The Value of Work
Examining how work is valued in different sectors of the economy
I am working on an inquiry for that is an ask to apply for a grant having to do with architecture
MissionFounded in 1956, the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts fosters the development and exchange of diverse and challenging ideas about architecture and its role in the arts, culture, and society. The Graham realizes this vision through making project-based grants to individuals and organizations and producing exhibitions, events, and publications.Grantmaking FocusArchitecture and related spatial practices engage a wide range of cultural, social, political, technological, environmental, and aesthetic issues. We are interested in projects that investigate the contemporary condition, expand historical perspectives, or explore the future of architecture and the designed environment.We support innovative, thought-provoking investigations in architecture; architectural history, theory, and criticism; design; engineering; landscape architecture; urban planning; urban studies; visual arts; and related fields of inquiry. Our interest also extends to work being done in the fine arts, humanities, and sciences that expands the boundaries of thinking about architecture and space. source
The contemporary condition of work is that it is valued differently in differing contexts including the non-profit world, the state, the free enterprise sector, and the working classes.
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This Graham grant inquiry form provides fields for collaborators. I would like collaborators but I don’t recommend collaborators signing the grant application for the grant. Here’s why:
It is great that it is a grant specifically for individuals. The grant is small, at the most S10,000.00 but the method for determining compensation for the work the applicant contributes is, well, kind of weird. It requires spending more than twice the amount on other things. No more than 30% of the grant amount can be for compensation for the applicant, so the greater the funds budgeted for other things, the greater the amount that can be appropriated for compensating the applicant’s labor, the less that is budgeted for other things, the less the applicant can be compensated for labor. The most that the grant compensates for the applicant’s labor is 3000.00 for a year, or $8.22 per day. Receiving the full amount requested is not guaranteed. The applicant can seek compensation for his or her work through other sources. Not so for the collaborators, who are called co-authors on the inquiry form.
If I target $3000.00 per year to compensate for the work I contribute, I have to budget $7000.00 worth of other expenditures. That’s not too hard to do but it is called a work plan and it seems like the working part is being compromised by being based not on the need for labor input, but on the need for other things. What happens if one applies for $10,000.00 and is granted a smaller amount, The ratio has to be recalculated but the costs of things remain the same.
These grants assist individuals with the production-related expenses that are necessary to take a project from conceptualization to realization and public presentation. These projects include, but are not limited to, exhibitions, installations; film/video/new media web initiatives; public programs; and publications.
My project is about advocacy for a community for the small entrepreneurial sector and so it challenges attitudes ingrained in the non-profit sector. about the free enterprise sector.
I think of labor as a production-related expense.
One could look at the grant as a grant merely for the tools one needs to do the work and not for doing the work itself and if one is accepted to apply and then is awarded less than the ask, just take the loss in the applicant’s labor compensation. The applicant can look for other ways to compensate for their time and creative work but the grant prohibits compensating collaborators by any means, other than as a miscellaneous expense requiring no contractual agreement.
A collaborator is defined as a coauthor of the project; if a grant is awarded, each collaborator is considered a grantee and is asked to sign a grant agreement. Given this, a collaborator is not a participant who is providing contracted services for the project.
What does ”Given this” reference? What is the “this” that justifies a co-author being excluded from providing contracted services? Perhaps some projects create a product that can be sold, giving co-authors a stake that might justify the policy but that isn’t the case for this research and development project, which has to start with coalition building because this is a project for a community for which a need is identifiable but is not being advocated. A product that the co-authors could have a stake in comes about through the development of their skills as applied to the project. The collaborators might become a cohesive team that could form themselves into a niche-based consulting or co-pilot service but since they are forbidden from working as contracted services for the project, that could drive them away from the project into situations where they can be paid for their labor. They are, after all, identified as “co-authors” which is a highly creative and sought-after function.
The term used is not “contract labor” commonly contrasted with an employee, the term is “providing contracted services for the project.” which also covers employees since there are legal terms of agreement for employees, as well.
The application doesn’t say that funds cannot go to paying for labor, only that there are limitations or prohibitions to compensating the authors, (the applicant and the collaborator). The authors are those who craft the idea into a form that can be communicated to others. Collaborators who sign the inquiry form cannot be under contract but a co-pilot program, if such is available, could be budgeted into the other costs because co-pilot programs are independent businesses that work as collaborators but are not grantees on the application. Why would they be? That would mean they wouldn’t get paid!
Placing such a limitation on those who sign on the inquiry form as collaborators places restrictions on the organic growth of both the project and collaborators. The project is for only a year but there is no way of predicting what can happen in a year. If the collaborator signs as a grantee for a year-long project and their economic circumstances force them to quit, how does that impact the funding for the project? Although a project in its formational stages does not have funding and relies on volunteer labor, placing restrictions on those who are the core authors of the project and bringing it into a higher form makes no sense. It puts the project in danger of losing its most valuable contributors.
