
<p>In March 2023, I had the opportunity to talk to <a href="https://climatemuseum.org/miranda-massie">Miranda Massie</a>, founder and Director of <a href="https://climatemuseum.org/">The Climate Museum</a>. I had never really looked at non-profit funding before, so this was a great chance to find out what’s going on behind-the-scenes.</p>
<p>How do climate and culture intersect on a day-to-day basis for an organisation focused on the climate crisis? The following is a summary of that interview.</p>
<h2>Limited funding for all</h2>
<p>When she began, Miranda expected that if you work for something in the middle of the Venn diagram of both climate and culture, this would mean that you’d be able to access funding streams from both sectors. She was wrong. She thought fundraising would be easier. It was the opposite.</p>
<p>It turns out that funding is very siloed. There are institutional funders for both climate funding streams and arts streams. You’d think they’d be perfect for an organisation doing both, but most of the time, you end up getting sent back and forth between the two programs.</p>
<p>Oh, you have a museum? You should go ask for the arts funding, we are doing climate change policy support.</p>
<p>Oh, but you’re doing climate change stuff. Yeah, no, we are focused on the arts. You should go check out the climate change funds.</p>
<p>Climate funding has been a challenge because, in global philanthropy, all forms of climate work are being funded at a <a href="https://www.climateworks.org/press-release/new-report-finds-still-less-than-2-of-global-philanthropic-giving-was-dedicated-to-climate-change-mitigation-in-2020/">level of 2%</a>, which does not reflect the urgency of the matter. This means that only 2% of funds are allocated to any and all work on climate.</p>
<p>The other 98% goes to other causes, many of them religious and educational (such as alumni solicitations). For cultural work on climate, you’d expect an important amount to be available, but this isn’t really the case. Miranda believes that’s starting to change, although we’re not there yet.</p>
<h2>Where does the 2% go?</h2>
<p>The lion’s share goes to climate policy research and advocacy. You see smaller sums going to frontline activist organisations and various climate justice leadership projects such as environmental justice groups, youth climate movements for intergenerational justice and other questions at the center of the climate crisis. Until recently, almost nothing had been identified as a philanthropic fund for the intersection of climate and culture/arts.</p>
<h2>The politics of funding for climate and culture</h2>
<p>There seems to be some resistance by traditional art funders to see art being mobilised for climate action because it can be interpreted as an instrumentalisation of the arts and a diminishing of artistic intrinsic values as humanistic expressions.</p>
<p>Although art has been <a href="https://artfilemagazine.com/political-art/">often used by many artists and movements to make political statements</a>, some art funders appear to feel that using art to drive policy and mobilise people for climate protagonism is vulgar or inappropriate.</p>
<p>This does not mean that things are not changing. The Climate Museum recently got a generous donation from a foundation that recognises the critical role that arts play to create the cultural shifts necessary for climate change policies to affect realities.</p>
<h2>Forget the money for a bit. What about the public? Do people really care?</h2>
<p>Yes, they do! Funding or not, Miranda experienced a positive reception to The Climate Museum from the general public from the very beginning. Attitudes today are so extraordinarily positive, that they have exceeded expectations. They have had young children insisting on having their birthday parties there and the Google visit reviews are amazing: 4.9 stars with 104 reviews.</p>
<p>
  <img src="/climate-museum-google-review-1.png" alt="5-star Google Review of The Climate Museum by user Mama Batata"><br><em>Recent excited Google reviews on how we need more spaces like The Climate Museum.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <img src="/climate-museum-google-review-2.png" alt="5-star Google Review of The Climate Museum by user Nicklaus Smith"><br><em>Another of The Climate Museum's many 5-start Google reviews applauding the work being the done and the staff.</em>
</p>
<p>This overwhelming support makes the gap between the public response and philanthropy action even more glaring, although this is not surprising as philanthropy is traditionally conservative to change. While Miranda senses a more stable and normative funding stream in the near future, she feels lucky to have had individual supporters at the beginning. Certainly, relying on your friends and personal network is not a workable business model, so it’s great when bigger institutions and complete strangers start showing up on your doorstep.</p>
<h2>The journey to sustainability</h2>
