Healthy Financial Habits for Small and Scrappy Organizations

Mayday Space is a collectively-run grassroots org in Bushwick Brooklyn that is an activism and organizing hub.

What folks here have experience with

Design Action: 12 person collective, 6 committees

plus a book-keeper and rotating financial committee
committees can make budgetary requests - how much money do you need, how much money have you brought in for this area of work, how much money do you anticipate bringing in for your area
recently raised our hourly rage simultaneously with raising top level of sliding scale fee, ongoing struggle to push back against austerity and fear
collective budgeting: committees put forth their own budgets, then smaller group goes back and synthesizes, refines

the person who held the most financial literacy just left the collective, staff taking webinars with book-keeping co-op
need to build up this muscle in other folks
what practices have worked for you in buiilding shared financial literacy in your org?
ultimately, wanting to build habits of communication about a topic people don't like!
talking about budgets is not just about spreadsheets, it's a narrative
Critical Resistance: people are making decisions about finances that they are not actively involved in, doesn't feel great
what worked better: 4 general meetings: preparing folks with financial literacy education

1) financial values 2) spreadsheets 3) what are you options for engaging with the budget process 4) consenting on the budget and a fundraising plan

thinking about budgets as quarters is a good cadence
Critical Resistance and Design Action both do year long processes and review it after 6 months
Bookkeeper sending a spreadsheet with our earnings numbers every week, so that we consistently practice thinking about our financial goals
"a budget is a moral document"
telling a story about how the money is being spent is useful
Design action had class conversations to develop shared understanding about how we make and propose money decisions
knowing the "why" behind why we have to do certain things
having an organizational wiki - what the org uses and doesn't use, if we don't want people to use a thing (i.e. paypal) it says why in the wiki, feedback from people was: this works!
how do you establish the norm that people go to that document?
no quick fix! establish some hierarchy -- if you need to know about X go to Y person
use humor! get thru the emotional barriers to financial literacy. use bitmojis lolz
take the fear factor out of it if it feels more fun
helping ppl understand that the work is a thru line - programs and budgets woven together, like a sewing machine where two threads are being woven together from the top and the bottom