been sexually assaulted, you can find urgent support resources here (AUS) and here (US).
You can support Teach Us Consent by donating here or by subscribing to their newsletter.
Frequently asked questions about newsletters and creator-owned audiences
Why are creators starting newsletters?
Creators are starting newsletters because social platforms own the relationship between them and their audience. Algorithm changes, content moderation, and account suspensions can wipe out years of work overnight. A newsletter is a creator-owned channel — direct, durable, and free of any platform’s gatekeeping.
Why is owning your audience important?
Owning your audience means you control how and when you reach the people who care about your work. With email, no platform can throttle your distribution or remove your account without warning. It’s the foundation of any sustainable creator business, especially for movement-driven or educational work.
Are newsletters better than social media?
Newsletters and social media play different roles. Social is best for top-of-funnel discovery and short, accessible messaging. Newsletters are better for depth, trust, and conversion. For creators building serious businesses or movements, the inbox is where the most meaningful engagement happens.
How do creators grow newsletter subscribers?
The most reliable newsletter growth levers are consistent publishing, a clear value promise on the signup page, cross-promotion (like Kit’s Creator Network), embedded subscribe forms on every owned property, and lead magnets — a free guide, petition, or short course that earns the subscribe.
What makes a newsletter successful?
A successful newsletter has three things: a clearly defined audience, content that consistently delivers on a specific promise, and a sender who shows up on a predictable cadence. The metrics that matter most are open rate, reply rate, and subscriber growth over time.
Why do newsletters have higher engagement than social media?
Newsletter readers have actively opted in. Their inbox is more personal than a feed, and they don’t have to compete with an algorithm to see your message. That makes engagement like opens, replies, click-throughs meaningfully higher than equivalent social posts.
How often should creators send newsletters?
Once a week is a strong default for most creators. It’s frequent enough to stay top of mind but not so frequent that you risk burning out yourself or your list. Teach Us Consent sends every Thursday evening, showing consistency matters more than frequency.
What are good newsletter open rates?
Across the creator economy, a healthy newsletter open rate sits around 30–40%. Anything above 50% (like Teach Us Consent’s 50–60%) is exceptional and usually signals a highly engaged, niche audience.
