In 2016, Cameron Glover was a recent college graduate with a budding freelance writing career when a story assignment led her down a life-changing online rabbit hole.

“I was researching the sex education industry, and noticed that a lot of the information out there was pretty outdated,” recalls Glover from her home in Los Angeles. The professional landscape was also conspicuously straight and white. As a queer, Black millennial, her interest was nonetheless piqued.

Within a year, Glover was teaching sex education workshops and had enrolled in a sex ed certification program, where she soon realized that there was a lack of guidance available for sex education professionals who wanted to run independent businesses. “The resources that were made available were all tailored to help you become employable to someone else,” she says.

So in 2019, Glover took matters into her own hands and launched the Sex Ed Business Academy: a business coaching program for sex educators who aspire to launch sustainable sex ed businesses of their own. “My approach is founded on the radical idea that you don’t need to choose between helping people and making money,” Glover says.

Glover is leading by example. The Sex Ed Business Academy has blossomed into a six-figure enterprise – one that aims to steer clients toward similar financial outcomes, all in the name of fostering sexual literacy and wellbeing.

What sets apart your sex education business strategy within the broader industry landscape?

Glover: I firmly believe that not only does sex education work need to be paid accordingly, because it is deeply life-changing, meaningful work, but that people can make a full-time living doing this work. And when I say that, I don’t mean by hustling and overworking and burning themselves out. I mean that, by having a really simple, streamlined business that supports you actually living a full life outside of work. So, my approach tends to focus on creating comprehensive programs instead of offering one-off classes and workshops, and taking that route to build a business.

Who’s your typical client?

I would say that most of my clients and the people I work with have years or even decades of experience doing sex education work on their own, either through workshops that they’re hosting themselves or that they’re hosting on behalf of an organization. They have a masters, a PhD, they are certified, and they’ve been doing this work for awhile; it’s their passion. But they’re feeling really overwhelmed and stressed out because they’re balancing or offsetting the sex education work that they’re doing with either a full-time job or multiple unrelated side-hustles to make ends meet. They want to be able to pour more into the work that’s meaningful to them.

What kinds of programs have your coaching clients gone on to launch?

Oh, so many. I have one client who started a program teaching folks that are interested in becoming sex educators at more of a beginner level. Another client works with people over the age of 45 who are rediscovering what their sexuality looks like after certain life milestones. Another person works with middle school-aged youth. It really runs the gamut. I think that’s part of why I’m so fascinated by this work. There are so many different ways to be a sex educator that can lead to a career and a business that you’re excited about, and it can support you living a whole and supported life, as well.

You host a podcast about how to become a six-figure sex educator. What kind of feedback do you get in response to your frankness about money?

I get a lot of pushback. I think it’s really fascinating, because I find that sex and money often bring up the same emotions for people. They may not even fully believe it, but many people have absorbed ideas that have become normalized in society: that desiring sex is bad, and that desiring money makes you a bad person. It brushes up against people’s edges.

I try to approach money as a tool. Like ‘I need to charge a certain amount because I plan on fully funding whatever program I want to fund, without having to ask a bank or take out a loan to do it.’ It doesn’t need to be anything other than a vehicle for what you want to exist in the world.

Because of my experiences as Black person, I know what it’s like to be without. I know what it’s like to be on the receiving end of oppression and discrimination, and so many nasty, horrible things. But it also makes me think about how there are so many different avenues for protest and to create change. Having a business that funds the change that you want to see is just another avenue toward positive change.