Greetings, Design Justice Network members, practitioners, signatories, and supporters! As we move into the winter months in the northern hemisphere, we know that everyone is carrying a lot. 2024 is coming to a close, and we want to share some gratitude & celebrations for all we've accomplished together, provide an update on our finances, and announce a temporary pause while we figure out the next phase of DJN’s ongoing evolution in the face of multiple genocides, the transnational rise of the far right, and the steadily deepening climate crisis. It’s hard not to feel overwhelmed, but together we must imagine other worlds and organize to bring them into being.

Gratitude

First, some long overdue gratitude and celebrations. We are all extremely proud of the ways that so many people have worked together to advance design justice over the past few years. There are far too many people involved in DJN to thank everyone individually, but in particular we need to express huge amounts of love for:

Victoria Barnett, who moved on earlier this year from her longstanding role as DJN Network Coordinator (2020-2024). Vic led numerous projects and developed programs to center members, local nodes, and working groups during DJN’s transition from a track in the Allied Media Conference to an international network in touch with people around the world who are practicing and embodying design justice principles. Read Vic’s transition note here;

Taylor Simone, who as DJN Special Projects Coordinator from 2021-2023 organized many beautiful member experiences, developed increased clarity around member benefits, stewarded our theme weaving sessions, and built facilitation guides to support local node and working group organizers, among many other efforts;

Rene Joy Brown, who as Network Storyteller from 2023-2024 improved our network-wide communications infrastructure, connected with many members to produce our Member Stories series, stewarded our social media accounts, and created our regular newsletters (among other things!);

Denise Shanté Brown, Jody Chan, and Corina Fadel, who as the Care Pod Team from 2023-2024 developed and stewarded all of DJN’s extensive Care Pod work, modeled and evolved care practices in design together with an extended network of practitioners, re-distributed over $50,000 in micro-grants to practitioners across the United States and internationally, and created a gorgeous and powerful archive of work related to care practices;

Thanks also to all of the numerous DJN Local Node and Working Group facilitators who continue to organize towards design justice in your cities and communities, in ways that resonate locally;

Finally, we want to shout out Nour Arafat, longtime DJN Member and Steering Committee Member, who in 2024 has also taken on a key contract (separate from her SC responsibilities) to help organize a series of events and to steward us through the next phase of our network’s evolution. Recently, Nour and Wes Taylor have also been working closely together to plan and host a series of DiscoTechs and public engagements in Detroit, Chicago, and beyond - stay tuned for more information in the future!

Celebrations

Next, a few highlights to celebrate. Although the full list would be pages long, in 2023-2024 the Design Justice Network accomplished SO MUCH together:

DJN Care Pods: Developed and launched extensive care and healing justice programming for network members, and recently, celebrated the closing out of this project. For more, see Reflections from Celebrating Our Care Possibilities + Farewell Digital Care Package;

Network Theme Weaving: Co-created a network-wide theme "Imagination is the Multiplier" with broad member participation, and implemented related gatherings and programming;

In-Person Gatherings: Hosted a Contractors and Steering Committee planning meeting in Ajijic, Mexico in February 2024;

Workshops & Project Jam Sessions: Facilitated collaborative workshops focused on radical futuring, post-capitalist design, and alternatives to A.I., including in Boston, Capetown, Detroit, LA, and more;

DiscoTechs: organized successful Discovering Technology events (DiscoTechs) in South Africa and Detroit;

Network Evolution: worked with skilled facilitators to explore the ways that DJN might transform to support more place-based communities and emergent projects rooted in a movement-centric praxis;

There are too many Local Node and Working Group events to shout out individually here, but they are all archived at designjustice.org!

Budget update

Over the last few years, DJN has evolved from entirely member-supported to receiving our first grants. We apologize that we haven't provided regular budget updates to the entire network, and we understand that this may have created some confusion and questions. We want to clarify that so far, the DJN Steering Committee has always been all-volunteer, unpaid labor. In the future, we commit to increased transparency and to regular (at least annual) budget updates. In this section, we provide a summary budget from 2021-2024, including a short budget narrative and a budget table.

DJN Short Budget Narrative, 2021-2024

In 2021 and 2022, DJN expenses were entirely supported by membership fees (small monthly donations) totalling about $75,000/yr. This money was spent almost entirely on paying 3 contractors to provide network coordination and special projects support.

