Welcome to CARE
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. I’m not really a New Year’s Resolution person. I find the turning of the year is a time for reflection and sensitivity, and I’ll share some of the ways I mark that turning in a future blog post.
But one other thing I find helpful around the start of January is to stop thinking that it’s the only time for new things to begin. I’ve tried to separate myself where I can from the productivity rush of arbitrary timelines when they’re not really necessary.
All of that is to say that I’m mostly here to proudly/nervously/excitedly/vulnerably post about the new membership community I’m beginning and tell you how it’s come to be, which has taken the time it’s needed to take. So I’m not rushing the roll out of it to coincide with an arbitrary calendar date, either.
Right, so what am I talking about?
I’m talking about the Consortium of Arts Related Entrepreneurs (or CARE), a 6-month-long private community for folks working independently in the arts and culture realm.
CARE has been born out of many hours of personal experience, conversations, and observation. The arts and culture sector is (just one of many) reeling from the upheavals of the last few years, and many of us are figuring out new ways to be part of this strange ecosystem that falls somewhere in the overlap of work, calling, vocation, and job.
Some of us have been freelancing and consulting for years. Some of us have been through furloughs, lay-offs, and/or resignations, and needed to take on projects to make ends meet. Some of us (myself included) have left full-time employment inside one organization and struck out on our own to redefine our own relationships to work.
We’re working independently and calling our own shots. Prioritizing our time for ourselves. Balancing how our careers fit into our individual lives’ needs.
No matter how long we’ve been entrepreneurs, one refrain that’s sounded loud and clear throughout the last several years is that people feel a sense of disconnection and isolation. Folks are cut off: from the professional networks they used to gather with, from the office culture they once belonged to, even from the casual camaraderie of other freelancers across a coffee shop table.
Most of the who, what, when, how, why’s are answered at CARE’s website, but I’m including them here, too, along with the backstory of how this came to be.
I hope you’ll read and join and forward this to people you know who might want to join, too.
Who Should CARE
CARE is for you if you are any kind of entrepreneur in the arts and culture world: artists, educators, designers of graphics or exhibits or experiences or urban spaces, curators, interpreters, writers, performers, craftspeople, librarians, actors, evaluators, grant-writers, makers, architects, (copy)editors, poets, songwriters, community facilitators, and whoever else you may be professionally.
If you identify as someone working independently—that is, outside of an institution—in a role you connect with arts and culture, then you’re welcome to take part in CARE.
The focus of CARE is building and supporting independent entrepreneurial work, so if that’s the work you’re engaged in, this place is for you.
What’s Involved in CARE
📅 1 x month: live, virtual, facilitated 1.5 hour session around a topic of common interest based on community suggestions. These sessions will be facilitated by me and/or guests with particular expertise in the topic. Sessions will be recorded for members who can’t join live.
👥 2 x month: virtual co-working 1 hour session for members who want some additional community and/or accountability while they work on their own projects.
📱ongoing: private Slack community to stay in touch asynchronously.
💭 ongoing: discount on coaching services with me if you’re interested in some one-on-one advice and coaching.
🎁 february: welcome gift that I’ll send you by post when we get started.
🌐 ongoing: network directory access to all the other members. You can enjoy the collective brain trust to get their feedback, learn from their skills, and share your own.
When Does CARE Happen
This inaugural round is now open for enrollment now until February 5. We’ll begin in mid-February and run through August. I’ll set the exact timings of our live sessions based on members’ time zones (yes, this is definitely open to folks from around the world). Each month’s schedule will look vaguely like this little sketched calendar:
I know we’re all working on various schedules, but I’m not planning to schedule anything on a Saturday or Sunday, encouraging all of us to carve out and hold some days in our lives that are intentionally not for working.
Where Can We Find CARE
CARE is a community for analogue humans gathering in digital space. Despite missing in-person gatherings, I have deeply appreciated the last few years for encouraging connection between both people from around the world and people with more varied physical, emotional, and mental realities. We’ll meet for our live sessions on a video conferencing platform (cameras optional), and the Slack group will be available throughout.
