Co-Leadership Research
It’s part of the mission of the Feminist Center for Creative Work to experiment with and model feminist praxis, which has been a fundamental component of how we have organized and programmed since our inception. During the past few years, like most arts and community-oriented non-profits, we experienced big shifts that forced us to consider how we can best sustain the work we do. What has emerged as important and central is that we develop a model for co-leadership in the current iteration of FCCW — especially as we’re investing in a new long-term building, as we’re reaching more feminist creatives globally, and as we passionately co-direct a shared vision for our future.
With support from the Mellon Foundation, we’ve begun a project to develop that model, including the research, implementation, documentation, and sharing of strategies and structures. Though we’re in early stages, our plan is to conduct interviews to educate ourselves, and learn from others who have already moved through some of the challenges of this type of work. The intention is to make as much of the internal work we do as part of this grant available for public engagement.
As you might expect, we have also given ourselves time to be in process with this work, to propose, experiment, and iterate, to choose a model that can grow and evolve as we get more experience with it. So this is the beginning of our share-out on co-leadership models. We’re sharing highlights from conversations that Mandy Harris Williams, Kamala Puligandla, Sarah Williams, and Stella Ramos conducted in 2023 with several organizations in Los Angeles and New York, about their past and current leadership models.
Interview with A.I.R.
Interview with Level Ground