The grant calls for the Budget for the entire project, not just the Graham Foundation grant request. Hypothetically one could pay collaborators for work contributed to the entire project through other grant funding were it not for the wording “a collaborator is not a participant who is providing contracted services for the project”. That phrasing extends beyond compensation by the Graham grant,
A co-pilot service could be part of the budget expenses, There is nothing in the rules that say the grant cannot use contracted labor, only that collaborators who are co-authors and add their signature to the inquiry form can’t be contracted labor.
A co-pilot program is a paid contract for the services of collaborators. Co-pilot services can be co-authors of promotional campaigns. The prohibition for contracted services extends only to those who sign on as co-authors on the grant inquiry form. So, in the interest of keeping your options open, don’t sign the form! Being a collaborator is not dependent on signing the Graham grant inquiry form. Of course that leaves the issue of giving credit but perhaps that can be handled with careful wordcrafting. The way the grant terms are presented is a choice between collaborators being given credit for their work and collaborators being permitted to be paid for their work.
The Artstorefront Co-pilot program is not appropriate for the grant but is an example of a co-pilot program affordable within the amount of this grant. For 2 thousand dollars one can purchase services to create and distribute social media content. This type of service is needed for coalition building. Social media co-pilots have the skills to get the message out. Co-pilot services can be budgeted into the 70% of the funding for costs other than compensating the labor contributed by the applicant.
Discrimination against paid labor, particularly when it discriminates against the most creative labor, goes hand in hand with the non-profit sector’s demonization of the small entrepreneurial sector with which Andersen Design is all too familiar. This discrimination does not extend to the large publicly traded corporations that are a primary funding resource for the non-profit sector, for obvious reasons. To my free enterprise sensibility, if one starts a project with uncompensated collaborators and finds that we work together well, fairness dictates paying the collaborators before hiring anyone else.
The policy against paying originators for their time and creative contributions implies that compensating for that type of labor is an exploitative practice. Why is that? I can only conclude that it has to do with being self-directed and a belief that people should be paid only if someone else is directing them, controlling them, owning them, or using them for a purpose that is not their own, but the self-directed persons follow an internalized purpose.
Some nonprofits pay only their executive directors and pay them well. The Boothbay Region Land Trust’s 990 form, under Compensation of Officers, Directors,Trustees, Key Employees, Highest Compensated Employees, and Independent Contractors, lists only the executive director, compensated at over $100,000.00. and yet the BRLT is not disqualified by the IRS for benefitting only one individual. That is because the one individual is working for a cause that benefits an indeterminate number of people. However, the Maine Community Foundation prohibits me from presenting a community grant proposal because I am an “individual”, claiming the IRS rules prohibit them from funding individuals. Does the Maine Community Foundation believe that an individual, any individual, will present a community grant proposal for a community of one? It is a community grant proposal! By definition, a community represents an indeterminate number of people. According to the Maine Community Foundation and the Davis Foundation the IRS prevents individual authors from presenting proposals that benefit an indeterminate number of people. Neither of those foundations provided an IRS rule that supports their claim when asked.
I would like collaborators who can complement my skills but I wouldn’t advise skilled people to sign on as collaborators on the grant application unless they don’t care about being paid if and when the project scales up. Being a collaborator takes them out of the pool of potential paid workers. However since the project is only for one year, perhaps that stipulation does not apply after one year. but that is not stated with clarity.
The next question on the inquiry form is:
Project Budget
Budget for the entire project, not just the Graham Foundation grant request.Project Budget
That allows expanding the project but involves further grant applications
Applying for grants involves unpaid labor that I don’t want to invest in until I confirm that a foundation accepts proposals by individual authorship. I asked two major foundations in Maine, The Davis Family Foundation and The Maine Community Foundation and both said they prohibit individuals from submitting proposals. It is difficult to find foundations that do not discriminate against individuals so I expect to limit the scope of my total project to what is covered by the Graham Foundation at this time.
The first mission is coalition building because the reason for the Intentional Community is that there is no support system for individuals working outside the grid, the grid being the public-private, for-profit, non-profit wealth concentration, and redistribution industrial complex, a top-down system that seeks to control everything but does not include everything or everybody.
