HOW TO VIEW

Background and context Of the work

“From my perspective a lot of [this] comes from the limitations of the nonprofit vehicles we've chosen to move forward with. At the core, for me, is really a generational conflict that comes in cycles, around how do we do this work differently? Because the way that we're doing it is not working. 

In the 80s and 90s, as neoliberalism was on the rise, nonprofits became something that promised our mentors and the folks before us a really great vehicle to be able to sustain our movement and folks doing the work. And [then when] philanthropy rose up to funnel money into nonprofits, [they] started doing the work that the state had failed to do; mutual aid, community support and defense. 

In the 90s and early 2000s, nonprofits and philanthropy became another cog in the wheel for capitalism, especially here in the US. We [thought], ‘We're stuck with this model, let's try to make it work.’ I remember, when we came out and started challenging nonprofits to do better, to think more expansively about what we mean by violence, that it has to include state violence, people were telling us we were crazy, we were too radical. ‘We cannot do that. They'll take away our funding. They'll take away our 501c3 status.’ And we [said] no, we have to do it, even if they do take all that away, we still have to do it. 

People thought we were too idealistic, too radical. 

And now we're back in another cycle where nonprofits are saying all the right words. [They] are saying ‘state violence’, are saying ‘intersectionality’, are saying ‘anti-capitalism’, but are now upholders of the same things that we were fighting against. So, it makes sense to me that the new generation is like, ‘This isn't it, y'all’. And for many of us, whose whole life and career and livelihood is tied to the nonprofit that we've helped to build, that is feeding us and providing us with life necessities and homes, we’re like, either I say you're right and figure it out, or I dig in deep and try to fight it, because I’ve spent so much of my life building [it] up.”

—Board Member

From the Founder

“This story captures a moment in time, circa 2010, when many of us on the frontline began questioning the purpose of pouring our lives into multi-year campaigns; the small victories often overshadowed by burnout and exhaustion. It was during this decade that we were part of re-shaping the mechanisms of our resistance -  exploring cooperative models of leadership and ownership and leveraging resources and power found in our communities. Movement Ground Farm’s (MGF) launch in 2014 struck a chord. Organizers from Boston and Providence joined the first CSA, drawn to the vision of MGF as a regional convener of organizations, a working farm, and a place of retreat. MGF felt like something new and, for a time, it held that intersection of ideas and hopes for what could be possible, if we were to win.  

MGF was grounded in these key questions:

  • How do we create organizations with diverse income streams and less dependency on corporate foundation funding? 

  • How do we - with our families, friends and comrades - fund and sustain our own organizations without access to generational wealth?

  • Can food sovereignty serve as an inspiration for movement sovereignty?

  • How can we bring together social justice organizations often siloed by issue and location?

  • What does it take to build a place of retreat, rest and renewal for movement organizers and to play a role in the sustainability of our movement?

Halfway through the timeline an LLC was formed to purchase the land collectively between a family and 9 individuals.  A 501c3 held the farming and mission-related work, keeping its reliance on foundation grants down to 30% of its income. The family that held majority ownership lived on the land and shared part of the house with the organization, its staff, and volunteers.  At its peak, MGF had 130 CSA members, nine staff and partnerships with six organizations coordinating CSA distribution across multiple cities.  Programs and events ran weekly. 

This is when things began to unravel.  And in this unraveling comes the core of what we hope to share here - the lessons in the questions, gaps, and challenges that, while sometimes discussed, were not strategically and thoroughly addressed from the beginning, despite our best efforts. Harvesting for Seed is our offering back to movement.”

-Founder + Executive Director

From the author

Holding Complexity: What This Resource Is and Isn’t

This resource is a synthesis of the voices of 20+ people who have loved and cared for this project. It is a reflection and a harvesting of lessons, offered to those working at the intersection of land and justice, food and healing. It is not a “How To,” nor is it a villainizing or martyring of anyone involved.

Too often, when we try to build something new and it falls short, we hear nothing about what worked and what didn’t. By the time a project ends, those involved are often exhausted, angry, or weighed down by shame. Lessons are lost, and the effort is seen as a failure rather than as part of a longer arc of work moving us toward the world we want.

Our hope is that, in reading this, you see yourself in this story—in the choices made and the lessons learned. As MGF closes its doors, we offer it as a case study, cracking it open for those of you working in nonprofits or cooperatives, in offices, or on the land. May it help us all move forward in this work with greater clarity, insight, and purpose.

Heartbreak and the Impact on our Movement:

It feels impossible to write about the sunsetting of this project without addressing the heartbreak and exhaustion that come with it. Among the more than 20 people interviewed, tears and disappointment were shared, and the heaviness of those still grieving was felt. Heartbreak is woven into the fabric of our movement work. We hold this work to higher standards, believing that this time- this place and this project- might be different. And when things don’t work out, as they often don’t, that loss settles deep into our bodies, informing what we do next and even limiting what we allow ourselves to believe is possible. We carry this heartbreak from project to project, afraid to trust again and lose even more of our faith.

But transformation is a process, and the work of building a better world is necessarily imperfect, unfinished, and in motion. The challenge is to stay with it- not just with the dream of what it might one day become, but with the messy and incomplete work of building in the present. At the same time, we have to allow things to end, to recognize when a project has run its course and when the world is asking something new of us. This balance- between persistence and adaptation, commitment and letting go—is one of the hardest things we navigate.

MGF held so much love, care, and the dreams of many, and because of that, its ending carries deep grief and heartbreak. And that heartbreak is not just about one farm—it’s movement-wide. It’s the pain of struggling to change our material conditions, of seeing our efforts fall short, of reckoning with the limits of what any one project can hold. And yet, the work continues. Not because we will ever get it perfectly right, but because we are committed to the process of becoming.