<p>Miranda left her job 9 years ago to found The Climate Museum and exhibits started 5 years ago. In spite of promising signs of change, the biggest surprise was how many problems there are in philanthropy. Although there are exceptions, it is normal for major foundations to spend their amounts by statute in a business-as-usual way which does not necessarily reflect global realities or needs.</p>
<p>This means that there may be little you can do, as an organisation, when asking for funds. It’s not up to you. It’s up to what the philanthropy wants to fund.</p>
<blockquote>
  <p>It’s hard to communicate that making exhibitions and cultural programming is neither free nor cheap.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>While there are some funding streams, like the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/28/arts/design/frankenthaler-foundation-energy-project-is-giving-museums-10-million.html">Helen Frankenthaler Foundation</a>, with a 10 million grant for the intersection of climate and culture - specifically carbon neutrality in museums - there is no established funding line for cultural programming.</p>
<p>In this context, Miranda has some advice if you work in nonprofits and heritage. <strong>Don’t give up.</strong></p>
<blockquote>
  <p>Whenever you have a chance to reach philanthropic streams, take it. Talk about the topic with everyone. You never know who might know about something or someone who might be able to help you. Many things never happen because no one talks about them. Many processes are hampered unnecessarily because no one knows enough about the issues.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>So let’s talk about things. Leave me a comment and share the article if you enjoyed it.</p>
<h2>Acknowledgements</h2>
<p>I would like to thank Miranda Massie for her time and her honest insights into the world of cultural and climate philanthropy for nonprofits. I write this article in the hopes that Miranda’s shared experience will help us in some way or another. Are you interested in collaborating with her? Let me know!</p>
<p>This article is part of the <strong>Founders in Heritage</strong> series. Read about the experiences of other founders and entrepreneurs in the heritage world through the links in the <a href="https://angelicaisa.com/blog">main blog</a>.</p><br><br><br><br>
<p>If you liked this post, you can follow me on <a href="https://twitter.com/ConservaLlama">Twitter</a>, check out my newest <a href="https://www.instagram.com/a.isa140/">Instagram experiments</a> or connect with me on <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/angelicaisaadaniya/">Linkedin</a>. You can also sign up for the newsletter below to get my latest articles straight in your inbox.</p>


The Climate Museum - At the intersection of climate and culture


<p><a href="https://www.analitika.ba/people/aida-kalender">Aida Kalender</a> founded <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/company/akcija-sarajevo">AKCIJA Sarajevo</a> with some friends in 1998. Akcija means “action” in Bosnian, and they began by organising large cultural music events for young people after the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina. This article is a result of an interview made in March 2023. I hope you enjoy reading Aida's fascinating tale as much as I enjoyed hearing it.</p>
<h2>On financial sustainability of non-profits and government support for museums</h2>
<p>The large cultural institutions in Bosnia had collapsed during the war, and smaller and more flexible independent initiatives seemed to work well in the late 90s. There were many non-profits in the cultural sector in Bosnia during those early years after the war and there was significant international aid and donations as culture was recognised as a strong vehicle for youth reconciliation, peace building, and democracy.</p>
<p>However, international funding never lasts forever and around the year 2000, there were other fresher conflict zones around the world and international foundations withdrew their financial aid.</p>
<blockquote>
  <p>Once these international actors were gone, the funding dried up. The withdrawal of international foundations created a huge funding gap which many non-profit organisations could not survive.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Professionalisation of non-profits and leverage of civic support</h2>
<p>In this context, AKCIJA Sarajevo began to look to find its new place in this new social context through the profesionalization of the sector by bringing in new skills in communications, management, cultural management, and policy.</p>
<p>The group identified laws in Bosnia and tried to engage with them through stakeholders from the cultural sector and mobilisation of citizens. They started organising a network of cultural staff and independent operators. This provided a platform for discussion about problems such as arts funding and gave them a collective voice.</p>
<blockquote>