The existence of any community depends on the ordinance. My experience and observations of local municipal leadership is that they are ill-willed toward the small entrepreneurial sector, often taking an adversarial position toward small business owners. Coalitions are needed to rebrand small entrepreneurs in a changing world, For example, promoting that the work-at-home movement reduces carbon emissions by eliminating the daily commute. The Town planning boards have to incorporate the needs of the home-working community if the intentional community is ever to manifest. At this time in Maine the Town planning boards are meekly complying with the mandates in HP 1489 rather than standing up for Home Rule and so they are writing town ordinances for priority zones as mandated by the municipal-state of Maine whose vision resembles Maine as one big short term rental theme park dotted with ubiquitous uniform overcrowded housing zones for year-round residents of ordinary means. What previous times in history does that conjure up?
The Tools and the Work
The tools for forming coalitions are database technology, communications, and media. The initial creation of a database with cross-referenced categories including locations and ordinance information seems like a simple data entry task, but it would be helpful to have someone on the team when setting up the database who understands the later stages when more functions may be added. It would also be helpful to have the advice of one experienced in data technology when deciding which resources to purchase.
Criteria for Evaluation
Projects with the greatest potential for funding directly connect to the Graham Foundation’s mission to explore ideas in architecture and fulfill the following criteria:
Originality: the project demonstrates an innovative and challenging idea; critical, independent thinking; advanced scholarship; a new or experimental approach Graham Grants For Individuals
My project meets the above criteria. I visited the Foundation for Intentional Communities and searched work at home but nothing matched. Searching ”remote workers” came up empty. The idea that we need to design housing around a shift in the way work is done has not yet arrived. HP 1489’s vision for densely packed affordable housing parks placed in every Maine municipality, with the definition of “affordable” including affordable for those making up to 120% of the median income for the area, addresses the need for workforce housing for corporate-owned enterprises but does not address a need for housing for working spaces owned by the working classes. Since the remote workers movement is growing to the degree that corporate headquarters are closing down, there is a new need for working space where workers work in their own homes.
The project will explore existing community models that can be used as a guide in creating a new community model that incorporates the needs of home workers and the extended small entrepreneurial community.
The most popular description on the Foundation for Intentional Communities Directory is “the ecovillage with individual homes and group-owned property”
The Eco-Village Global NetworK
If working lifestyles are mentioned, the tone is of a communal work community such as Catholic Worker Farms, or worker communities, a different version of corporate-owned employment.
Some communities are “off the grid” and plan on providing everything they need to survive in a post-apocalyptic world.
My idea addresses housing that is off the state-controlled grid, wherein resides the free enterprise system. The free enterprise system is made up of businesses that are not subsidized by the taxpayers, which usually means they are not publicly traded and are small entrepreneurs that need individualized working spaces. My idea encompasses many of the values of the ecovillage, consistent with those of Lewis Mumford, who writes about the cities from the long view starting in Medieval times.
HP 1489 wants to take Maine back to the Industrial Revolution and implement overcrowded housing for the masses because New England missed out on that the first time around.
My idea is there are enough loopholes in HP 1489 to reinvent the priority zone in a multitude of ways. It is challenging because the law and the funding is designed to advance a specific overcrowded model for affordable housing but the law doesn’t go all the way by mandating that model.
Off-the-grid communities are identified with seeking a return to the pre-industrial agricultural era when local communities were self-sustaining providing for all of their own needs
I identify my vision as a return to the pre-industrial revolution era of the cottage industries.
Lo and behold! I found a Cottage Industry concept! Its in California! and it just opened in the spring of 2024:
Open as of spring 2024, brings together a handful neighborhood-oriented businesses within a park like setting in the heart of Garden Grove. The project is a one-of-a-kind example of adaptive reuse and offers unique spaces encompassing well scaled freestanding structures ideal for small and medium sized businesses. Cottage Industries aims to revitalize downtown Garden Grove and create an eclectic new community gathering space with community gardens, exciting common areas, and excellent dinning and retail options. Source
That doesn’t get into providing spaces for people working at home.
First Park, a purported business park in MAINE, mandated to be subsidized by a region of municipalities by an arguably unconstitutional act of special legislation by the Maine Legislature, took the turn of including residences, about twenty years after it was formed when it couldn’t find enough businesses to occupy the Park. The regional municipalities that signed up for the business park are now required by state law to subsidize a business park evolving into a Town.
The park is also working on residential development of two large lots at the back of the property that have some challenges, inlcuding wetlands, including a vernal pool and a Central Maine Power Co. easement.
When FirstPark was first developed in 2000, residential wasn’t part of the plan. “Originally, the purpose was to create jobs and bring some value back to the communities,” Dinkle said Tuesday.
He said a professional appraisal of the site in 2018 convinced the board that residential would be a good fit on lots 11 and 12, at the northwest end of the property. “It was his professional opinion and we accepted that,” Dinkle said.
The KRDA board revised the covenant, loosening up what’s allowed, including adding residential and commercial uses.
