December 21, 2023
2023: a year that yeared
Crosspost from Open Collective.
2023 was relatively low-key here, which could be considered a mild success by disabled standards. By mainstream productivity or financial standards though, it would be more of a wash.
For background context, Affect is fiscally sponsored under 501c3 Open Collective Foundation. While project collaborators and participants are paid, we have no staff employees and Elea Chang (me) serves as sole organizer of things.
Highlights
- thanks to the 2022 grant from Northwest Health Foundation (NWHF), we started the year with a $6950 budget for Disabled And Here work
- the awarded grant was $7590; $640 went to Open Collective host + payment processing fees
- in May, we put out a call for queer and trans BIPOC couples to feature, interview, and photograph
- at the end of June, we wrapped a Disabled And Here park date shoot with Artthew and Hesadiah, photographed by Gritchelle Fallesgon
- in July, we added 20 new stock images to Disabled And Here’s collection and published Artthew and Hesadiah’s interviews
Hesadiah and Artthew practicing parallel play while lounging on a picnic blanket at the park. On the left, Hesadiah lies on her partner’s lap, laughing and playing with her popsocket fidget. On the right, Artthew reads a poetry book.
Things that also happened
- we lost social media reach and connection this year (with the transition into X, Twitter was abandoned by various orgs and individuals, while Instagram’s constant algorithm changes mean that timely posts are often shown past their relevancy, if shown at all)
- a Disabled And Here shoot was planned for Aug / Sept, but had to be postponed due to both participant and photographer conflicts
- good news: we’re now gearing up for a Jan 2024 Disabled And Here shoot and interview (which will use up the rest of our NWHF funds)
What we could use help with
- to date, Affect’s received $920 in donations this year, which we’re very grateful for, especially since we weren’t able to muster up energy for actual fundraising!
- however, our general admin costs tend to be $200-400 annually so there’s not much left for Disabled And Here or Community Care Awards activity in the next year
- if you’d like to help us continue on in 2024, it’d be amazingly helpful to encourage friends/collaborators/coworkers/orgs with spare funds to make donations (tax-deductible!)