We are building a worker-owned National Black Women Creative Cooperative that will be a mutual aid network of Black women creatives who support one another to work within organizations throughout the creative sector and independently. Finding environments that are supportive and prioritize retaining Black women’s leadership is rare. We will remove the barriers that often keep Black women creatives in oppressive and toxic work environments and support our tiny creative businesses to thrive! Established in 2021 for us and by us.
The National Black Women Creative Cooperative will be born of an Unlock Creative Coaching and Management LLC initiative, Creative Flowers that focuses specifically on growing, nurturing, and keeping Black women in leadership within the creative sector including the nonprofit arts and the commercial entertainment industry. We define the creative sector broadly as the arts, commercial film, music and live entertainment industry, and nonprofit sector and is inclusive but not limited to visual arts, theater, dance, film, music, and culture bearing. Creatives interested may define their artistry as graphic design, animation, music composition, production, songwriting, sound engineering, storytelling, museum management, costume design, lighting design, opera, fashion design, or technical direction.
We want to remove the barriers that often keep Black women creatives in oppressive and toxic work environments and support our small creative businesses to thrive! The National Black Women Creative Cooperative will establish a worker-owned cooperative by 2022 for us and by us. A group of Black women and I are dreaming that the cooperative would be an ecosystem, network, and marketplace where Black Women Creatives can grow, gain professional development and services like medical, vision, dental, long-term and short-term disability, payroll and staffing services all from Black-owned businesses.
Toward a goal of financial freedom, we are spending the time to form a cooperative enterprise, a business entity that is collectively owned by us and shares in the profits of the company. There are many other coalitions and organizations that support segments and issues of Black Women through programs and services. We seek to work in partnership with those organizations. And, am explicitly pulling together dynamic and Black Women Creatives to take our collective skills, training talents, equity, and justice-minded frameworks into these conversations to build OUR COOPERATIVE BUSINESS where Black Women’s lives are centered.
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