  <p>“We did some initial research in the form of interviews with the people from the cultural sector, both from the institutional sector and from non-profits, to see what the biggest problems were, the obstacles and needs of the sector at that moment. Based on these interviews, we created a list of crucial issues in the cultural sector.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>One of the biggest issues was the lack of a Ministry of Culture at the state level. The lack of top-tier organisation created problems even for the largest national cultural institutions, among them <a href="https://www.zemaljskimuzej.ba/">The National Museum of Bosnia and Herzegovina</a>, which was closed from 2012-2015 due to lack of structural funding. You may see some of the international coverage of this event from October 3rd, 2012 in <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/oct/03/bosnia-national-museum-funding-crisis">The Guardian</a>.</p>
<blockquote>
  <p>The Museum had attempted to make a symbolic stand by locking the doors and placing bars on it thinking it would encourage a reaction from political bodies or society, but <strong>no one reacted</strong>.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>The importance of cultural policies and media exposure - communication is everything</h2>
<p>In 2015, AKCIJA visited the Museum by invitation of one of the employees. The general media had reported that the employees were unprofessional and lazy and did not know how to run the organisation. What Aida found in the Museum was shocking.</p>
<blockquote>
  <p>There were about 45 employees coming to work every day and guarding the collections. The Museum didn’t have electricity or alarm systems anymore. The staff realised they were alone. They organised themselves into 8-hour shifts to guard the Museum. They had been doing this for 3 years with no salary, health insurance or any kind of benefit.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>AKCIJA realised this story needed to be shared publicly. They called in a friend who was a professional photographer to create portraits of the museum’s employees and Aida ran a series of small interviews.</p>
<p>AKCIJA used this material as the basis for a public campaign/exhibition with video clips and photos of the staff called <a href="https://jasam.zemaljskimuzej.ba/">I am Museum</a>. They invited citizens and cultural organisations to the opening of their exhibition and to participate in the guarding shifts as an act of solidarity with the employees.</p>
<p><strong>The success was unprecedented.</strong> Citizens and personalities of the cultural sector showed up, hundreds of them every day to support the Museum. Some of them brought equipment to donate. Professors from the universities gave free lectures. Cultural organisations organised programs free of charge such as film nights, concerts and debates. Then the celebrities showed up, and with them, the media. The pressure on the political elites increased.</p>
<blockquote>
  <p>After 45 days of strong media coverage and social media marketing with images of citizens coming to support the Museum, politicians agreed to find the money to backpay the employee wages and re-open the Museum in September 2015.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Several months later, AKCIJA won the <a href="https://www.europeanheritageawards.eu/winners/employees-activists-national-museum-bosnia-herzegovina-sarajevo/">Europa Nostra award</a>, and the Museum expanded its international connections with large European and American museums abroad.</p>
<h2>Culture as a medium for Activation and Integration</h2>
<p>You would think this is the happy ending to the story. <strong>The non-profit organised civil society and saved the big Museum.</strong> Unfortunately, this is not the end.</p>
<p>The small AKCIJA team worked for over a year to make this project happen, but once the battle had been won, a new gap appeared. The work and power dynamic in the official public sector for culture was not the same as the non-profit sector.</p>
<blockquote>
  <p>The old balance of power relationships were re-established. You’re not part of the institution? Then you’re not part of the team. Thank you. We don’t really need you now. Goodbye. Business as usual now.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>What had seemed the beginning of a seed for public and civic collaboration, a partnership between State and non-profit art organisations, a model for sustainability, was gone.</p>
<blockquote>
  <p>“I saw this as a kind of public-civic collaboration, partnership, which could also be a model for sustainability for the non-profit sector because we basically share the same mission. We see culture as a public good. The state cultural institutions such as the Museum are also non-profit. They are a public organisation, and we are an independent organisation, but we are not commercial. I was thinking, okay, maybe we have the same mission. We can work together. We can share some resources. Maybe they have space we don’t have. We have other skills that can be of help. For example, the Museum didn’t have a website. We found the money to build them the website. Somehow, this collaboration didn’t work long after the Museum's opening, unfortunately…”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Aida feels there was a kind of prejudice on the side of the public cultural sector that people who work in non-profits are not professional and are nonconventional. It opened up a lot of new questions.</p>
