Join The STOKE Collective’s ‘ShiftMakers: Monthly Sustainer Circle’: Building movement capacity and cultures of care together.

At STOKE, our guiding star is community care. We take care of one another in a spirit of generosity with an eye towards capacity building: building systems that can keep people in change work together for the long haul. Making sure all of us have our needs met is central to how we operate as a collective, inside and out.

We invite you to become a crucial part of our network of support that empowers groups and movements fighting for a more just and humane world. By joining ‘STOKE Shiftmakers’ you're becoming an essential part of a constellation of care and cultural change.

About STOKE:

The STOKE Collective is a non-hierarchical facilitation and training collective with a rich history and vision for culture change work. Established in 2017, we transitioned from a partnership LLC to a worker-owned cooperative in the Fall of 2022. Each of our 11 worker-owners have been involved in change work for the past 10-40 years in various social, political, and economic change movements spanning sectors such as: reproductive justice, labor, abolition, racial justice, climate justice, mutual aid, and more.

Our Mission:

As STOKE, we build the collective capacity of groups and organizations fighting for a more just world. We fuel our movements towards culture change and transformation through workshops, training, culture assessments, and long-term organizational accompaniment. With relationships at the center, we empower groups to stay aligned and build collective power. We understand that the foundations of social movements - relationships, values, and vision - require regular tending to thrive. By sharing tools and practices, we support groups to develop organizational cultures that are supportive, just, and deeply accountable to their people, Greater organizational capacity allows groups to center and lift up those most affected by systemic injustice and support the sustainable leadership necessary for the long haul work of structural change. 

The STOKE Collective exists to build the capacity of as many frontline groups as we possibly can. We want to support our movements to have what we need to win big, win often, and keep people engaged. Our commitment has always been to partner with those on the frontline of change - groups made up of those most directly affected by structural inequity who are taking a leadership role in shifting those conditions. These are often small-scale, hyper-local organizations working to change culture, structures, and policies to ensure their communities are getting what they need to thrive.  

We know that funding for social movements and organizations is still uneven & inequitable. Whether it is due to highly-itemized grant funding, budget cuts due to new funder priorities, or being volunteer-run themselves, these groups often have little to no budget for the external facilitation, skill and capacity building, organizational culture shift, and technical assistance they are looking for. This is why STOKE offers our skills and support on a sliding scale.

STOKE is frequently receiving requests for our conflict transformation, organizational accompaniment, and culture change work from these very critical organizations. Since STOKE began in 2018, we have been able to support many groups for low or no cost– Decarcerate Western Mass, the Line 3 Pipeline Resistance Legal Support Network, NJ Time to Care Coalition, NYC Network of Worker Cooperatives, The Recyclery Collective, and The Village Worcester, to name a few.

Providing high-quality support to all groups - regardless of where they are on our sliding scale - while ensuring our collective members are compensated and STOKE’s organizational expenses are met has not been easy. The “boom and bust” cycle of contract work and the undervalued nature of relational expertise (as feminized labor) has also meant our collective has struggled to predict our income month-to-month for years.

Working with several higher-budget organizations (large unions, school districts, and nonprofit institutions) has at times enabled STOKE to actualize our sliding scale model. In efforts to increase our number of projects, diversify our revenue, and make our sliding scale functional, we have spent time applying for grants, reaching out to philanthropic organizations, building mutual reference relationships with peer organizations, and opening a line of credit. 

Most frequently, however, STOKE members have kept our services accessible and our organization afloat by donating our time, taking retroactive pay cuts month-to-month, and/or working multiple jobs to help ensure we can work with underfunded groups. Our members have made these personal sacrifices with love, and we believe that doing meaningful work should not negatively impact anyone’s ability to make ends meet or be financially stable. We want STOKE to be able to provide members the financial security and care we know all workers deserve and that we advocate for in our partnerships with groups. 

STOKE needs your help in supporting our movements and making our sliding scale real and sustainable, without compromising the financial well-being of our members or our budding cooperative. We are reaching out to our broader community and network because we know that it takes all of us to make culture change happen and to stay values aligned.

Will you join us as a ‘STOKE Shiftmaker’ and help us reach our goal of 50 new sustainers at $20+/month by the end of 2023?

Your financial contributions will directly enable STOKE members to focus our time, energy, and capacity on what matters most to us: supporting groups building a new future for all of us to access the vital support they are asking for.

By becoming a Monthly Sustainer, you're not just supporting STOKE. You are nurturing a larger culture of community care. Your contribution expands our network and deepens our reciprocal relationships with supporters and those we work with. Together, we can help frontline movements thrive and create lasting change.

Not able to contribute monthly? You can still make a one-time donation today to support STOKE’s goal of financial stability for our organization and for our collective members. 

Any contribution that is personally meaningful to you is so deeply appreciated— in our gratitude for your willingness to support our work we want to offer the following: 

Monthly Sustainers ($5-24/month)

• Thank you mail! Please include your address when you donate so we can send something special to your mailbox

• (ONE) Relational Culture Print by worker-owner Kristie Herman 

  • STOKE designed a series of three small prints that uplift pieces of relational culture & movement ecosystems

• Resources and annual gifts

  • Access to a STOKE-designed resource hub with content around facilitation, conflict transformation, culture shifting, visioning…And more!

Monthly Sustainers ($25+/month) 

• Thank you mail! Please include your address when you donate so we can send something special to your mailbox

• (THREE) Relational Culture Prints by worker-owner Kristie Herman

  • STOKE designed a series of three small prints that uplift pieces of relational culture & movement ecosystems

• Original Art Raffle entry, Art by worker-owner Téyo Saree 

  • Stay tuned for art reveal, raffle closing, and drawing of a winner! 

• Resources and annual gifts

  • Access to a STOKE-designed resource hub with content around facilitation, conflict transformation, culture shifting, visioning…And more!

One-Time Donors ($5-49)

• Thank you mail! Please include your address when you donate so we can send something special to your mailbox

One-Time Donors ($50-74)

• Thank you mail! Please include your address when you donate so we can send something special to your mailbox

• (ONE) Relational Culture Print by worker-owner Kristie Herman 

  • STOKE designed a series of three small prints that uplift pieces of relational culture & movement ecosystems

One-Time Donors ($75-99)

• Thank you mail! Please include your address when you donate so we can send something special to your mailbox

• (TWO) Relational Culture Prints by worker-owner Kristie Herman

  • STOKE designed a series of three small prints that uplift pieces of relational culture & movement ecosystems

One-Time Donors ($100+)

• Thank you mail! Please include your address when you donate so we can send something special to your mailbox

• (THREE) Relational Culture Prints by worker-owner Kristie Herman

  • STOKE designed a series of three small prints that uplift pieces of relational culture & movement ecosystems

One-Time Donors ($200+)

• Thank you mail! Please include your address when you donate so we can send something special to your mailbox

• (THREE) Relational Culture Prints by worker-owner Kristie Herman

  • STOKE designed a series of three small prints that uplift pieces of relational culture & movement ecosystems

• Original Art Raffle entry, Art by worker-owner Téyo Saree 

  • Stay tuned for art reveal, raffle closing, and drawing of a winner! 

At this time, donations to The STOKE Collective are not tax-deductible.

Want to stay updated on STOKE happenings? Subscribe to our newsletter and follow us on Facebook and Instagram.