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Resources for our Future

What resources do we need to organise and care for the futures we imagine? How do you break the grant cycle of going from grant to grant, and why is this important for our futures? In this workshop we’ll talk about resources; money and material resources that are needed to organise in a sustainable way. Our conversation on resource justice will provide us a lens for resource autonomy, an indispensable factor if we want to realise the futures we imagine.

Photos: © Michelle Geerardyn

Illustrations: © Valentine Zhang (https://www.instagram.com/valentinezhang/)

Facilitators

Latifah Abdou has been involved in several projects related to decolonization and social justice throughout the years. She founded WeDecolonizeVUB, a project centralizing racialized youth’s knowledge, experiences, and needs in higher education. In addition, she worked on creating the Blueprint Study: Master in Critical Diaspora, Race and Liberation Studies and co-organized the Braver Spaces Summer School. Through her work on decolonization and social justice, she always emphasizes the need for spaces for social critique, which is exactly what she aims to create - as a moderator - or contribute to - as a speaker.

Nina Poels is one of the founders of Jezebel Studio, a Brussels-based grassroots organisation and queer space for sports and movement. She studied Journalism and later completed a Master’s degree in Gender and Diversity, interests that continue to shape her approach to organisational work. Within Jezebel Studio, she mainly focuses on administration and financial management, helping to build sustainable structures that allow the studio to be independent and self-sufficient while still being socially engaged.

Salmana Ahmed is a feminist resource justice advocate based in the UK. She is co-director of Weaving Liberation, an entity dedicated to resourcing and supporting digital justice organising in Europe.

The discussion

Introduction

Going from non-profit as for-profit for being financially sustainable. How can we move beyond going from grant to grant? How can we rethink funding, resources, acquiring them?

How should we think about resources regarding organising?

S: Resources justice. New initiative coordinating and vision for Europe –> transform the issues of technologies are addressed, discussed and shaped. Decolonizing: 2020. Develop program of ideas to respond to why the ppl wo are the most impacted by technologies, why are they not being centered? Conversation about technology were severed from the reality, and the technology is embedded in a long line of colonialism and accumulating wealth. ==> Program to address how technology is addressed and how it moves in this space.

Worked for luminate to fund in a “progressive” way compared to other foundations. Analysis of philantropic harm, it severes issues from deep political analysis. For example: data and privacy, in EU there is legislative discussion to GDPR. Most marginalized groups are being harmed by these infrastructures.

The silosation of issues, not many grouping of issues to gather finances. Because Philanthropy was never designed in resources justice.

Rolling back and reactive fighting, but stops in order to really make you thrive. Ex: we are reacting to big tech, but little discussion on how it would look like to create community in tech.

Top-down to what constitutes … : philanthropy does not see itself being part of the system it tries to influence.

Organizing: is about money and to redistribute it towards small grass-roots groups, to people who are excluded from getting funding. Organizing with other founders, artists, etc to think about the ecosystem and infrastructure to mobilize resources to leave resources behind when it ends.

L: subsidies are state-funded in Belgium. But the foundation are less-known or non-existent, or you have to know them to penetrate them in our Belgian culture. So this perspectives about foundations shows us how it works elsewhere.

N: Jezebel started as friends have an idea, they started a vzw-asbl and positive about the fact that they could get money under this form of status for organisation. They went to the City of Brussel and VGC: the paradox started: you need to be already established to get money, … but you need money to start and get known..! So they started a crowdfunding, pop-up, and they started to get their own space.

But the forms to fill in where not adapted to what they were doing, because it was between sport and culture, no real door to “knock on”, also very binary approach.

Opleiding on sustainable financing ‘cultuurlokket’, subsidies and grant are not the solution to everything. Test on how independent you are as an organisation. Jezebel was 95% independent thanks to their community: both angry because it should be free (solidarity prices), but also a good thing in a fascist regime that Belgium is becoming.

Letting go of the dream to be fully funded. Anti-kraak (short-term, low price lease for build that will be renovated, sometimes not up to date with latest safety): not a real solution, because the space is so important for the community to feel safe in.

L: Oftentimes the govt does not fund spaces because it is structural.

S: Space: organising. Land justice: who owns land? Who inherits land? From a tech angle: big companies buying land for data center and ruining our lives (climate, expulsing, noise, etc).

Tension of wanting ppl to –> We need to organize strategically to get funding with other intermediary founders (raise money for other groups and use more radical redistribution techniques). These groups find solution to what traditionals philanthropy “struggles with”. On the principle of collective abundance: you get the money and you know what needs to be done with it.

2024 in Bosnia: Cross-movement space in Europe, to rest in nature and connect with other people who work on the same subject as you (tech). But the amount to run this event could have afforded to buy land to own property and organise this year after year.

We have to continue to push founders for good funding, and pusch for autonomy within groups. Solidarity structures starts with infrastructures, servers to store knowledge, outsource the financing of staff in case of loss of funding.

Grants: as creative writing essay, as long as the money can be used flesxibly.

The money gotten for EU Grant gets you to hire someone to do it full time, because of how tedious it is as a process.

N: Mistake of writing something in the comment section for a grant for the VGC.

Bloso certificates for teacher/ athletes, but there is no certificate for a good erotic dancer.

They were labelled as sluts who will not receive their money.. because it was a sport grant used to football team (binary, locker teams, etc). ==> the conditions of grants are impossible.

Getting structural subsidies can break your organizations, because you will need to fit their standards, and makes it impossible to stay in touch with your community.

L: Started project of WeDecolonizeVUB; started a space, and every year they had to fight for it, because no grant would be structural, or allow it. How does the Flemish govt see non-profits org: they let them scramble and make them not sustainable.

What is the downside of being labelled a vzw? Experience from Jezebel?

N: jezebel is a vzw and do not need to pay taxes. Advantage because they do classes –> go above this due to the “education” aspect of their work.

Disadvantages: idea that it is easy to get funding, but it is not. Having to survive on your own money. Feels like they are going quite commercial, but they are not.

//cultural management: cooperative entreprises would be interesting.

Guerilla foundation: intergenerational wealth that is passed down to the next generation. Lots of resources.

How much money do you need? Space to give as a gift to an organization.

Discussion

Ex: in the US, we are going to release 6% instead of 5%, (of what? the general budgete of the govr?? not sure), it generated 150M$ for the field. But it could have been 10-15%, and it would have been huge for the field. Movements are good at story-telling and narrative, so we need to change them. There is a lot that can be done.

Guerilla foundation for example.

Concluding remarks: This panel gave insights on resources are, and funding is one of them.

RECAP - TAKE-AWAYS

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