Built for the sponsor who keeps losing the thread
Ask a sponsor how they keep track and you'll hear about a spreadsheet, a notebook, or a folder of text screenshots — all of it an attempt to answer one question honestly: who haven't I called?
Sponsorship asks a lot of an ordinary person. You hold other people's worst weeks in your head alongside your own job, your own family, and your own recovery. Most sponsors do this with nothing but memory and goodwill, and both of them run out on a Tuesday.
The tools that exist are either clinical software built for treatment centres — priced and shaped for institutions — or generic productivity apps that know nothing about steps, anonymity, or what a reset means. Neither is built for the person sitting in a parking lot before a meeting, trying to remember whether the guy on step four ever came back with his list.
So we built the boring middle thing: a workspace for a sponsor, a free companion for a sponsee, and a text bridge for everybody whose phone can't hold another app.
What we believe
Technology should make the human part easier to do, not easier to skip.
Every decision in 12Gradus runs through that. We won't build a bot that answers a sponsee for you. We won't score anybody's recovery. We won't turn a fellowship into a feed. What we will do is make sure the call gets made, the work gets seen, and nobody quietly falls off the end of a list.
Anonymity is a feature, not a setting
The rooms figured this out a long time ago: first name, last initial. 12Gradus works the same way. There are no public profiles, no follower counts and no directory to be found in. A sponsee's private journal entries and private reflections are invisible to their sponsor, and that's enforced by the database, not by a hidden button.
Where the money goes
Sponsors pay a small subscription; sponsees pay nothing. The shop covers its own printing and shipping. A portion of proceeds is donated to twelve-step programs and the recovery communities they serve. There is no advertising, no data brokerage, and no plan to add either.
Who we are
12Gradus is a product of MCK Legacy LLC, a small American company. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or speaking for Gamblers Anonymous, Alcoholics Anonymous, or any other fellowship. The steps belong to the fellowships; the software is ours.
Talk to us: support@12gradus.com.