<blockquote>
  <p>How do you work in a country with no core funding for non-profit organisations in the arts? Basically, you live project to project. You find things that are interesting and worth pursuing, but it means you have to switch gears every two or five years.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>“Once you are in this sector, it really becomes a part of your life. In countries like the Netherlands, <a href="https://business.gov.nl/financing-your-business/subsidies/arts-and-culture/">you have four years of funding for non-profit art organisations</a>. This doesn’t exist in Bosnia, but it would be very important to start changing the cultural policies systematically. It means introducing new policy models of funding. To do that, we’d need a strong coalition again, a very good campaign, a lot of media support. I’m still trying to recharge and generate some energy to maybe return and start some projects again.”</p>
<h2>The Sysyphus challenge</h2>
<blockquote>
  <p>“It’s really like ups and downs. You have some ups, you get some funding, you create great results, great amazing things. You get some awards, but then everything goes down.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>There is no ending to this story. <strong>Yet</strong>. Aida is recharging and hopes to begin again in the future.</p>
<p>But how are you supposed to build upon previous results? Aida feels like the current model’s problem is that, in many ways, you are always at the beginning. As soon as one project finishes, you are at the beginning again. There is no recognition or evaluation of your work. It matters little if your non-profit was founded yesterday or if it’s been around for 25 years, like AKCIJA - everyone is in the same pool competing for the same funding.</p>
<blockquote>
  <p>“Maybe we need a non-profit sector for culture with wider recognition by the cultural sector in general. We need to recognise that you can be independent, non-governmental and still be professional and talented. You don’t need to work within the framework of the public institutions - which can limit you in many ways.”</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Final thoughts on cultural non-profits outside the public institution</h2>
<p>Personally, I found some interesting differences with my experience in Latin America. Although both Peru and Bosnia had come out of more controlling political histories in the past years, the role of the State in both and the perceptions of the public are completely different.</p>
<p>While Bosnian society seems to expect strong services from its civil servants and is more likely to judge professionals in the private non-profit sector as less capable, the opposite has always struck me to be true in Peru. State institutions there are organisationally weak and the general impression of civil servants is that they are either lazy or mediocre or both - the kind of people who wouldn’t be able to get a job in the private sector because they’re not competent or hard-working enough.</p>
<p>Both of these views are generalisations, of course, but it was interesting to note that they were seemingly born from the local political structure. I would expect neither is quite the case for other countries, so I can’t speak for them - so please do share your thoughts and impressions on how cultural non-profits fit in the cultural sector of your area of the world.</p>
<p>Can we draw more parallels? Are we more similar than we thought at first glance? Or are we very different still? Are there any strategies we could share across borders to try to change cultural policies or are we all doomed to push the Sysyphus rock forever?</p>
<h2>Acknowledgements</h2>
<p>I would like to thank Aida Kalender for her time and her honest insights into the world of cultural non-profits in Bosnia during the early turn of this new century. I write this article in the hopes that Aida’s shared experience will help us in some way or another. Are you interested in collaborating with her? Let me know!</p>
<p>This article is part of the <strong>Founders in Heritage</strong> series. Read about the experiences of other founders and entrepreneurs in the heritage world through the links in the <a href="https://angelicaisa.com/blog">main blog</a>.</p><br><br><br><br>
<p>If you liked this post, you can follow me on <a href="https://twitter.com/ConservaLlama">Twitter</a>, check out my newest <a href="https://www.instagram.com/a.isa140/">Instagram experiments</a> or connect with me on <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/angelicaisaadaniya/">Linkedin</a>. You can also sign up for the newsletter below to get my latest articles straight in your inbox.</p>


What happens when a non-profit civil organisation decides to save a floundering museum?

