On starting a new collective/institute/center/cooperative

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On starting a new collective/institute/center/cooperative

Postby Luther Blissett » Fri Jan 30, 2015 5:09 pm

Currently seeking advice from this community on starting up a new research organization (of some kind) with a small gaggle of designers that I know. We are still trying to hone our focus but as a group we are all driven by community, peace, environmentalism, alternative systems, "dropping out," revolution, etc.

Things we don't yet know—
What form this should take: research institute, research center, cooperative, collective, school, think tank, journal, coalition, foundation?
What we should do: run a cooperative design studio, publish, research, teach classes or workshops, garden, direct action, all of the above?
What we should focus on: post-capitalism, anti-fascism, revolution, resistance, consciousness, others, all of the above?

I have a promising line on a grant, and so on the surface it would probably be ideal to appear legitimized, and so a research institute would be good for that. However, we want to attract fairly radicalized people with alternative ideas, and so something that implies leaderlessness like a cooperative or collective would serve those needs.

I am inspired by this review of Naomi Klein's new book, This Changes Everything, where Sam Gindin appreciates the fact that capitalism is in fact the crisis and that the climate problem will not be solved without changing or ending it, but criticizes her reluctance to put any constructive, positive solutions forward. Marxists, squatters and punks have all been building or contemplating alternative paths for ages, but these communications are aimed at the fringes of society. As designers, we wish to interpret revolutionary thoughts and try to make them mainstream, or even to try and "design" a 21st century post-capitalist system.

I am also influenced by everyday revolutionary actions like guerrilla gardening, sharing, freecycling, mutual aid, self-publishing, bicycling, data liberation, and collaboration, and want to really popularize these ideas. One of the other people involved dreams of getting people in the creative community to completely refuse to participate in the capitalist economy.

Does anyone have any thoughts? Advice? Critiques? Anyone ever set anything up like this before?
The Rich and the Corporate remain in their hundred-year fever visions of Bolsheviks taking their stuff - JackRiddler
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Re: On starting a new collective/institute/center/cooperativ

Postby Wombaticus Rex » Sun Feb 01, 2015 12:58 pm

Heh, I think I'm in a few of these...guess I should probably comment eventually.

Your focus should be a strong foundation and clarity of purpose. Everything else will be a whirlwind of 10,000 details per day, so make sure you have clear goals, boundaries, funding, routines, and accountability. From personal experience, get thyself an LLC and do your contracts as your LLC. The non-profit space has a lot of loopholes and they can eat individuals alive, not so much with a contractor.

Be sure obligations are overt, speakable things. That's never fully possible, but there is a spectrum! So many of the models you mentioned upstream have very clear obligations implied. Some of them are obligations to your constituents: cooperative, collective, coalition - and yet others are obligations to the hand what writes them checks: research institute, think tank, journal, foundation.

I would always argue that you're better off being beholden to one occasionally irrational human being than a motherfucking quorum of those things all trying to eat each other for status and income.

If you want to facilitate a lot of moving parts and create sustainable opportunities for talented folks who work on these marginal issues, you're basically looking to build an infrastructure -- that infrastructure will mostly be a name, a brand, a good reputation. You need to build a system that can survive all the human shortcomings of the participants who will be in your ecosystem. Everyone has said something offensive at some point, and the field of Opposition Research makes this an industrial-grade product.

Your list of "everyday revolutionary actions" points a way: you seem to be interested in that which works, discrete and repeatable steps rather than mere political critique or future forecasting stuff. You want to filter that out and you want to make that catchy.

I'd advise you to incorporate as a non-profit with a few friends who you can disagree with repeatedly, and also have a wide context for filtering out ideological horseshit as necessary.
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Re: On starting a new collective/institute/center/cooperativ

Postby Luther Blissett » Sun Feb 01, 2015 3:23 pm

Thanks for the feedback! I'm going to take that all under consideration. I know that our local laws can sometimes make starting anything official prohibitively expensive thanks to all of the interests one has to pay off. Some of my friends have above-ground studios, but most just run multiple hustles that look official and rarely get bothered about it unless a rival pays Licenses and Inspection to come looking into it. People aren't really doing that too often for glossy zines or letterpress workshops though.

One other factor is that I imagine that the professional association offering this potential grant would probably want our group to be some kind of sub-entity of their organization. There are some pre-existing examples of these types of semi-autonomous groups out there, but I can't tell how they are structured.

I was certainly hoping to pursue this as an underground hustle, but I'll take your advice and bring it up with the group. Do you recommend setting up the LLC after we hear back regarding the grant, or to get the ball rolling early?

For the people in my group who are already freelancers and have decided that they never again want to have a boss, producing work in association with this new brand would probably be a lot easier. For those of us with day jobs, I imagine that it might be a little more difficult. I make virtually nothing from freelance, because most of those clients don't generate any money of their own.

As for the clarity of purpose - I'm not sure we're there yet. I would say we're all on the same page, but it's extremely broad - using the power of design strategy and design thinking to communicate, fighting climate change, driving "positive social change" (a buzzphrase in design, but as for now all pro-big business), post-capitalist ideas, supporting paradigm shifts, etc. I suspect we should narrow this down, and let some of the other interests become symptoms of our purpose.

What types of outputs do your institutes / collaboratives / groups create? I assume it's writing but I might be way off.
The Rich and the Corporate remain in their hundred-year fever visions of Bolsheviks taking their stuff - JackRiddler
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Re: On starting a new collective/institute/center/cooperativ

Postby Iamwhomiam » Sun Feb 01, 2015 3:32 pm

Didn't read all written ~ just about to go snow shoeing in the pine bush ~ "Research' is so old hat - you need something quite different the funders can latch onto, earworm-like Center for Introspection or some such oddity.

Later...
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Re: On starting a new collective/institute/center/cooperativ

Postby Luther Blissett » Mon Feb 02, 2015 12:16 pm

Ha, I like that. We might have some leeway to get cute with it. I thought about something like the "Happiness Design Collective" or "Adventure Design Cooperative". I think that my group will want something that's more grassroots-sounding.

One other factor - the project is definitely moving forward with or without funding, so we might want to just go full-on prickly without caring.
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