Birthing and Cultivation Manifesto PDF
Our collaborative’s purpose of creating tools and frameworks to advance equitable systems change invited us into a space of innovation and design. We had defaulted to using the language of “prototyping” to describe the work we would do to build out our tools and frameworks, despite most of our members being unfamiliar with this approach.
As we moved to begin prototyping, we realized we felt uncertain and intimidated by the process. We explored the source of these feelings and it became clear that based on our current understanding prototyping didn’t resonate with how we had been holding our work. We worried about following a process that would perpetuate capitalism’s investment in mechanical solutions.
We decided to slow down, examine our limiting beliefs and get curious about our internalized narratives. As we explored how we would move forward, we decolonized our assumptions about producing tools and frameworks. This journey led us to develop our Birthing & Cultivation Manifesto. It has grounded us as we have birthed the tools and frameworks we are sharing with you now.