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About Us

Kingston Common Futures is a community fund offering grants and support to Kingston, NY

What we strive for

Vision

We envision a future where all people are woven into an inclusive community, offering their gifts and working together in stewardship of our abundant planet, for the common good. 

To move towards this vision, we need to confront and upend historic imbalances and systems of extraction, and commit to working for equitable access to power, financial resources, and networks of mutual support in our home. To bring into being the multicultural, multiracial, regenerative community of the future, we start today, by modeling joyful networks of care and collaboration.

Mission

Kingston Common Futures exists to redistribute power, provide support, and democratically allocate financial resources back in the hands of the people of Kingston for a more just and thriving community. We are guided by the principles of Just Transition in all our work.

Values

We share power and nurture democratic decision-making.

We actively listen to community.

We operate with trust, transparency, and generosity.

We are passionate about building relationships across difference.

We believe conflict is an opportunity for learning and growth.

Goals

We provide support and funding with a focus on communities historically excluded from access to financial capital and decision-making power, including BIPOC, immigrants, and the working class, to build local economic power and resilience.

We model the kind of future we want to build, by creating systems of collaboration, care, and democratic participation in service to the common good.

We cultivate courageous spaces that welcome and empower the gifts and voices of all members of this community to foster inclusive, connected, informed relationships.

We nurture a vibrant network of mutual support, providing a way to share knowledge while repairing the fabric of real neighbor-to-neighbor relationships.

Who we are

Staff

Kingston Common Futures is led by Community Stewards whose work is in service to the Kingston community. Rather than directing funds individually, the Community Stewards will gather and facilitate a community-directed and democratically decided fund.

Community Steward, Director of Process & Learning
Community Steward, Director of Strategy & Development
Communication & Outreach Manager

The Street Team & Impact Catalysts

The Street Team & Impact Catalysts are essential folks who support the end-to-end grassroots needs within the fund cycle. The Street Team works closely with Kingston Common Futures to nurture a vibrant ecosystem of communication about the fund across the Kingston Community, to ensure the right information gets to the right folks in the right way at the right time. The Impact Catalysts work closely with Kingston Common Futures, community partners, and the recipients of grant funding to ensure projects are supported, stories are collected and celebrated, impact is measured, and learning is fed back into the next round of funding.

callie mackenzie
Street Team

callie mackenzie (she/they) is a Kingston, NY based musician, multidisciplinary artist, organizer, consultant, and coach. Living at the intersections of art & social justice, she works to create Liberatory and Joyful Spaces for growth and healing rooted in love.

Community Support & Decision-Makers

We are excited to spotlight the community members who are involved in our process.
Learn more about how you can get involved.

Where we come from

Place

Kingston Common Futures is operating out of Kingston, New York. Our community fund is rooted in relationships–relationship to place, to each other, to institutions, and to all non-human beings that we share this place with and are inextricably and symbiotically connected to. Part of our work is to reach out to the cultural representatives of indigenous communities whose land we occupy and begin to establish and repair relationships. We ask how we may acknowledge our complicity in colonialism and honor the people who have been displaced.

Kingston, NY is also a site of rapid gentrification, which has resulted in more recent displacements of people who have called this place home. The funds Kingston Common Futures will distribute cannot undo the harm that has been done, but our work is intended to shift the power back into the hands of the people.

Just Transition

Just Transition is a framework to help communities all over the country work together for a more equitable, dignified, and self-determined future that respects all people and our environment.  

Just Transition was developed by labor unions and environmental justice groups through Movement Generation and Climate Justice Alliance.  Here in Kingston, the Good Work Institute is a hub for Just Transition work and education. There are five principles that guide Just Transition work, and many folks who are not familiar with Just Transition already share commitment to these values: 

Advancing ecological repair

Democratizing communities, wealth, and work

Driving racial justice and social equality

Retaining and restoring cultural diversity

Relocalizing economic power

Support & Partnership

Kingston Commons Futures evolved out of the community fund design process facilitated by Hélène Lesterlin, Micah, and Aja Schmeltz of the Good Work Institute from 2023-2024. The fund was designed by 18 community members who call Kingston home:  Amanda Cassiday, Ava Bynum, beetle Bailey, Carol A. Cramer, Clay Moodey, Daniel Woodham, Fiona Otway, Jenny Bates, Joél Mejia, Kai Lord-Farmer, Karen Ruiz León, Kathia Kilcrease, Kevin L. Godbey, Alessandra Gonzalez, Lauren Mathis, Manuel D. Blas Sanchez, Robert King, Rosalie Fransen.

Learn more about how Kingston Common Futures came to be through a community-led collaborative design process at Good Work Institute.

Kingston Common Futures is being incubated and fiscally sponsored by Good Work Institute, and is generously supported by NoVo in Kingston, a branch of the NoVo Foundation.

Be a Part of Kingston Common Futures