Dinkle said the residential focus is on multi-family — either market-rate apartments or condos — that will complement the businesses that are locating in the park. Maine Biz FirstPark reaches major milestone as development focus evolves
That‘s pretty much the model for the whole state with mandated priority zones for housing where no housing density regulations can be applied, accompanied by the educational system reconfigured as industrial job training facilities for the state and its private partners which can negotiate terms via the conditional gifts statute.
Twenty-three years after its founding, in the fiscal year ending in 2022, the audit and financial report of the KRDA showed actual revenue over expense at $297,222 or $296,346 more than budgeted.
The Town of Rome submitted its letter of intent to withdraw on September 22nd, 2022.. See what happened HERE.
My idea is to use the priority zone mandate and diversify it as intentional communities, for purposes beyond those envisioned by the State and Co. There can be many varieties of intentional communities. I am advocating for a model that accommodates remote workers and all types of businesses that operate from the home and including other small businesses as is in the model that just emerged in California.
Given the terms for collaborators, I am expecting to submit my application for The Grahan Grant as a lone applicant. I don’t have big expectations in submitting a request to submit a proposal for a community that accommodates homeworkers when the grant application treats paying the collaborators as an exploitative practice. I think that eventually, people need to be paid for the work they put into a project, including myself. so that valuable collaborators can give the project full focus.
Applying for the grant is a process that helps bring clarity and structure to the concept. It is clear that the first task in making the project into a reality is coalition building.
With the energy created by the Harris Walz campaign, this is an opportune moment for coalition building. Harris and Walz are speaking for the concerns of the working classes in a way that hasn’t happened before in recent history. They talk about the dignity of work and “not just getting by but moving up”, two concepts sorely missed in Maine’s deeply entrenched economic development policies that define a “quality job merely as “a job that pays higher wages and benefits for the area”, That is a definition from the state’s perspective when bargaining “X number of jobs” for public subsidies to capitalize privately owned corporations”. They are” quality jobs” because they represent a quantifiable stream of revenue from personal income taxes for the state. A worker’s idea of a quality job includes other variables such as the work process and working environment.
The Harris Walz campaign is speaking from the worker’s perspective. The slogan for the Biden-Harris administration is “Bottom Up-Middle Out” a very different approach from the trickle-down economy on which central management of the economy is structured.
The Harris-Wal;z campaign is on fire because it listens to and speaks for the concerns of working people. It’s a good omen for coalition-building in support of ideas that challenge the long-entrenched way of thinking about economic development as encapsulated by what the state thinks a priority zone should be: ” overcrowded” as “a density bonus” for the ownership class.
If the Harris Walz campaign can create such a surge in public support, imagine how a community development plan based on listening to the voices of the working classes might fare. At least there should be one such community for comparison’s sake,
A way to support the project in a manner that does not compromise the philosophy of the project is through paid support for this newsletter: The newsletter is part of the project which has to begin with giving voice to the need for adapting to the changes in the way work is done and where it will be done in the future. When enough people recognize the need for housing that accommodates a work-life balance, it will happen.
Visit Mackenzie;s Art Storefront
You can also make a tax-deductible contribution to my project, which is always evolving as expressed through this newsletter, on The Field.
Make a Tax deductible donation to Mackenzies project on The Field
Bidens latest campaign the Time is Money initiative is worth mentioning. It seems like a small issue and so it doesn’t usually get attention from Big Gov. My favorite grievance that this initiative addresses is “The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has two rules in the works. One would cut back on the “doom loops” that force callers to listen to long messages before they reach an actual human being”. Often I am trying to resolve an issue that isn’t on the list and AI can’t figure out what I am talking about. It’s frustrating and time-consuming! Multiply that wasted time by the millions!
For the working classes, a job is how the worker spends his time on this earth. A quality job is time well spent, not just dollars made, and at the same time everyone should have the opportunity to rise economically, which is captured by the words in the Harris Walz campaign “ Not just get by but move up”, consistent with the Biden slogan “ Middle out-bottom up” as opposed to “trickle-down”.
The current wealth redistribution system in Maine is a static system for the bottom and a growing system for the top.
The working classes of America are not a caste system to be bartered by the public-private state. The working classes are individuals with individual lives, goals, dreams, and purposes. All of that contributes to a quality job, which is expressed when Harris says “Hard work is good work”. Harris is talking about the work process as a value in and of itself, an idea missing in Maine policy since the State started centrally managing the economy in 1976, seven years after the people voted for the Home Rule Amendment to be part of the Maine Constitution. Today Maine is centrally governed by concentrated wealth. the contemporary version of controlling the flow of rivers in an agricultural economy.
Time for change!
