Support GNL
Keep the GNL independent.
We take tremendous pride in being as bias free as possible. This level of independence turns off many manufacturers, but, it it’s welcomed by those with a solid ethos. Those manufacturers choose to fund a podcast episode, sponsor part of Grace, or enter into a mutually benefical relationship. Also, we really apprecitate the financial support received from members of the T1D community, why not join them.
Ask Grace
Grace is free to use while she is in beta. Try her first, then decide whether any of this is worth supporting.
What your support actually pays for
You have probably already used more of this than you realised. The guides, the explorers, the episodes on the commute, Grace answering at an hour when nobody else is awake. None of it sits behind a paywall today, and none of it is free to run.
There are three costs, and they are not abstract.
Grace
Every question Grace answers costs real money in model tokens, and the queue does not get shorter as more people find her. Grace is free to use while she is in beta. What happens after the beta has not been decided; we are still gathering feedback before we settle it, and we would rather say that plainly than pretend the question is closed.
The podcast
Hosting, editing, transcription, the travel to record with people worth recording. Episodes are written and edited by us and by nobody else. Where an organisation has funded a series, it is disclosed on the episode and on the page, and it buys a factual-accuracy review, never a change of conclusion.
Keeping the site clean
GNL runs anonymised traffic analytics and nothing else. No advertising features, no cross-site tracking cookies, no third-party advertising trackers on any page, no profile of you sold to anyone. The privacy policy spells out exactly what runs. That is a deliberate choice with a price attached, and the price is the ad-network revenue we turn down.
Chip in, at whatever size fits
Everything runs through Buy Me a Coffee. One-off if you would rather not think about it again, monthly if you want to keep something ticking over. Cancel any time, in two clicks, without emailing anyone.
There is also a standing pledge attached to the monthly route. While Grace is free in beta, every pound goes on the running costs above. On the day Grace starts charging, your contribution holds free accounts open for people living with type 1 diabetes who cannot pay, drawn from the waiting list and lasting exactly as long as the contribution does. We do not match it, double it, or add anything on top.
Via Buy Me a Coffee. The Glucose Never Lies Ltd is a UK limited company, not a registered charity, so contributions are gifts, are not Gift Aid eligible, and buy no benefit or service in return. That last part is by design.
If you are asking on behalf of an organisation
Most weeks an email arrives offering money for a guest article with a link tucked inside it, or for a paragraph quietly added to a page that already ranks. The answer to that version is no, and it stays no, because an advert dressed as an article is a lie told to someone reading about their own health at midnight. The thing underneath the request is reasonable enough, though. Organisations want to reach the people who read this, and a few of them have something those readers would actually be glad to know about. So here is the shape we will work in, written down rather than settled case by case.
Sponsoring Grace
A named organisation funds Grace’s running costs for a defined period, disclosed on the page as exactly that. It buys the compute and nothing else. The answers Grace gives, the evidence she cites and the grades she puts on it do not move because somebody paid for the tokens.
Sponsoring the podcast
A series in a defined area, on the terms set out further up this page: disclosed on the episode and on the page, a factual-accuracy review, never a change of conclusion. Scope is worked out by email rather than picked off a rate card.
Advertising or placing content on a relevant page
Paid placement is possible on the pages where it belongs, and only there. We read whatever you propose in full and say yes or no before it goes anywhere near a page; nothing runs unvetted, and anything that reads as an article while it is really selling something is refused whatever the fee. What does run carries the label “Advertisement” or “Paid partnership with [organisation]” at the top of the item, before the reader reaches the content, never only at the foot. Nothing paid ever sits inside clinical guidance as though it were our own recommendation, and we carry no paid promotion of prescription-only medicines, which UK law does not permit to be advertised to the public.
No third-party tracking is added for an advertiser. No pixel, no script, no cookie, no exceptions, and no price at which that changes. In place of it you get our own reporting: page views, clicks on your link, how long people stayed, drawn from the anonymised analytics already running site-wide. Real numbers about the placement, none of them about a person.
Keep Grace free
GNL Partners
Grace is free to use. Three organisations make that possible, and none of them decides what Grace says.
Educational grant
Abbott Diabetes Care
Abbott Diabetes Care makes the FreeStyle Libre family of continuous glucose monitors, used by people with diabetes across the UK and internationally, standalone and as the sensor inside several automated insulin delivery systems.
Their educational grant funds the podcast series and the tools built so that people living with diabetes, clinicians and researchers can understand CGM independently of any one manufacturer.
On GNL
The Abbott FreeStyle Libre guide Podcast, Episode 39: FreeStyle Libre 2 Plus and 3 Plus Visit Abbott Diabetes Care →
Educational grant
Tandem Diabetes Care
Tandem Diabetes Care makes insulin pumps and the Control-IQ automated insulin delivery algorithm, which runs on both the t:slim X2 and the smaller Mobi pump body.
Their educational grant supports the same independent, evidence-based education, which is what Grace, the Explorers, the Tech guides and the Tech selectors all grew out of.
On GNL
Tips and tricks for t:slim X2 with Control-IQ Podcast, Episode 43: Tandem Control-IQ+ and Mobi Podcast, Episode 24: Dr Laurel Messer on skin care Visit Tandem Diabetes Care →
Ongoing partner
Diabetic Health Coach
Vanessa Haydock, Personal Trainer and Board-Certified Behaviour Analyst, a coach living with T1D. Diabetic Health Coach offers online coaching, personal training and behaviour analysis for people with diabetes working towards health, fitness, diabetes or mindset goals, through the Dominating Diabetes coaching programme.
Diabetic Health Coach runs its own Grace inside its client portal, and that ongoing partnership helps keep Grace running for everyone else.
On GNL
Podcast, Episode 29: The Behaviour Change PlaybookHer practice
About Vanessa Online health and fitness coaching Work with Vanessa →Where the money comes from, and what it does not buy
Abbott Diabetes Care and Tandem Diabetes Care fund this work through educational grants.
That funding pays for the work. It does not mean any supporter has reviewed what we publish, and it is not an endorsement of it. The grants were given for the vision and for the quality of the materials, not as unreserved agreement with what we say.
The money exists so that GNL can stay independent and free of bias. Every supporter has the right to withdraw their support at any time, and that right is written into the educational grant contracts all parties have signed.
Want to support this work? John Pemberton is the person to talk to.
john@theglucoseneverlies.comWhy we ask this way
We only put out what we would use ourselves, give our own family, and give the people we love. That is the test everything here has to pass before it goes anywhere near you, and it is the reason the page you are reading has no advertising network behind it, no tracker following you off it, and no price on a thing that is still in beta.
It also means we would rather be funded by a lot of people giving a little than by one funder giving a lot. Not because grant money is dirty, but because the day a single funder becomes load-bearing is the day the answers start bending, quietly, in ways nobody announces. Small contributions from people who found this useful keep that day away.
If GNL has been useful to you, and only if it genuinely has, this is where the money goes and what it protects.