@tinker in canada, non profits have work in the areas you are discussing. I have work at one site, a job that is difficult to fill at a site that struggles with hiring. Yes non profits can be considered "sell outs", compromising values for funding, but they do provide for people struggling. I cook 2 days a week. In 4 years this building has been open, they have only had one other person cook my shifts, and only for 5 months. The site i work at hasn't had a janitor in over two years. The people who live there used to be homeless and many of them struggle with substance use/self medication. Another option for joining in.

@tinker What a great post! I appreciate your wisdom. Thanks for sharing. 😊

@tinker Thanks for your heartfelt post about building communities, thank you, God bless

@tinker Make sure to pin this bad boy to your profile! I gurantee people will look for it when they are at a place to do something with it

@tinker Thanks for writing this! When I get back to the (potentially radically altered) US this is exactly what I'm seeking.

@tinker What a generous essay! Thank you for sharing everything you know so far about mutual aid. Some really solid points about knowing the difference between charities and actually effective work one can do.

I donated a bunch of food to this great after-school center with all kinds of cool programs, overtly for all kids, essentially for underprivileged kids. I want them to have everything.

I’ve also started a couple local communities for like-minded people to get together over common interests, and they are really hard to get off the ground, so I appreciated the point of not being tempted to roll your own when you can be more effective going where people already are.

And omg so true about relying on the internet as little as possible. OPSEC more than ever before, people. Work locally for maximum impact.

💞 💞 💞

@tinker this rocks, I bookmarked it and I don't bookmark anything LOL 💚

@tinker for me, when I moved there 3 years ago, it was *food* — it was the pandemic and I was just really drawn to making sure people could EAT. Food banks, community gardens, garden training, farm share, food co-ops... it took me a minute to work into it but as you say, they're all connected. My fav time of year is when I can pick up from farm share and drop half at the food bank. It's more "charity" I guess but I can afford it. And it connected me to a TON of b-corps...

@tinker Great post, thank you.

@tinker This is summing up so many pieces of valuable advice heard and done and seen for many years 🫶🏻

@tinker I've been thinking this for a while, but you put it into words so much better than what I could have - thank you. Someone should turn this into a zine.

@tinker this is such a brilliant post with some great advice. I will share it with my family some of whom live far away from me.

@tinker Super helpful, just what I needed to read. Thanks!

@tinker That all sounds great. I suggest another area to start: If you are working, your workplace is a good spot. The advantage of your workplace is that you are already there and that your workplace's dependence on its workers gives you special power. I invite people to contact me for training and literature on organizing the workplace. Many of the methods also apply in other sorts of organizing, so I invite you to contact me even if it is not for workplace organizing.

@tinker this post made me appreciate our openly anarchist local groups availability even more 💗

@doublemonkeyfun - Yeah, non-profits and charities are similar in that. It's capitalism co-opting community movements.

The goals of that non-profit are good, as you've mentioned. But the apparatus of the non-profit and forcing it to find "funding" from capitalist sources are limiting. And that's by design.

It makes sense that it has the problems its having.

My section where I say I'll work with some charities if it has an apparatus that helps with an immediate goal applies to non-profits as well.

I don't think of them as "sell-outs" - I just dont think that model works at all. The examples that you've given align with my understanding.

@foggy______ruins - Cheers! Let me know if you need any help along your way!

@geekgrrl - Cheers!

@Aboodj_new - Cheers

@Diami03 - will do

@1dark1 - That's awesome!!! And yeah, discursive spaces are awesome - very cool that you built those up! 💕

@susankayequinn - Ha! I'm glad! Let me know how it goes for you and let me know if you need any help along the way!

@tinker

& nonprofits, one of which sponsored a solarpunk Expo & then we were getting closer. The vibes were better. But still *networking* maybe? Working toward something that connected likeminded folks for support (emotional mutual aid LOL).

I'm literally tomorrow zooming w/2 other non-profit peeps to organize our solarpunk discord: still sussing it out but it's a way to connect, give info, I'm gonna maybe teach solarpunk classes to draw people in etc

I'm gonna think about this post tho...

@Nightmancore - This is wonderful perspective and insight, thank you!

@gendor - that's a good idea

@gendor @tinker yes!

@susankayequinn - That's amazing!!! Let me know what y'all come up with.

I've got a nascent solarpunk group in my town and we work with a lot of the mutualaid groups around us.

I'd like to connect with other similar groups and start networking our towns and cities. Share ideas and see what works, etc.

@tinker oh cool! You know, I feel like this is just bubbling up everywhere at once. Feels invisible but people are just like OH HECK Imma just do this. It's beautiful.

I love the idea of having some higher level networking to see what works. Applications have to be super local cuz that's how that works but IDEAS should swish around so they can find where they'll work best.

I'll think on this thread and touch back with you as we progress. 💚 🌱

@susankayequinn - I look forward to it!

@tinker this was a damn good post, very nuts-and-bolts. I can echo that round here at least (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA) library noticeboards are Good Shit

@tinker the way this post is written, it sounds like mutual aid groups are some kind of underground resistance movement that the cops are actively trying to infiltrate and shut down. is that really how it is? why would the cops even care that much, and what crime(s) could a mutual aid group be accused of breaking anyway?

what would happen if I just volunteered at a charity and was completely open and honest about being interested in mutual aid and about not being a Christian? I hate lying or misleading people

@kasdeya - Coming back to this thread, sorry for the late response.

But yeah! Right?! So two examples, one historical and another more recent.

When the Black Panthers started up a mutual aid program to feed school children free breakfast, they put all the food in a local church to prepare for the next day. The local police went into the church and urinated on all the food in an attempt to destroy the program.

More recently, we see police coming down hard on mutual aid groups trying to feed the hungry. Houston Food Not Bombs was getting a ticket EACH TIME they fed people. They were in the upper hundreds of tickets last I checked.

Long and short, if your mutual aid group is undercutting the social order (which is where we all individually get our resources from corporations), then the local town and police may step in.

That said, you, personally, can join a charity group and feed people. Certainly. Charity groups don't solve the underlying *reason* why hunger (or whatever else they're serving) exists in the first place, but they can help people in the immediacy. So go for it.