Why Should We CARE
Running your own business can be a liberating and accommodating way for your career to be a satisfying part of your life without necessarily having to take over your entire life. While many people in the arts and culture sphere have been succeeding in this mode for a long time, the upheavals of the last few years have sent even more of us out to forge independent paths for ourselves.
While forging that path can be exciting and rewarding, it can also bring isolation and self-doubt and impostor feelings. In those moments, wouldn’t it be nice to be able to turn to a knowledgeable friend for camaraderie and advice? For someone to remind you that you do know what you’re doing, and that if you don’t, there are places you can go to learn?
CARE is a community of those friends.
A place to ask for help, to find new collaborators, to build your skills, to get fresh eyes on your work, to celebrate your wins and find some commiseration when things don’t go to plan.
In a moment where so many of us are feeling more isolated and spread apart than we once were, CARE brings you the benefits of coworkers without actually requiring a location-based job to find them.
How Did CARE Come to Be
I’m sharing the origin story of this offering in the name of TRANSPARENCY (one of my core values) and as an example of the polepole spirit of slowness I’m trying to encourage more of in my life.
Part of my 2022 year of (r)evolution was an intentional allowance to let myself evolve into the visions of what work felt right for me. I set out on my own independent business journey aiming to share how I work and what I can bring to people, without creating an overly-limiting menu of what those services might be.
It let me have room to work on projects for institutions that ranged from interpretive planning to programming for people with disabilities to curriculum writing to staff training and more. And it allowed me the great grace of exploring what else I wanted to include in my portfolio of professional offerings.
I still appreciate working on projects that will help organizations reach their various communities in healthier ways. But over the course of a year that included a months-long cross-country road trip and a return to in-person conference going and many conversations with cherished friends and colleagues, my evolving sense of what really lights me up with purpose came into greater focus.
I’m for the people. I’m especially jazzed right now to create my own offerings that help people working in the arts and culture realm keep on keeping on. So many people have left our sector in the past few years of instability, and if all the good people leave for greener, better-paying, more-worker-respecting pastures, then none of the exciting change-makers will still be around to make the changes our field and working life and world need.
I talked to so many people through 2022 who were questioning what they wanted work to be in their lives, who wanted to stop assuming that the cultural sector is one you only work in for the passion of it without also expecting to be treated and paid fairly.
I talked to people who’d formed accountability buddyships (and formed my own) and to people who were eager for collaborative online possibilities.
I explored the possibility of an online series of salons with some enthusiastic potential collaborators where we jointly concluded the thirst for community is running high these days.
I joined online calls to talk openly about money and marketing and more and heard repeatedly that people were so grateful to have a space for some refreshingly honest, brass-tacks conversation.
I took part in online communities that were gathered with heart and attention to building nurturing relationships, even between people who never met in physical space.
All these seeds were slowly planted over the course of the year. And when I had a November phone call with a colleague about how many of us were new(ish) to the art and culture entrepreneurial space, the little shoot of what would come to be CARE poked its tender head out of the soil.
What if we set up a membership group for independents who were happy to be working on their own but missing camaraderie and collective support? I asked on that November phone call. What if we made a space where a private group could explore topics of mutual interest, share their varied expertise, and expand their horizons with new people to connect to? What if we built a safe sounding board for people to brainstorm, ask for and receive feedback, find new collaborators with complementary skillsets, celebrate their wins, and commiserate about their losses?
What if we could make a place where people working on their own didn’t have to work alone?
Although that lovely colleague has since decided to focus on seeking a full-time job, her enthusiasm and support for this community lit a real fire under me, and with water and light and time, the little shoot of CARE has come to be a growing entity out in the world that’s now real and open for people (you?) to join.
I’m excited to be making the kind of community I want to see in the world, to be building the thing I myself am seeking.
The full details and sign-up links are on the CARE site.
I hope CARE is perhaps sparking that little galvanic charge in your chest that it sparks in mine when I think about it. And that if you’re curious, you’ll consider joining in yourself and/or spreading the word to others in your life who might want to join.
Creative Prompt Coda: Write yourself a letter about what you’re hoping for from this year ahead. Set it to show up in your inbox in 6 months or later.
