Project recap: $1,800 grants to tell stories about the collective power of workers (2022–2023)

Update from December 2023

We’ve stopped awarding grants. The post below introduced an experimental grant we launched in February 2022. Our goal was to support a variety of storytellers who work across media, who all share one belief — the importance of creative expression to help us better understand, imagine, and move toward the future of worker power and a new labor movement.

We received more than 200 applications. We supported a diverse range of storytellers: novelists, comic book creators, social media influencers, journalists, photographers, organizers, historians, and more. We’re grateful to every person who shared our call, helped us make selections (including the selectors themselves, below, who actually picked the winners), and showed the courage to apply.

After nearly two years of monthly grants, we’ve decided to bring this project to a close. Like many good projects, we feel this particular experiment has run its course (for now) and want to focus our efforts in other ways. The range of projects we’ve supported represents the kinds of storytelling we wanted to see in the world.

To account for the last three months, we are awarding three final recipients, whose projects address and represent important worker power issues and campaigns:

• Teddy Ostrow of The Upsurge podcast explores the renewed militancy of the United Auto Workers and its implications for a potential upsurge in the US labor movement. The episode brings listeners on the ground of Big Three picket lines and rallies across three states — Michigan, Ohio, and New York — amplifying the voices of more than a dozen rank-and-file auto workers and exploring the history, stakes and key demands of their fight.
• Lucy Sternbach will research a fictional piece based in multiple U.S. cities, especially New York and Atlanta, to produce knowledge of local labor histories through the perspective of museums’ janitorial workers. The project will explore how workers resist (in everyday and exceptional ways) wage theft and worker surveillance. Inspired by photographer Dawn Kim’s collection of artists who make art during their “day jobs,” this project will consider the museum as a site of labor and knowledge production. The multimedia project will aim to close with a community-based showing in New York, with some of the interviewees.
• Nikishka Iyengar, founder of worker-owned cooperative The Guild, and host of the podcast Road to Repair, is working on an audio series that combines storytelling and political education to explore The Guild’s — and other similar companies’ — journey to democratizing the workplace by putting ownership and power back in the hands of workers.

We’ve shared a list of all past recipients on Open Collective.

We will continue to support creative projects and hope you’ll keep sharing them with us. We’ll do our best to be responsive and connect you to resources and support.

You can reach us on X, LinkedIn, or Instagram at:
Siena (@chiangstar)
Roy (@roybahat)

Original post from February 2022

Over the last few years, I’ve worked in areas that were just starting to get attention — the future of work, artificial intelligence, universal basic income, and so on. Every time, public interest followed storytellers who helped us better understand the contours of the topics, and how they might change the future. Sometimes the storytellers were journalists exposing wrongdoing, sometimes they were novelists, sometimes they were on TikTok. Storytellers have always played this role: books like The Jungle helped us see that work in America had to be different. Stories — both reported and fictional — like Maid, Parable of the Sower, The Social Network, and An Inconvenient Truth, are the handmaidens of change.

Today, we’re seeing a new kind of labor movement emerge in America. The working conditions many have faced under Covid (and before it), the fragility of our democracy and the inability of government to meet peoples’ needs, the specter of inflation: all have combined to give worker organizing new energy. Unions have a new wind at their backs despite historically low membership, and organizers are also experimenting with different, reinvented approaches to change workplaces. What can all this do for the economic stability and dignity of all Americans? How could this work out — and what could go wrong?

A grant a month for a story about labor

Storytelling can help answer these questions. So today I’m announcing an experiment: I’m giving a $1,800 grant every month, to fund stories about organized worker power. Riffing on the Economic Security Project’s short story contest about universal basic income that I supported a few years ago, I want to encourage many more stories to help us imagine, assess, and move forward.

If you have a story to tell that fits into this broad lane, you can apply here. Together with some friends (more on them below), we’ll pick a winner each month — and we’ll keep all the entrants confidential. You can submit anytime.

Our prompt is intentionally vague because we want to avoid constraining creativity. Here are some examples of projects for which we might award grants:

1. Travel funds for a freelance journalist to cover a new form of worker organizing
2. A TikTok series by a creator in the labor movement, helping us imagine what how a different future might feel
3. A speculative fiction short story that gets picked up and made into a hit movie…
4. An oral history of workers from a specific industry
5. Cartoons, artwork or graphics that explain how we got here, a specific labor law or dispute, etc.
6. Supplies for a recorded open mic event (in person or virtual)
7. School field trip to a strike or walkout event, or a union meeting, where a talented student will share their perspective in writing

I’ve invited friends with different life stories and expertise, to help review submissions and pick a grant recipient each month. All believe in the power of stories, and of workers. (And since we’re adding to the list of selectors from time to time, looking at the application form will be the best way to know who the selectors are at any given time.) Our initial selectors are:

• Larry Williams, founder of UnionBase
• Akash Kapur, journalist and author of Better to Have Gone
• Michelle Miller, co-founder of Coworker.org
• Liba Wenig Rubenstein, founder of social impact teams at MySpace, tumblr, and 21st Century Fox
• Siena Chiang, independent advisor, former VP at PillPack/Amazon Pharmacy
• Josh Benson, partner in Old Town Media
• Jamie Earl White, founder of Unit
• Others who may join…

The only criterion is that your project helps provoke and broaden conversation, and that you tell a good story! Otherwise, there are no strings or expectations.

More about why I’m interested in this topic

As a startup investor focused on the future of work, I think about what companies ought to be doing for their workers. Both: (1) How can companies get the best results out of their teams? And (2) what do companies owe their teams?

