The Explorations

Our learning partner here is Dark Matter Labs. We wanted to understand how to bring more complexity to participatory approaches used for moving resources so that they are more appropriate for longer-term, transformative change.

The focus of this grant is on the doing — what is being learnt from the micro-demonstrator? And we hope to learn more about: Is the proposed approach that they have put forward of ‘many to many’ funding a better way to fund more transformative work but through participatory mechanisms? What insight are there in relation to how this could (or couldn't ) work at a greater scale? Does it highlight ways for participatory approaches to make more use of data?

Our learning partner here is New Constellations. We wanted to understand how ecological intelligence principles could be used in the design of different ways to move resources.

What happens when you create a small fund that the collective themselves distribute, using some principles of mycelium… So money is in flows rather than stocks and keeps moving through the network through different distributive mechanisms.

The focus of this grant is on the doing — what is being learnt from the micro-demonstrator about how the characteristics of mycelium might inform different flows of capital within a system.

Our learning partner here is Open Collective. As they grow their user-base, what is the potential of the data on the platform to help inform where further resources could go, and what other uses are there for the intelligence that the platform is generating? By ‘weather vane’ we mean how is the data able to do more than just ‘this is what is happening, where' — and alongside that bring a more anticipatory stance.

This is a piece of research to explore what is possible with a ‘weather vane’ function. How could it serve the movements well? What other potential does it have? How could it be strengthened as a foresight infrastructure?

Our Learning Partner(s) for this work are E-Werk and Lucia Pietroiusti. We want to invest in sites and spaces where artists, culture-makers, political and ecological thinkers, practitioners and educators are gathering across Europe. This feels like a growing movement and network of people, spaces and contexts that are signaling towards and building alternative ways of living through their sites of practice — often within place-based communities.

We want to learn about who they are, their practices, their contexts, how they would tell the story of what they are doing individually and the story of who they are together as multiple sites of practice.

Our Learning Partner for this work is DemNext. There is a growing network of people and places exploring and practicing how governance and policy design can draw on more-than-human and planetary intelligences. We want to learn who is doing best practice or edge practice in this area in Europe? What can we and others learn from them? Where is the work being applied into policy and governance etc? How can it be further supported and what would be the case for that?

We want to encourage more funders to move more resources into the kind soil work of collective imagination practice in Europe. There isn't another funder that we are aware of in Europe who is investing in work around the 'collective imagination' and it feels important to signal about the value of doing so. We’re partnering with the Collective Imagination Practice Community, adding resources into their Open Collective Fund and inviting European based organisations to access it.

We want to learn who applies? What they do with the resources? What does it lay the ground for (at an individual project level)? What does it lay the ground for at a narrative level e.g. putting the idea of funding collective imagination on the radar of European foundations? Linked to all of that — what does it make space for? What does it tell a story about?

We are currently working with Panthea Lee to scope out this work. What happens when those doing different types of work are able to have the time and space to be in relationship? Maybe those doing the oppositional work and those doing the propositional? Or those mobilising around the grass roots and those working inside institutions trying to shift them? Or those who are working to stabilise the current system and ensure people survive with those who are building the systems we need next with new logics underpinning them.

We have a hypothesis that greater awareness of each other’s values, motivations and intentions will reveal how much all the work is needed, and even if people are doing different types of work, trying to influence change from different positions in the landscape or using different levers for change — they are all on the same 'side' — and they can be greater allies, etc. They will be able to see how their work needs each other. It feels unusual to fund a relational breakthrough space — with no fixed agenda other than to see what emerges in the relational space.

Our Learning Partner for this work is Gesturing Towards Decolonial Futures. We want to explore what the story is that we need to wake up to in Europe about our relationship to indigenous peoples and indebtedness. Conversations in wealth holder circles in Europe — unless they are in the more 'progressive' spaces aren't making links between how their wealth came to be — the origins of the wealth, who was harmed through the wealth accumulation, who they might be indebted to etc. We want to learn both about who has the craft/skill to create those stories, frames and narratives — and also what those stories might be — as well as who is best to tell them, to deliver them, to spread them, to host them etc.

Initially this work is more about the story than funding the actual work — it is like preparing the ground.

Our Learning Partner for this work is Caroline Woolard. We want to explore through commissioning some research — Where is the most promising ‘New economy / Social economy / Solidarity economy’ work happening in Europe? What are they doing? Who else are they in relationship with? And what would support the work to grow? This initial piece of research will inform AQ about what is happening in Europe and there will be interest from other funders who are also interested in growing these fields in Europe.

We are currently confirming our Learning Partner(s) for this work.

We want to explore beyond wealth holders interrogating their relationship to their wealth and their origins, or their relationship to identity with class, race and privilege, and move towards a process of reparation and reconciliation, that also includes future system building. We want to learn about current processes of reparation work being done in the EU, with EU wealth holders, and we want to find what's new/different that would be required for the context of the Democratic Republic of Congo specifically.

DRC will be the focus of this reparative learning grant, as there is a direct link between the origins of the wealth that is being redistributed from this work, with the Democratic Republic of Congo. We will be looking/learning from US frameworks already being applied and in practice, and asking what works or doesn't work? Where are gaps? Where can systemic shifts and/or future building take place within reparation work? How can cultural reparation take place/be part of this work? Is it a priority for the context of DRC? We want to know who is doing this type of reparative work that requires wealth holders be an intrinsic part of the reparative process – alongside descendants of indigenous community/ies to the land of DRC. We want to learn what and who is part of the decision-making processes, strategic planning and visioning and how can it all be captured.

It's important to see this work as a focus on drafting a blueprint for how this work can be done, with a focus on the 'doing’ – 'repair in action’. We see this learning grant as a pilot and learning journey that asks: ‘What is the story that can be told from this learning grant, that will serve or inform and blueprint for other wealthholders, to potentially follow suit as a pathway to transformative reparative wealth redistribution?'

If you are currently involved in reparative work with DRC, and are interested in participating and/or learning more about this grant. Please contact: tiff@arisingquo.com