We're always cooking up pay-it-forward legal advice, action-oriented workshops, and happy hours with engaging conversations on how to build just and resilient local economies. And we don't only provide in-person events for you to connect with us, we provide online trainings and travel across the country to support grassroots economic empowerment. Don't miss out!
Please, help us get the word out about our upcoming events. Share with your friends or networks on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or LinkedIn! If you're interested in an event, someone you know will probably be interested too. Share the love!
Find Sustainable Economies Law Center's events below!
-
Wednesday, February 19, 2025 at 10:00 AM PST · $50.00 USD · 11 rsvps
ZoomHolding Change (Module 2 Collaborate to Co-Liberate -C2C)
Organizational change is hard. Anyone who has tried to usher in changes in an organization knows that a successful change process requires more than just a new idea for how to do things differently.
What skills and approaches are needed to successfully steward a group of people through complex change? How do you anticipate and navigate resistance to change? Cna you welcome the wisdom inherent in that resistance without losing sight of the purpose for your change?
Join our friends at Harmonize for Module 2 of Collaborate to Co-Liberate 2025: Holding Change. Harmonize will offer concrete tools to steward organizational change processes, as well as strategies for relating to, integrating, and transforming resistance.
This offering is essential for:
- Changemakers looking for new, more effective ways to guide change processes in your movement homes
- Participants in our Collaborate to Co-Liberate learning journey, who will use these tools, along with your coach, to guide change processes through the duration of C2C
- Organizers and movement practitioners interested in learning new ways to relate to resistance to change in your movement homes
Included is a Follow up Q&A: March 5th, 10-11:30 PT 1-2:30 ET
Collaborate to Co-Liberate: Structures and Practices for Democratic Organizations (C2C) is a year-long learning journey designed for solidarity economy and social justice movement left organizations who are building organizations with democratic, participatory, and liberatory leadership structures.
To join the entire year-long journey, register here instead of signing up for this one-time event.
To view the other events in the series click here.
-
Thursday, February 20, 2025 at 12:00 PM PST
Online via Zoom in Oakland, CAOnline Legal Cafe
The Sustainable Economies Law Center provides direct legal support to individuals and groups who are working to create new solutions for resilient local economies. The Resilient Communities Legal Cafe provides sliding-scale donation-based legal advice, via Zoom, by appointment.
If you need advice about starting a worker-owned cooperative, converting an existing business into a cooperative, organizing a housing cooperative, founding a nonprofit or other social enterprise, please RSVP below! Here are some questions we will be prepared to answer:
❖ Radical real estate law: How to form a housing cooperative, real estate cooperative, or nonprofit housing?
❖ Legal formation for small businesses: What are the regulations and requirements to have your organization legally function?
❖ Legal entity choice: Should your org be a for profit, non-profit, and which legal entity fits best with your vision?
❖ Employment law: Whether you're an employer, employee, or a cooperative, we can answer questions on how to prevent or resolve issues?
❖ Tax law: What are the ways to receive tax exemption for your org?
❖ Contracts: Contract review, drafting, and negotiation
❖ Liability issues: What are your governance requirements to avoid liability?
❖ Environmental law: Do you have questions about how to create more green spaces for your community?
❖ Worker Self Directed Nonprofits: How can you run your nonprofit organization more like a worker-owned cooperative?Note: We especially encourage Black, Indigenous, people of color, and low-income communities to RSVP. We focus on cooperatives, participatory or democratic nonprofits, land trusts, and mutual aid groups. If you need Spanish Language or American Sign Language interpretation, please email Hope ([email protected]) with Subject Line "Interpretation Request - for [mm/dd/yyyy] event." We will do our best to accommodate your request.
Keep an eye out for an e-mail when you RSVP. The e-mail will have your appointment slot, instructions on how to attend our Legal Cafe remotely, and an intake form that we need you and your partners to fill out.
Format: You and/or your group will be paired with a lawyer for 30-45 minutes to get answers to questions about entity formation, contracts, governance, and more! Since we're based in Oakland, our event times are listed as Pacific Standard Time.
Got any questions? E-mail [email protected]!
Only one person per group needs to RSVP.
-
Wednesday, March 12, 2025 at 12:00 PM PDT
Online via Zoom in Oakland, CAOnline Legal Cafe
The Sustainable Economies Law Center provides direct legal support to individuals and groups who are working to create new solutions for resilient local economies. The Resilient Communities Legal Cafe provides sliding-scale donation-based legal advice, via Zoom, by appointment.
If you need advice about starting a worker-owned cooperative, converting an existing business into a cooperative, organizing a housing cooperative, founding a nonprofit or other social enterprise, please RSVP below! Here are some questions we will be prepared to answer:
❖ Radical real estate law: How to form a housing cooperative, real estate cooperative, or nonprofit housing?