AKCIJA Sarajevo - A non-profit art organisation's story


<p><em>Banner image courtesy of The Gallery Climate Coalition.</em></p>
<p>Early in March 2023, I had the lucky opportunity to talk to Heath Lowndes, the Managing Director for <a href="https://galleryclimatecoalition.org/">The Gallery Climate Coalition</a>. What does it take to organise the art world at a global level to reduce our sector’s environmental impacts? We talked about ethical fundraising practices and a balanced funding model for the intersection of art and sustainability. The following article is a summary of that interview.</p>
<h2>The Gallery Climate Coalition - The Beginnings</h2>
<p>GCC formally launched in October 2020 after about 10 months of development research, building the tools hosted on the website, and commissioning an environmental advisor to build the carbon calculator.</p>
<p>Their original intention was just to serve London’s commercial galleries and, somehow, 3 years later, they find themselves serving the entire visual arts sector at a global level. Heath credits it all to the demand and the interest. Serving just London felt ambitious at the beginning, but GCC soon started seeing members from around the world showing up. There were all different types of organisations and individual professionals, and GCC realised they needed to change tactics. They couldn’t just cater to commercial galleries in London, but align everyone towards the same targets using the same strategies to avoid duplicating efforts.</p>
<blockquote>
  <p>When the cofounders of GCC first started speaking about this, there was no such thing as COVID. We intended to do an in-person event, gathering people from the community to talk about issues, see who had done what already, and what we could do collectively. We wanted to ask a lot of questions. We sent out the invitations the week before the first lockdown and immediately realised later that an in-person event wouldn’t be possible.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Things had to change, so instead of asking the questions, GCC ended up giving the answers. They realised they had a bank of information that could help people. All the people who had received their invitations now came to GCC virtually with offers of support and insight. They all offered their lockdown time to help out with the projects. It was like jet fuel for the movement.</p>
<p>And then the conversation about environmental responsibility and climate action has gone mainstream in the last few years, so GCC was able to surf the waves. They have been able to provide all the information that everybody else was hoping to find for free. For the commercial gallery sector, GCC became the default place to go. Julie’s bicycle has been providing this information for the cultural sector as well as Culture Declares Emergency, but GCC’s model of providing free services through a coalition membership is unique.</p>
<h2>Art and sustainability from a non-profit perspective</h2>
<p>I asked Heath about funding. How does a non-profit working in the art sector for sustainability secure an income? He mentioned an initial amount of luck and overwhelming support for the cause from the sector. The increasing demand for GCC’s services every month is creating new challenges.</p>
<p>How do you provide a high level of quality and expertise if your membership system is free?</p>
<blockquote>
  <p>One of the things the founders of GCC were clear on from the beginning is that all the information had to be available for free. There should be no barriers to entry.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Everyone should be able to access the resources they need to take climate action and reduce their environmental impact. The issue is that the demand for this information is increasing every month - and the quality and expertise provided by GCC need to remain high. GCC is committed to providing updated information on best practices as informed by scientists and environmental consultants.</p>
<p>So the challenge remains, how do you fund that?</p>
<p>GCC accepts small voluntary donations, but they also have a <a href="https://galleryclimatecoalition.org/supporters/">Supporters Circle</a> made up of three tiers of giving: Patron £10k, Donor £5k, and Supporter £2k. The majority of the support coming from the Circle is from commercial galleries.</p>
<p>The idea is that the biggest earners in the art industry tend to be the biggest polluters as well (think about the environmental costs of putting up expensive exhibitions and auctions). In order to make up for that, the big earners can subsidize the access to the information for other smaller organisations and individuals in the sector who can’t afford private consultancy.</p>
<blockquote>
  <p>It’s a sort of environmental data crowdfunding which allows everyone to have the same information regardless of their size or income. Are you a small museum or a huge commercial gallery? You still get the same advice so you can take climate action at your level.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Some of the larger member organisations can afford a private auditor or a consultation with an environmental advisor to reduce their waste, so this is a way of sharing that information with everyone else. This model has allowed GCC to support its operations for the first few years, but it will continue to evolve as the demand grows.</p>
<h2>How are for-profit and non-profit GCC members different?</h2>
<p>There seems to be a certain reluctance from non-profits in museum settings, a certain feeling like money is a bad thing which you’re not supposed to get, or you’re not supposed to ask for even though you need it.</p>
<p>There is a big point of contention in art funding regarding where the money comes from. There can be uncomfortable conversations about dependencies. Is it possible to find “good” money? Is there “clean” money?</p>
<blockquote>
  <p>Heath has heard a lot of weary people in the art world say, “All money is dirty, just take it,” but he prefers to believe that there is good money out there. It’s just harder to find.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>
  <img src="/art-sustainability-meme-gcc.png" alt="Sustainable funding for art - Is it clean?"><br><em>Money that seems clean today may not be clean anymore tomorrow. How do you navigate the pitfalls of securing funding for your heritage or art institution? Your reputation is always at stake.</em>
</p>
<p>The GCC has an ethical fundraising policy and ethical partnership policy which they put together specifically to guide their decision-making about who the GCC will and will not work with.</p>