I’m also another kind of investor — a human, invested in our society. If you play the game by society’s rules, you should be able to enjoy a decent life. But the typical American is unable to stably provide for themselves and their family. We’ve been working on how to understand this and we’ve learned that, more than anything else, workers crave — and deserve — stability and dignity.

Organized action by and for workers can and is playing a role, as it has throughout history. What, today, do we share more than the identity of working? While the legacy organizing mechanisms for workers — unions — have been in decline for decades, we’re seeing new and renewed ways of workers banding together. For example, the number of worker cooperatives doubled in the last recession, and we are seeing the number double again now, with support from a union co-op model. Worker-owners have 22% higher median income from wages than non-owner peers.

And, while existing unions need to evolve dramatically, there may be a future where organized workers could be good for business. I believe the labor movement’s call for solidarity needs to extend to people of all classes, races, genders, occupations, and forms of difference. We got into these problems by fighting each other; to get out of them, we’ll need to work together.

Funding storytelling about workers, organizing, and the labor movement won’t, on its own, reinvigorate union membership or lead to much needed legislative change. Instead, stories can reframe how people feel about organized labor in our country, introduce a new generation to what a strong labor movement can look like, imagine exactly how labor and business can work differently. Some people get involved in organizing because of the stories they hear, others run from anything that sounds like a union because of stories they hear. Often people start a company or a movement, inspired by a story. In ways upon ways, stories matter.

Again, the application form to submit your story is here.

You can ask us questions on Twitter (@Chiangstar or @roybahat) either publicly or via DM.

FAQs

Who is eligible for this program?

Anyone currently based in the US. All ages are welcome to apply.

Who has won previous grants?

We’ll share updates about the grant, and announcements about recipients, on Twitter. Follow Siena Chiang.

Will you publicize all grant recipients? What if I want to be anonymous?

We’ll keep all submissions confidential. If you’d like to remain anonymous after receiving a grant, that’s okay with us. Our hope is that you’ll share your work and let us amplify it — maybe you’ll even let us support you in putting your project in front of people with big audiences — but there’s absolutely no obligation, and it’s not a criterion for whether you get awarded a grant.

How will grant awardees actually receive funds?

If you’re selected, you will receive your grant funds via Open Collective. There are no strings or expectations. The money can go to pay you for your time, or other expenses you have.

For submitters who are younger than 18 years old, a parent or guardian will need to receive the funds on your behalf, per Open Collective policy.

Is there a deadline?

You can submit anytime, and we’ll close submissions for each month on the 15th of that month, and announce by the end of that month. (So, for February, we’ll take the last submissions on February 15 and announce by February 28.) We’re ̶s̶t̶a̶r̶t̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶t̶h̶i̶s̶ ̶a̶s̶ ̶a̶ ̶t̶h̶r̶e̶e̶-̶m̶o̶n̶t̶h̶ ̶e̶x̶p̶e̶r̶i̶m̶e̶n̶t̶,̶ ̶a̶n̶d̶ ̶w̶e̶’̶l̶l̶ ̶s̶e̶e̶ ̶w̶h̶e̶r̶e̶ ̶i̶t̶ ̶g̶o̶e̶s̶ ̶f̶r̶o̶m̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶r̶e̶.̶ continuing to support this effort for as long as we continue to get as high quality submissions as we’ve received in the first few months.

Can I make multiple submissions?

Yes.

Why the amount $1,800?

In Jewish culture, the number 18, חי, and all multiples of it, hold spiritual and numerical significance. The two Hebrew letters that make up the number together mean ‘life’ or ‘being alive.’ Jews commonly give donations and gifts in multiples of 18, to offer a gift of life and luck.

How are you approaching inclusion, equity, and justice in this project?

We strive to center the individuals and communities who have historically been the most marginalized and excluded in both the labor movement and society, within this process. Our selection team reflects a diverse set of experiences and includes Black and POC members, is majority female identifying, and spans multiple generations, geographies and backgrounds. As the project continues, we will add more perspectives to this group. We recognize we cannot represent every perspective or identity, and aim to check our privilege and implicit biases regularly.

Our team collectively owns and updates our selection principles. We don’t explicitly ask for identifying information. When a submission includes it proactively, we prioritize underrepresented identities and lived experiences for selection. While we do not share individual feedback on submissions, we provide as much transparency into our process as we can, and welcome questions and input. Lastly, we feel it’s important to honor our humanness, and therefore our fallibility and imperfection, as a selection team. We give and expect compassion from one another as we constantly learn through this process.

Why is a VC supporting workers organizing?

This is a personal project I’m funding privately, not through the venture capital fund I lead. I use “we” here to include the people who have helped me think through and operationalize this process, notably Siena Chiang who’s helped me bring this to life.

And while this is a personal project, there are professional connections between this topic and my role as an investor in the future of work. The most important leadership skill of the next 20 years for any successful company might be how to lead an organized workforce. The venture capital fund I lead also invests directly in start-ups that serve workers: e.g., Unit, which serves smaller workforces ignored by Big Labor; and Open Collective, which I’m also using (as any user can use their platform) to administer these grants. If you’re starting a company that serves workers, please take a look to see if our venture capital fund is a fit for you.

Can I contribute my own funds to these grants?

Yes. If you believe in this program and are in a position to financially support future grants, you can contribute directly to the funding pool via Open Collective. Any additional grants will go to increasing the number of grants we’re able to give (either in any one month, or for future months). All contributions will also be anonymous, except to the fund admins (me and Siena Chiang).