❖ Legal formation for small businesses: What are the regulations and requirements to have your organization legally function?
❖ Legal entity choice: Should your org be a for profit, non-profit, and which legal entity fits best with your vision?
❖ Employment law: Whether you're an employer, employee, or a cooperative, we can answer questions on how to prevent or resolve issues?
❖ Tax law: What are the ways to receive tax exemption for your org?
❖ Contracts: Contract review, drafting, and negotiation
❖ Liability issues: What are your governance requirements to avoid liability?
❖ Environmental law: Do you have questions about how to create more green spaces for your community?
❖ Worker Self Directed Nonprofits: How can you run your nonprofit organization more like a worker-owned cooperative?Note: We especially encourage Black, Indigenous, people of color, and low-income communities to RSVP. We focus on cooperatives, participatory or democratic nonprofits, land trusts, and mutual aid groups. If you need Spanish Language or American Sign Language interpretation, please email Hope ([email protected]) with Subject Line "Interpretation Request - for [mm/dd/yyyy] event." We will do our best to accommodate your request.
Keep an eye out for an e-mail when you RSVP. The e-mail will have your appointment slot, instructions on how to attend our Legal Cafe remotely, and an intake form that we need you and your partners to fill out.
Format: You and/or your group will be paired with a lawyer for 30-45 minutes to get answers to questions about entity formation, contracts, governance, and more! Since we're based in Oakland, our event times are listed as Pacific Standard Time.
Got any questions? E-mail [email protected]!
Only one person per group needs to RSVP.
-
Thursday, March 13, 2025 at 12:00 PM PDT
Online via Zoom in Oakland, CAOnline Legal Cafe
The Sustainable Economies Law Center provides direct legal support to individuals and groups who are working to create new solutions for resilient local economies. The Resilient Communities Legal Cafe provides sliding-scale donation-based legal advice, via Zoom, by appointment.
If you need advice about starting a worker-owned cooperative, converting an existing business into a cooperative, organizing a housing cooperative, founding a nonprofit or other social enterprise, please RSVP below! Here are some questions we will be prepared to answer:
❖ Radical real estate law: How to form a housing cooperative, real estate cooperative, or nonprofit housing?
❖ Legal formation for small businesses: What are the regulations and requirements to have your organization legally function?
❖ Legal entity choice: Should your org be a for profit, non-profit, and which legal entity fits best with your vision?
❖ Employment law: Whether you're an employer, employee, or a cooperative, we can answer questions on how to prevent or resolve issues?
❖ Tax law: What are the ways to receive tax exemption for your org?
❖ Contracts: Contract review, drafting, and negotiation
❖ Liability issues: What are your governance requirements to avoid liability?
❖ Environmental law: Do you have questions about how to create more green spaces for your community?
❖ Worker Self Directed Nonprofits: How can you run your nonprofit organization more like a worker-owned cooperative?Note: We especially encourage Black, Indigenous, people of color, and low-income communities to RSVP. We focus on cooperatives, participatory or democratic nonprofits, land trusts, and mutual aid groups. If you need Spanish Language or American Sign Language interpretation, please email Hope ([email protected]) with Subject Line "Interpretation Request - for [mm/dd/yyyy] event." We will do our best to accommodate your request.
Keep an eye out for an e-mail when you RSVP. The e-mail will have your appointment slot, instructions on how to attend our Legal Cafe remotely, and an intake form that we need you and your partners to fill out.
Format: You and/or your group will be paired with a lawyer for 30-45 minutes to get answers to questions about entity formation, contracts, governance, and more! Since we're based in Oakland, our event times are listed as Pacific Standard Time.
Got any questions? E-mail [email protected]!
Only one person per group needs to RSVP.
-
Wednesday, March 19, 2025 at 10:00 AM PDT · $50.00 USD · 6 rsvps
ZoomPeople-Centered Facilitation (Module 3 Collaborate to Co-Liberate -C2C)
From campaign meetings to town halls, student encampments to board retreats, gatherings are crucial spaces across the Left in the U.S. where discourse happens and decisions are made. What happens in our meetings has a direct impact on our material wins because we rely on the conversation to shape the group’s priorities, analysis, and planning. How can we facilitate skillfully to support full and broad participation in our meetings, guide groups to resist compromising with each other out of avoidance, and make transparent and agile decisions?
Join our friends from AORTA for Module 3 of Collaborate to Co-Liberate, to learn concrete skills for people-centered facilitation in organizations practicing liberatory governance.