<p>As a new organisation, the GCC does not have a questionable history of funding which many old institutions grapple with, so they have the lucky opportunity to use a policy that delineates which money they can take and which money they should not accept. However, this does not mean that there are no potential traps.</p>
<blockquote>
  <p>15 years ago, the majority of UK cultural institutions were being funded by oil money, and, today, this is a source of shame. It is no longer considered acceptable for the arts to take that money.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>It was very difficult for many institutions to wean themselves from that kind of stable funding stream. Then the Sackler Family scandal in 2018 meant yet another philanthropy funding stream was no longer considered clean or morally acceptable.</p>
<p>So how do non-profits in the arts function? How do they do the work they need to do without falling into these funding traps?</p>
<blockquote>
  <p>Honestly? You just try your best and hope for the best. You put systems in place like policies. You can’t check every $50 donation you get, but you try.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>In the case of GCC, you say no to some organisations that take their funding from certain banks that have funds tied up with hydrocarbon fuels because that would make no sense. By the way, if you want to see what <a href="https://galleryclimatecoalition.org/ethical-fundraising-policy/">this fundraising policy</a> looks like, you can find it on the GCC website.</p>
<h2>Setting personal boundaries and getting advice</h2>
<p>What kind of advice would Heath give someone working in a similar non-profit organisation situation?</p>
<blockquote>
  <p>Starting something from scratch that feels very personal to you and becomes woven with your identity is probably not a healthy way to go about it in the long term.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>You might end up giving it evenings and weekends, far beyond what is a healthy work-life balance. It’s tempting to throw everything into a project that you want to succeed in, but it’s also important to take a step back and rest sometimes.</p>
<p>Get other people’s advice. You might be cautious about feeling like you can reach out to certain people to ask questions, but whenever you find someone who is even slightly interested in your topic, they will be incredibly generous and supportive.</p>
<blockquote>
  <p>“It’s just like reaching out to people you don’t necessarily know, but they’ve got something to offer you and love to do it. It has been an incredible experience. If I had known earlier that I could, I would have had the audacity to ask more questions from people in positions of power or knowledge.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>So who are these people? Directors of institutions, leaders of other climate initiatives, people working in the same cross-section of art and sustainability.</p>
<blockquote>
  <p>Don’t consider them your competition, but rather your allies. Collaboration and support are not only possible but also hugely rewarding and beneficial.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>How easy or difficult was it to set up the GCC as a charity in the UK?</h2>
<p>There is, as usual, government paperwork if you want to set up a charity. There are regulations which you probably know nothing about. Some of the colleagues in the GCC were able to sort out some of it, but eventually, they had to find an accounting firm that supported them with the official paperwork. Some of this was pro bono, and some of it was covered by a small donation to cover the administrative costs before they were even set up.</p>
<p>The fee to become a charity is not much, but the accountancy work to get there is not cheap. There is a monthly cost for accounting as well as bookkeeping. It will be different for everyone, but <strong>by the time GCC officially launched, they had already spent about ₤8,000.</strong> This is just to set you up before you can even receive donations.</p>
<h2>What is your best advice for someone starting a non-profit in the heritage sector?</h2>
<p>If you start something, it’s probably because there is either a need for it or because you are personally passionate about it (or both), so remind yourself of that as your purpose. When you get lost in the minor details and then forget you have a purpose because you are so busy managing an organization, you can lose sight of your original vision.</p>
<p>You know it’s not the best-paid sector in the world and a lot of people expect free work at some point, so you really have to care about it. Unfortunately, it can’t be a 9-5 job that you switch off. In order to make it a success, you have to really, really, really believe in it and care.</p>
<p>Climate is a very emotive topic. There’s pressure to do the work because of this massive thing hanging over us, but that’s a motivating factor. Find what motivates you and make sure it keeps you ticking. That’s very crucial.</p>
<p>And don’t forget it’s all about collaboration. If you are a small team with big ambitions, you can’t do it without teamwork. You can’t do anything without it, whether it’s sharing a building, resources, or a project. Forget working alone or having rivals in your sector. We don’t have time for that and it’s not going to make any of us better at what we do.</p>
<blockquote>
  <p>Working together makes you stronger, makes you more informed. Things are changing every day, every week, month to month. If you are working by yourself, how are you going to stay up to date? Be open.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Acknowledgements</h2>
<p>I would like to thank Heath Lowndes for his time and honest insights into funding non-profits for climate and culture. I write this article in the hopes that Heath’s shared experience will help us in some way or another. Are you interested in collaborating with the Gallery Climate Coalition? Let me know!</p>
<p>This article is part of the <strong>Founders in Heritage</strong> series. Read about the experiences of other founders and entrepreneurs in the heritage world through the links in the <a href="https://angelicaisa.com/blog">main blog</a>.</p><br><br><br><br>If you liked this post, you can follow me on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/ConservaLlama), check out my newest [Instagram experiments](https://www.instagram.com/a.isa140/) or connect with me on [Linkedin](https://www.linkedin.com/in/angelicaisaadaniya/). You can also sign up for the newsletter below to get my latest articles straight in your inbox.


