We're kicking off this month’s newsletter by sharing the below message from Sustainable Economies Law Center’s co-founder, Janelle Orsi, who offers a new collection of writings and videos, along with a collection of legal resources to support land return to community stewardship. 

Below that, you’ll find our newsletter full of new resources, newsworthy updates, and more!

The prospect of unlimited paid time off (PTO) is one of the most prized benefits a worker could dream of.  It’s a way for an organization to signal to prospective employees that it values their work-life balance, their ability to manage their own workload, and that perhaps the success of its workers is measured by more than output and productivity. 

Since 2010, the Law Center’s own free time off policy has stated that we seek,

…to balance the individual needs of each staff member with the needs of the organization as a whole by providing a mechanism for self-regulation, group feedback, and transparent accounting. 

One of the many ways we work towards a more just and resilient economy is by providing educational opportunities and resources to those doing similar work. That might make us seem like experts in the information we’re providing, but the opposite is true: we’re in a constant state of learning and practice. 

The Law Center team recently had four unplugged days together at Occidental Arts and Ecology Center after two and a half years apart.  We played together like a flock of starlings. We sat still to notice the importance of both light and shadow. Time slowed down and flowed like a lazy river. What a time it was! 

During last months discussion “From Mutual Aid to Mutuality: Surviving Capitalism with Radical Care,” panelist Jebena Kilgore summed up how the simple act of sharing your needs with those close to you can bring people together to build relationships and practices of mutuality:

The more people you meet and are excited about what you’re doing, the bigger your community. It doesn’t have to be an organization either. It can just be when you have extra food or you baked too many cookies. Take some to your neighbor. Go say hi. Or see if anyone in the neighborhood wants to get together and have a block party. It doesn’t have to be through entities. It can just be people to people. Human to human. Through that trust and connection, you can find out what other people are struggling with. Maybe they’re struggling with the same thing and that’s where you can begin to organize. - Jebena Kilgore, Agroecology Commons

Death and Taxes — two things we can all be certain of. But once those taxes are taken, are we ever certain what our state and local governments do with the money?

Similarly within businesses or organizations, unless we’re at the executive level, it’s often a mystery as to how an organizational budget is carried out. It’s a classic power move: whoever has control of the distribution of money, has decision making power.

How does an organization keep operations flowing when multiple colleagues are out on sabbatical or family leave? A knee-jerk reaction might be to hire temp workers to fill their roles. That was certainly our reaction when we realized a few colleagues would be in and out this year.

Organizational structure and culture are never static. As a governing body, the Law Center's “General Circle” — which includes all full-time staff members — has moved through massive changes over the years.  We’ve held space collectively for invigorating and challenging discussions that tested and grew our relationships.  We spent countless hours making decisions within well-defined structures we designed. New people have added energy and contributed ideas to our shared spaces, forever shifting our organizational culture; while long-time staffers have left, taking with them trusted leadership and wisdom that had guided us through the seasons of organizational change. 

With all this change, we realized our “way of doing things” wasn’t serving us quite so well anymore. Some people felt governance burn out. Some folks felt they didn’t have the capacity to be fully present for governance and programmatic work. While some felt that we had grown so big, our decision-making was slow and inefficient. 

After the careful synthesis of these feelings by a few diligent and caring staff members, we kicked off the new year eager to experiment and open to stretching our idea of collective stewardship, piloting a new way to make collective decisions. A smaller governing body made up of a rotation of General Circle staff members — the Stewardship Committee – will be empowered to make the majority of our major decisions moving forward, with the door always remaining open for any GC members who want to vote on a decision. With a spirit of renewal, we all agreed to hold this new way of doing things lightly. 

What better way to start off the new year than by assessing our collective governance practices and shifting what isn’t working anymore?  But it can be daunting to change as an organization, or be the lone individual bringing new ideas. If you or your colleagues need some inspiration on how you might run your organizations differently, check out our page of worker self-directed non-profit resources here.   

We continue to live inside of our mission to cultivate a new legal landscape that supports community resilience, grassroots economic empowerment and thriving communities.  These uncertain times we’ve all been navigating have driven us to center interdependence in everything that we do.  Throughout 2021, as we’ve deepened our relationships with a vast network of legal workers, culture bearers, movement activists, coop workers and more, we find ourselves grateful to be in community with others who are invested in our collective interdependence. 

Thank you to all who attended #Coopalooza week last month! We had nearly 300 people participate in our workshops, hosted more than a dozen partners and collaborators in conversations, discussions, and panels, and learned so much from all the great questions you all had throughout the week. And thanks to your support, we made our $20,000 grassroots fundraising goal! We couldn’t do this work without support from people like you. If you’re feeling extra generous, you can still donate here :-)