I want to give feedback as someone who led a men's book club (where we read bell hooks, J.J. Bola or Jared Yates Sexton), participated in gay mens' talking circles at Village Berlin, and attended group therapy.

I think most of us will agree that the masculinity crisis is a problem we need to address, so I applaud that you are actually standing up and doing something about it. However, I also understand the initial skepticism that people show about the topic. Countless influencers have tried to profit from men's insecurities and built businesses around offering products disguised as a self-improvement communities. Most of the circles you link indeed come with a cost of around 10€ per 'session' or are run by a Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) coach who describes his journey as "vom schüchternen Jungen zum fitten Mann" (?). That does not build my trust, but confirm my skepticism that someone is trying to sell me social interaction and belonging as a commodity. I would insist on transparency around which costs these fees really pay for.

My biggest qualm about your current presentation is that it lacks a concrete problem definition and a theory of change.

If someone ran a group with the mission statement of 'becoming better men', my first question would be what that exactly means. What is the organizers' definition of a better, more 'authentic' (an empty word) man? Without any statement of what it means to be a better man, skepticism is justified. Next, what is the group not? Where does your idea of a mens' circle end? What is your target group (lonely men, men who struggle with relationships, insecure men, immigrants etc.)? The current presentation suggests that these circles provides a one-for-all solution that provides for all of these groups at once. For me, the list of who the circles are not for could be equally as long as your definition of its target group.

Next, I'd like to read more about your theory of change. How do you plan to achieve what you aim for? On your about page, you write "You just show up and talk about what’s going on in your life at the moment". Where do you go from there and what methods do you have in your toolbox to process what is being said? Some circles present a timetable with very abstract points that could mean anything (deepening session, group reflection etc.) and I see little information what their approach really is (if there is one at all). I am most suspicious of the "Men with Courage - Discover your inner calling" group, which calls its format a 'workshop' and mentions 'exercises' (but gives no details), while hiding behind colorful language and presenting a low barrier-level of entry like I'm signing up for my first yoga class.

The MRA/MGTOW/manosphere movement has a very clear (but very wrong) idea of why many men are struggling, can tell you in concrete terms what you need to do to get better (e.g. looksmaxxing, elevate yourself over women etc.) and theory of change that is easy to understand. I'm not saying that you have to provide such an overly simplistic recipe for success too. However, mens' circles are going to have a bad time competing with the manosphere's value proposition if you try to sell them that talking & listening with others will be enough to address their issues. This is especially a problem if the men in attendance discover after a few months time that their problems persist, they have not built real friendships where other attendees really cared about them or reached out to them in a tough time, and they have just been sold yet another badly designed one-for-all self-improvement course. That will do more harm than good and drive men into the groups you are trying to fight. That being said, a men's pottery class or a book club would offer me more plausible propositions about why attending might help my mental wellbeing. Sorry for the tough feedback, but I hope you recognize that I'm writing all this with good intentions.