This offering is essential for:
- Activists, organizers and changemakers who want to build skills to attune to the way power and identity operate in group processes in your movement homes
- Organizations practicing liberatory governance who want to enhance their facilitation toolbox in order to hold group processes with more ease
Includes a Follow up Q&A April 2, 10-11:30 PT 1-2:30 ET
Collaborate to Co-Liberate: Structures and Practices for Democratic Organizations (C2C) is a year-long learning journey designed for solidarity economy and social justice movement left organizations who are building organizations with democratic, participatory, and liberatory leadership structures.
To join the entire year-long journey, register here instead of signing up for this one-time event.
To view the other events in the series click here.
-
Wednesday, March 26, 2025 at 12:00 PM PDT
Online via Zoom in Oakland, CAOnline Legal Cafe
The Sustainable Economies Law Center provides direct legal support to individuals and groups who are working to create new solutions for resilient local economies. The Resilient Communities Legal Cafe provides sliding-scale donation-based legal advice, via Zoom, by appointment.
If you need advice about starting a worker-owned cooperative, converting an existing business into a cooperative, organizing a housing cooperative, founding a nonprofit or other social enterprise, please RSVP below! Here are some questions we will be prepared to answer:
❖ Radical real estate law: How to form a housing cooperative, real estate cooperative, or nonprofit housing?
❖ Legal formation for small businesses: What are the regulations and requirements to have your organization legally function?
❖ Legal entity choice: Should your org be a for profit, non-profit, and which legal entity fits best with your vision?
❖ Employment law: Whether you're an employer, employee, or a cooperative, we can answer questions on how to prevent or resolve issues?
❖ Tax law: What are the ways to receive tax exemption for your org?
❖ Contracts: Contract review, drafting, and negotiation
❖ Liability issues: What are your governance requirements to avoid liability?
❖ Environmental law: Do you have questions about how to create more green spaces for your community?
❖ Worker Self Directed Nonprofits: How can you run your nonprofit organization more like a worker-owned cooperative?Note: We especially encourage Black, Indigenous, people of color, and low-income communities to RSVP. We focus on cooperatives, participatory or democratic nonprofits, land trusts, and mutual aid groups. If you need Spanish Language or American Sign Language interpretation, please email Hope ([email protected]) with Subject Line "Interpretation Request - for [mm/dd/yyyy] event." We will do our best to accommodate your request.
Keep an eye out for an e-mail when you RSVP. The e-mail will have your appointment slot, instructions on how to attend our Legal Cafe remotely, and an intake form that we need you and your partners to fill out.
Format: You and/or your group will be paired with a lawyer for 30-45 minutes to get answers to questions about entity formation, contracts, governance, and more! Since we're based in Oakland, our event times are listed as Pacific Standard Time.
Got any questions? E-mail [email protected]!
Only one person per group needs to RSVP.
-
Wednesday, April 16, 2025 at 10:00 AM PDT · $50.00 USD · 7 rsvps
ZoomDecision Making (Module 4 Collaborate to Co-Liberate -C2C)
Few things diminish our ability to distribute power within our movement homes and organizations more than unclear decision making protocols and practices. Creating clarity on how decisions are made and implemented, and therefore how people can impact important decisions in our movement spaces, can open a wealth of creative energy, democratize participation, and help groups overcome stuckness or stagnation.
So how do we decide the right way to make decisions in our liberatory spaces, including movement homes and social justice organizations?
Join Hope Ghazala from NYC Network Of Worker Cooperatives for Module 4 of Collaborate to Co-Liberate: Decision Making. Hope will share concrete tools for choosing and implementing some of the most common and effective decision making methods in organizations practicing democratic leadership. Together we’ll explore how to determine which decision making method is most appropriate given the context, and how to navigate power in decision making.
This offering is essential for:
- Organizers, activists and changemakers who want to sharpen their toolbox of decision making practices in order to democratize movement spaces and intervene on misuses of power in our movement homes
- Organizations practicing liberatory governance who want to hone, refine, and clarify their internal decision making protocols to support greater ease, democracy, and participation in collective decision making
- Movement comrades and process nerds who want to build new skills around decision making in their movement homes
Includes a Follow up Q&A April 30, 10-11:30 PT 1-2:30 ET
Collaborate to Co-Liberate: Structures and Practices for Democratic Organizations (C2C) is a year-long learning journey designed for solidarity economy and social justice movement left organizations who are building organizations with democratic, participatory, and liberatory leadership structures.
To join the entire year-long journey, register here instead of signing up for this one-time event.
To view the other events in the series click here.
