Power Tools for Artists: A Capacity Building Series is a year-long collaboration providing capacity building support to artists in the Solidarity Economy, among Art.coop, Obvious Agency, United States Federation of Worker Cooperatives (USFWC), and the Artist Legal Cafe (a project of the Sustainable Economies Law Center, Vital Arts, and Movement Law).
Join us for a year-long series of monthly events pairing training (rotating between legal, cooperative development, and culture and governance topics) with technical assistance provided by lawyers, cooperative developers, and Art.coop staff. Events hosted by Obvious Agency will be for sale on a sliding scale, with some free tickets reserved, and events hosted by USFWC and the Artist Legal Cafe will be free, with the option to donate.
About the Collaborators
The Artist Legal Cafe is a collaborative project among the Sustainable Economies Law Center, Vital Arts, and Movement Law. The ALC is generously supported by the Kenneth Rainin Foundation, the Zellerbach Family Foundation, the Gerbode Foundation, the City of Oakland, and Bay Area Cultural Funders for Equity.
Obvious Agency makes playable theatre, spreads democratic and cooperative practice, and organizes arts workers and workplaces with the mission to play hard, work together, and get free. Always serious, always silly, Obvious Agency believes that by helping create and define culture, we can create systemic and interpersonal change. Obvious Agency is a worker-owned cooperative grounded in anti-capitalist, anti-racist, non-normative, liberatory, and feminist frameworks. Obvious Agency’s work is collectively authored and owned.
The United States Federation of Worker Cooperatives (USFWC) is the national grassroots membership organization for worker cooperatives and democratic workplaces. USFWC's mission is to build a thriving ecosystem for worker-owned and controlled businesses and their cooperative leaders to power movements for racial justice and economic democracy.
Art.coop is a hub where artists get money, ideas, and tools to strengthen their communities. We are part of the movement to remember future art worlds with community-control at the core.
Our next event is…
Artists’ Co-op Startup Webinar on 2 September with
US Federation of Worker Cooperatives
Join us for Artists’ Co-op Startup Webinar with the US Federation of Worker Cooperatives on 2 September from 3:00PM ET.
This iteration of the monthly webinar is focused on artistic groups and people at the very early stages of their worker cooperative project. The webinar describes key steps toward getting off the ground, and where problems often occur. It includes chapters on building your group's democratic capacity, business, and environment of support, in a participatory conversational format. Attendees are offered 30 minutes of free consulting after the webinar from the US Federation of Worker Cooperatives!
Get tickets here.
Can’t make it in September?
Join us for Developing Internal Governance with Alex Glancy with Artist Legal Cafe on 22 October from 6:00PM ET.
This FREE ONLINE NANO-TRAINING is brought to you by the Artist Legal Cafe, a cross-sector partnership between SELC, Vital Arts, and Movement Law, an artist-led initiative that offers direct services and capacity-building to individual artists, artist collectives, and arts organizations. The ALC is generously supported by the Kenneth Rainin Foundation, the Gerbode Foundation, the Zellerbach Family Foundation, Bay Area Cultural Funders for Equity, and the City of Oakland.
Whether you are a nonprofit, LLC, collective, or cooperative, this FREE online nano-training will talk through a set of questions that you should discuss with your team to lay the map of your organization's governance structure. Issues discussed will include: Decisionmaking, distribution of power, Boards, membership, and more.
Learn more and register for free here.