Brands are sponsoring IRL communities. Some experts say that could spell their end

On a brisk Saturday in October, more than 80 people try to shuffle into the small Corner Bookstore in New York City's Upper East Side. They're part of local literary community Lit Club NYC's quarterly book crawl. Today's event, where some attendees are "slightly over sci-fi" and others are in their "rom-com era," is sponsored by Tinder.

The Lit Club-Tinder partnership was facilitated by Offline, a platform for connecting hosts of gatherings across the U.S. with advertisers keen to sponsor their events. The goal is to help advertisers "deliver outsized media performance and drive growth," according to Offline's website. Offline founder Andrew Roth, 28, is also keen to help hosts ensure their gatherings are sustainable long term.

Kelly Chervin is just such a host. Chervin, 35, founded Lit Club in March 2025 as a way to meet other Latina readers and connect over literature. But she has bills to pay. "If we want to have a literary community be around sustainably," says Chervin, "then paid partnerships are part of that."

For the Tinder collab, Chervin makes $20 per attendee, and must throw in deliverables like social media posts highlighting the partnership. On Lit Club's Instagram, a recent post included the line "You can now discover events like these on the @tinder app!"

Whether community members will stay connected when a sponsor gets attached remains to be seen. Some experts are optimistic about the opportunity this kind of marriage presents, while others are certain it will eventually bring about communities' demise.

Either way, many intimate gatherings around the country are quickly adding a sales pitch.

Meetups confer 'intimacy at scale'

Roth began his career by founding Gen Z-focused research and consulting company DCDX while studying at Vanderbilt University in 2020. The company has worked with major brands including Chipotle, Hinge and Spotify and was recently acquired by Visible Ventures for an undisclosed sum. Roth will stay on as a Board Advisor.

In 2024, while still at DCDX, Roth had the opportunity to work on an advertising campaign for fragrance company Le Monde Gourmand at in-person events with communities like those on which Offline now focuses.

He says it made him wonder: "Can we bring those [advertising] dollars into the real world and help these communities be preserved?" In September 2025, he and fellow entrepreneur Chris Banks officially launched Offline.

The company's platform enables hosts of gatherings across the country, from mom groups to run clubs to literary circles, to create a profile including details about how often events happen and how many people tend to show up. Brands can then use the site to match with profiles and events that fit their target audience and create a brief for a campaign that hosts can submit ideas to.

Offline now features more than 900 communities altogether, says Roth, with hosts making an average payout of $2,500 to $3,000 per event.

"The language we always use is 'intimacy at scale,'" he says.

A path to sustainability for organizers: 'I do need to support my family.'

For hosts like Chervin, the opportunity to generate revenue is critical. Lit Club's current income streams include ticketed events, a monetized newsletter and brand partnerships.

Chervin is choosy about the partnerships she takes on, she says. They have to feel organic. The Tinder tie-in, for instance, checks a couple of boxes: "Tinder really wants to move to in-person connection," she says as an example, which is at the core of her mission as well.

Michael Lombardo, 43, discovered bird watching in 2019 and was immediately struck by how fun and present the activity was. It made him feel "like the eight-year-old version of myself," he says, "where I was actually inhabiting the world."  

Lombardo founded the McGolrick Bird Club in April 2023. Named for Brooklyn, New York's McGolrick Park, the free, weekly meetup convenes every Saturday morning, when he and others go bird watching. The event now has about 100 weekly attendees, and many of them are repeat guests.

Lombardo recently started dabbling with brand partnerships and connected with Offline earlier this year. For him, any partnership would have to benefit the community in some way, he says. But as a freelance graphic designer and writer, it's something he'll consider given the bigger picture of his life and priorities.

"I do need to support my family," he says. "I have two children."

Some members could 'lose faith in the original purpose'

Experts differ on what they think introducing the element of advertising to the groups could mean for the human connection they provide.

Amit Kumar, an assistant professor of marketing, psychological and brain sciences at the University of Delaware, is hopeful about the potential of these events, regardless of a brand's involvement. For him, the point is to create as many opportunities as possible for people to meet.

"As long as they actually are allowing people to engage with one another and connect with one another," he says, "there's a potential benefit to that."

Professor of sociology at Cornell University Benjamin Cornwell is not so sure. A community that got together organically through a genuine, shared interest is no longer organic once fueled and harnessed by a profit-motivated company, he says.

When that happens, community organizers risk introducing unwelcome messaging. Members may "lose faith in the original purpose," he says, adding that some will even "drop out." That won't necessarily happen immediately, he says. But, "it's inevitable."

'A few people did tell me they don't think they can come back'

Back at the book crawl, attendees' opinions differ about Tinder's involvement.

Some think it's cool Tinder is branching out into IRL events. Others don't like the implication that the event is somehow a ruse to meet a significant other, rather than a way to just meet people in general. Some people don't mind as long as the company doesn't feel too pushy in its agenda.

In September, Chervin partnered with an AI company at one of her events and appeared in an ad for Meta's AI tool Muse.

That sparked a conversation among members about which partnerships make sense for the community. Many understood the importance of corporate contributions to Lit Club if they want the events to be sustainable long-term, she says. Ultimately, Chervin lost no paid subscribers.

But among her larger community, she says, "a few people did tell me they don't think they can come back."

Roth stands by the financial ecosystem Offline is trying to build.

"If 10 years from now people look at us and say, 'Oh, these are the evil guys that bastardized IRL,' so be it," he says. "But I'll look at that and say, you know, we paid out a billion dollars to organizers, and we've created I don't know how many more events."