-
Wednesday, May 21, 2025 at 10:00 AM PDT · $50.00 USD · 3 rsvps
ZoomDemocratically Distribute Work (Module 5 Collaborate to Co-Liberate -C2C)
Every group practicing liberatory, collective governance faces many challenges deciding how to divide and share work equitably and effectively. What structures and processes can we create to avoid the common pitfalls of everyone doing everything (too many meetings!), or work falling through the cracks (not enough clarity!)? How do our structures need to shift and grow as our organizations shift and grow? How can we create clarity about what each group, circle, or body within our organization is empowered to do autonomously, and what must be brought to other individuals, groups, or bodies for collaborative input?
Join Andrew Stachiw from the TESA Collective (Toolbox for Education and Social Action) for Module 5 of Collaborate to Co-Liberate: Democratically Distribute Work. Andrew will share examples of organizational structures that support shared leadership, and tools to clarify domains of authority and decision making within different organizational bodies.
This offering is essential for:
- Activists, organizers and changemakers who want to bring concrete tools to their movement homes to help improve how work gets shared and done
- Organizations practicing collective leadership who want to share their work more equitably and effectively
- Anyone interested in addressing the common challenges of everyone doing everything, or work falling through the cracks
Includes a Follow up Q&A, June 4th 10-11:30 PT 1-2:30 ET
Collaborate to Co-Liberate: Structures and Practices for Democratic Organizations (C2C) is a year-long learning journey designed for solidarity economy and social justice movement left organizations who are building organizations with democratic, participatory, and liberatory leadership structures.
To join the entire year-long journey, register here instead of signing up for this one-time event.
To view the other events in the series click here.
-
Wednesday, June 18, 2025 at 10:00 AM PDT · $50.00 USD · 4 rsvps
ZoomLoving Accountability (Module 6 Collaborate to Co-Liberate -C2C)
Systems of domination have taught us that “accountability” is a set of standards or expectations that we hold others to. But what would it look like in our movement homes and liberatory organizations if we shifted our lens of accountability from a power-over framework to a power-with framework, and instead saw accountability as a vital aspect of participating in an interdependent community?
Join Ananda Valenzuela for Module 6 of Collaborate to Co-Liberate 2025: Loving Accountability. In this webinar, Ananda will offer frameworks for developing self, interpersonal and organizational agreements and processes for loving accountability, as well as share tools and approaches for giving and receiving feedback effectively.
This offering is essential for:
- Activists, organizers and changemakers who want to build a more liberatory relationship to accountability in their movement homes
- Organizations practicing liberatory collective governance who want new tools and approaches to build a culture of accountability grounded in a more values-aligned relationship to power
- Anyone who has seen how accountability has been weaponized or misused in our movement homes and who wants new tools for doing accountability differently
Collaborate to Co-Liberate: Structures and Practices for Democratic Organizations (C2C) is a year-long learning journey designed for solidarity economy and social justice movement left organizations who are building organizations with democratic, participatory, and liberatory leadership structures.
To join the entire year-long journey, register here instead of signing up for this one-time event.
To view the other events in the series click here.
-
Wednesday, July 23, 2025 at 10:00 AM PDT · $50.00 USD · 1 rsvp
ZoomPaying Ourselves Equitably (Module 7 Collaborate to Co-Liberate -C2C)
How can we pay ourselves equitably in our nonprofits practicing liberatory governance and in our movement homes? What skills and practices can we use to navigate difficult conflicts around money, especially when it gets personal - our livelihoods? How can we hold with care how all of our conditioning (class, race, gender, education, ability, and so much more) informs our relationship to money, worth, and value?
We must confront these questions, along with many others, when we work in our liberatory organizations to set our own salary structures.
Join us for Collaborate to Co-Liberate Module 7: Paying Ourselves Equitably, in which we will explore facilitation tools for talking about money skillfully in our organizations, and how to navigate some of the tensions and contradictions that arise when quantifying our needs. We’ll share examples of equitable pay structures and how they were developed, how they evolve, and what factors to consider when defining your compensation structures. And we’ll explore how to achieve our compensation visions legally under our current legal constraints.
This offering is essential for:
- Changemakers within organizations who want to introduce new approaches to how compensation is determined
- Organizations practicing liberatory governance who want examples, support, and guidance for paying yourselves equitably
- Organizations who have experimented with alternative pay structures and are looking for new ways to be even more values and vision aligned at the level of compensation
Includes a Follow up Q&A Aug 6, 10-11:30 PT 1-2:30 ET
Collaborate to Co-Liberate: Structures and Practices for Democratic Organizations (C2C) is a year-long learning journey designed for solidarity economy and social justice movement left organizations who are building organizations with democratic, participatory, and liberatory leadership structures.
To join the entire year-long journey, register here instead of signing up for this one-time event.
To view the other events in the series click here.