What your support actually buys

Not a mission statement and not a tote bag. Reader support sits alongside paid guides, affiliate commissions and the app, and together they are the reason this site can refuse money from the brace, footwear and clinic industries it writes about.

The honest version

Clubfoot sits next to a real market. Boots and bars, braces, orthotics, specialist footwear, private clinics: all selling, quite reasonably, to people at an anxious moment. Any of them would sponsor a resource like this one.

The moment that happens, the pages readers most need (which brace, which shoe, is this clinic worth it) become unreadable, because you would never know which sentences were bought. Reader support is what makes declining those offers a decision and not a sacrifice.

To be complete about it: the site also earns Amazon affiliate commissions on some product links, and the mobile app is free with banner advertising and an optional subscription that removes it. Both are set out in the privacy policy. None of that is sponsorship, and none of it buys a say in what any page says.

Goes toHosting, domain, the plugins and tools the site runs on.

And toThe hours of research and writing behind pages that carry a review date.

Never toStaff, offices, advertising, or anything a reader would not recognize as the site.

Support does not buy you anything. It buys the ability to say no to everyone else.

Nothing is gated, and nothing will be

Always free

Every page on the site
All the research and study write-ups
The free guides, complete rather than sampled
Corrections and updates
No advertising to remove in the first place

What supporters get

No supporter-only content
No early access
No badge, tier or membership
No newsletter you did not ask for
The site continuing to exist, which is the whole offer

The right-hand column is deliberate. The moment supporters get better information than everyone else, the site stops being a resource for the parent who found it at two in the morning and starts being a product. The editorial policy commits to that in writing.

If you would rather get something concrete for your money, the guides exist and help exactly as much.

Supporting the site

Do supporters get anything extra?

No, deliberately. Every page stays free to everyone, with nothing gated, no supporter-only content and no advertising removed. Support pays for the work instead of buying access to it.

One-off or recurring?

Whatever suits you, and neither is expected. Recurring support makes planning ahead easier, one-off contributions are entirely welcome, and buying a guide helps every bit as much as either of them.

Where does the money actually go?

Hosting and domain costs, the plugins and tools the site runs on, and the time it takes to research and write. There are no staff, no office and no marketing budget for it to disappear into.

Is this a charity or tax deductible?

No. It is an independent project and not a registered charity, so anything you send is a straightforward contribution and not a tax-deductible donation in any jurisdiction.

Why not just take sponsorship?

Because the obvious sponsors are brace makers, footwear brands and clinics, and those are exactly the subjects readers need honest writing about. Taking their money would quietly ruin the only thing this site has.

Is a one-off or recurring contribution better?

Whatever suits you, and neither is expected. Recurring support makes planning ahead easier, one-off contributions are entirely welcome, and buying a guide or subscribing in the app helps every bit as much as either of them.

What if I cannot afford to support it?

Then use it freely, which is the point. Sharing a page with someone who needs it, or sending a correction, is genuinely valuable and costs nothing.

If you would like to

The form is below

Any amount is genuinely useful, and no amount is expected. If you are here because the site helped at a bad moment, that is reason enough to have written it.