It was an extraordinarily full year for us at GWI. We hold so much gratitude for the resilient and caring network of partners, leaders, supporters, community members, and initiatives that have inspired and worked with us to manifest more just and generous ways of working, collaborating, and, well, being. It’s that big!
There is no snapshot that can do justice to it all, and to what we have accomplished in collaboration with you. But we want to share a few highlights from our programs and activities this past year in these areas:
- Fostering Deep Democracy
- Partnering with Orgs and Initiatives Advancing a Just Transition
- Incubating a Community-Designed Fund
- Empowering Good Work through Fiscal Sponsorship
- Shining A Light on Good Work in Action
- Nurturing Community Space: The Greenhouse
All of our offerings come from a belief that we can create hands-on, innovative change in our lives, organizations, and communities, if we center justice, deep democracy, collaboration, and care.
We hope you share this mission with us, and that you will choose to support the Good Work coming in 2025 with a contribution today.
Fostering Deep Democracy
In a time of increasing focus on the destructive impacts of inequitable and undemocratic systems in our society, our work to foster deep democracy in everyday spaces is more vital than ever.
We offered our core workshops to hundreds of people in the region (and online), helping to deepen understanding of how to share power, how to retool policies and practices to implement democratic collaboration, and how to build capacity for effective, connecting communication in times of conflict. We continue to align our work with Just Transition and provide experiences, lectures, and workshops to clarify and strengthen the movement across the region.
Our core workshops are:
Partnering with Orgs and Initiatives Advancing a Just Transition
We send gratitude to all the organizations we have worked with this year, through tailored programs, coaching, and onsite workshops. Here is a partial list of those that have taken steps this year towards committing to Just Transition and starting to implement what we call “deep democracy” in how they operate:
- Poughkeepsie Farm Project, Earth Designs Cooperative, Hudson River Watershed Alliance, CCE Orange, Celebrating African Spirit, Central Virginia Community Justice, Guardians of Flushing Bay, Place Corps, Scenic Hudson, Land to Learn, Zena Democratic School, YMCA Farm Project, Kingston Food Coop, Circularly, Ulster County Department of Mental Health, HV Food Systems Coalition, Nature Connection, Kingston Executive Director Circle, BARD College, Vassar College, SUNY New Paltz, Union College…
Incubating a Community-Designed Fund
It is with a sense of awe that we witness this transition: our community fund design project odyssey came to fruition! After a 9-month learning journey and collaborative process, 18 members of the Kingston community put the finishing touches and their blessing on a community-centered grant fund that has now evolved into Kingston Common Futures. So many things aligned to make this happen.
In order to help launch this new initiative, GWI stood up a more complex form of fiscal sponsorship in record time (Model A, for you FS nerds out there!) and has been supporting every step of the way as an incubation partner. We are thrilled to see this spark of an idea that started years ago manifest into a beautiful community-driven, democratic fund. There is so much to celebrate about this project and we look forward to continuing to act as a key support to Kingston Common Futures in the years to come.
Fiscal Sponsorship
Speaking of fiscal sponsorship, our (Model C) fiscally sponsored projects have raised $430K this year to date – and we celebrate their Good Work! We started our fiscal sponsorship program in 2018 to make it easier for mission-aligned initiatives to access charitable dollars by removing administrative burdens and helping hone their first fundraising proposals. We have helped 33 projects raise $8.4M to date. We are hiring a new colleague to support the increase in transactions and compliance that this welcome growth demands. Stay tuned for an introduction to them in the new year!
- Our current active fiscal sponsorship projects are: Center for Post Carbon Logistics, Alliance for a Viable Future, Kingston Food Coop, Rhinebeck Farmers Market Scholarship, Rock Steady Farm, Faithfully Sustainable, Trust Up, Rosendale Heart & Soul, Hummingbird Healing Arts, COOP Concept, BreakBread, Old Ford Farm, What matters?, Engather, I Matter, Lechate Collaborative, Sevan Lloyd Pack, Rise & Root Farm, Community Music Therapy Project, Neighboring Tree Project.
Shining A Light on Good Work in Action
We continue to uplift and shine a light on examples, stories, people, and artists who are embodying and manifesting Just Transition through their Good Work. Our weekly radio show, the Good Work Hour, has been on the air on Tuesday evenings for five years now! This year we had over 30 different guests on the show talking about their passions: cooperative housing models to fight gentrification, harnessing the power of food systems to address the climate crisis, rest as resistance, and so much more. All episodes are archived and available for streaming. We also hosted author talks in collaboration with Radio Kingston and Rough Draft, bringing important national voices into our community like Dr. Resmaa Menakem & T. Mychael Rambo and Dougald Hine. We are going to be bringing more authors to the area – let us know if there is someone you want to hear from!
Nurturing Community Space
The Greenhouse, our community hub at 65 St. James in Kingston! This beloved building, clad in its signature colorful exterior – a mural courtesy of the O+ Festival – has fully emerged as the homebase for the movement we always envisioned. With over 150 community events, workshops, meetings, and celebrations, space offered on a sliding scale or for free, the building was buzzing with activity this year. We offered the upstairs spaces to four resident organizations, providing them an affordable place to convene and work. We partnered with community members and organizations to offer sound healing, art exhibitions, Theatre of the Oppressed, and Climate Grief meetings, while the community offered meditation, book clubs, and other learning and healing experiences. With new amenities added to the building this year, like great outdoor seating and a lounge space for smaller meetings, we evolved to meet the needs of our community and provided a special and welcoming space for all.
Internal Resilience
Last, but certainly not least, GWI is working on our own sustainability and capacity to persevere through the tumultuous times ahead. With that in mind, in 2025 we will be clarifying how we all make strategic decisions together in shared leadership, and practicing ever closer collaboration with our board and our larger network of supporters to diversify how we fund our work. If you haven’t already, please consider making a gift before the end of the year to support the incredible work shared above and to come.
We thank you for your support and partnership!