At the end of 2022, DJN was invited to apply to two grants: a two-year, $250k/yr grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, to be split between the Care Pods work and general operating costs, and a two-year, $125k/yr general operating grant from OneProject.org. The initial grant disbursements arrived at the end of 2022, but the money was spent in 2023.

In 2023, with the grant support, we were able to improve the contracts for Network Coordination and Special Projects, create a new contract for Network Storytelling, and begin the Care Pod work, with a Care Pod Lead and multiple Care Pod support contracts, Care stipends across the network, improved accessibility, and more. We were also able to organize a small in-person gathering for the first time since the pandemic lockdown.

In 2024, with the second year of grant funding, we were able to improve key contracts (Network Coordination and Storytelling); continue the Care Pod work; organize in-person gatherings for contractors and Steering Committee to think through strategy; organize in-person public workshops and DiscoTechs in Detroit, Boston, and Los Angeles, and contract much-needed accounting support. DJN was also able to redistribute $50,000 to practitioners through micro grants, as well as provide multiple care honoraria and stipends to Local Nodes. Additionally, we were able to compensate DiscoTech station managers for their time (nearly $25,000 total). We also contracted outside facilitation support to help us hold space for the network’s evolution. 2024 will end with close to $100,000 in the DJN account, which, combined with expected revenue, should enable the network to continue operating through the end of 2025.

Additional detail and notes are available in the following summary budget table:

DJN Summary Budget Table, 2021-2024

DJN evolution: successes, challenges, and new pathways

As Octavia Butler taught us, “All that you touch, you Change. All that you Change, Changes you. The only lasting truth is Change.”

The Design Justice Network needs to evolve, as all things must. At the same time as DJN has begun to receive grants, the DJN leadership is deep into a process of exploring what the network’s future shape might be. The Steering Committee and key Contractors have attempted to do this in dialogue with one another and with the broader network. For instance, we held a series of theme weaving events, and we conducted a research process with local node facilitators to ask what they needed most (among other things, they shared a desire to see more facilitation training, templates for how to govern local nodes, guidance on how to start and end nodes, and additional support with communicating their activities across the network). Thanks in part to the grants that we received, we were able to meet some, but not all, of these needs.

In 2023 and 2024, alongside all of the other activities of the network, we contracted facilitation support and entered into a process of rethinking our network structure. Now, at the end of 2024, we are close to landing the new structure, but it’s not finalized. We do know that we want to intentionally shift DJN away from an academic- and industry-focused network back to our roots in place-based community organizing. At a time where the world is struggling with polycrisis and multiple ongoing genocides, our vision is that systemic change will happen through place-based organizing and translocal solidarity. We’re trying to develop a model for DJN that reflects these priorities, and we’re making every effort to do so through a process that reflects our shared principles.

We’ve made mistakes along the way, and we’re trying to learn from them. We know that we want to shift toward greater operating transparency within the network. We also know that we want to shift away from an all-volunteer, unpaid Steering Committee tasked with major fundraising and managing Contractors, towards a collective model where those who play key roles a) have the power to take part in decision making and b) are compensated equitably for their labor. The Steering Committee would like to thank current and past Contractors, Local Node and Working Group Facilitators, and Network members for your patience and understanding as we continue this transformative work in uncertain and polarized times. We have learned a lot about how we do and don’t want to operate, and we are determined to center accountability and care in our journey.

We’ll continue to work with the broader DJN community to develop and land this new model.

We plan to organize an event in early 2025 where we will hold a remote, network-wide meeting to discuss the future of the network. The agenda will be shared well in advance, a recording will be shared for any who are not able to attend at the time, and we will incorporate accessibility and care practices including technical support, ASL, and additional efforts to meet everyone’s access needs.

In the Spring of 2025, we’ll share back our learnings from the network-wide meeting, from consultation with local nodes and working groups, and from place-based activities.

After that, we’ll finalize the next evolution of DJN’s structure and share it back with the whole community.

Temporary Pause

Finally, as we often have done in the past, we will be temporarily pausing network communications during December and January. During that time, we will be pausing social media posts, Newsletters, and Event postings. We encourage Local Nodes and Working Groups to consider a pause as well, but it’s up to you! We won’t have capacity to respond to questions, comments, or feedback during the pause, but we will reach out in advance of the network-wide event early next year to seek additional input. We look forward to seeing many of you in 2025!

With love and in solidarity,

Nour, Wes, Elena, Boaz, and Sasha

The Design Justice Network Steering Committee