Art and sustainability - What does it take to organise the art world at a global level to reduce our sector’s environmental impacts?

Art and sustainability - Reducing the sector’s environmental impact


<p>Fascinating journey through the world of alphabets, phonemes, graphemes, morphemes, writing systems, hieroglyphs and countless other insightful concepts that helped me progress in creating a 3D writing system. Thanks to Colin and my peer learners, I feel that I'm better connected to this beautiful universe of writing and symbols. Highly recommended to every polymath looking for new dots to connect with.</p>



<p><em>Wouldn't it be cool to invent your own alphabet? A unique form of calligraphy all your own? A script for one of the cultures in a world that you're building? Do you have a conlang that is crying out for a way to be written?</em></p>
<p>If you've ever asked yourself questions like these, <strong>Inventing Alphabets</strong> is for you. This course is a guided introduction to the practice of creating original writing systems as well as a grand tour of the anthropology, history, and linguistics of the world's writing systems.</p>
<h2>Course Goals</h2>
<p>By the end of this course, you will:</p>
<ul>
  <li>Have invented an original writing system for a language of your choosing (could be a conlang!)</li>
  <li>Understand the organizational principles which govern writing systems.</li>
  <li>Have become aware of the diversity of the world's existing writing systems.</li>
</ul>
<h2>Course Structure</h2>
<ul>
  <li>Students: <strong>10</strong></li>
  <li>Length: <strong>2hr sessions x 6 weeks</strong> (taught live over Zoom)
    <ul>
      <li>4 lecture sessions</li>
      <li>2 workshop sessions (space for Q&#x26;A and working side-by-side on your own writing systems)</li>
    </ul>
  </li>
  <li>Technical details: you can use whatever medium you like to create your system (either digital or using paper), as long as there's some way to show us what you've been working on! :smiley:</li>
</ul>
<h2>Syllabus</h2>
<h3>Week 1: The Origins and Development of Writing</h3>
<p>The goal of this class is to get you acquainted with how writing works and where it came from. First, we'll disentangle the ideas of language and writing: these things are distinct but related, and related in interesting ways. Then we'll explore the origins of writing. We'll look at the material, social, and economic environments in which writing first arose, and how these things influenced the shape of early writing systems. We'll end with an interactive exercise to explore the effect of writing material and technology on the visual aspects of writing systems.</p>
<h3>Week 2: The Structure of Writing Systems</h3>
<p>The goal of this class is to introduce you to the internal structure and logic of writing systems, using the Latin alphabet (the one you're reading right now) as an example. We'll look in more depth at the many ways in which writing relates to language. Then we'll introduce the different organizing principles that the writing systems of the world use which we'll be delving more deeply into in the second half of the course. We'll end with an exercise to develop an alternative alphabet for English or another language.</p>
<h3>Week 3: Workshop Session 1</h3>
<p><em>Workshop sessions are a combination of co-working, show and tell, troubleshooting, and office hours.</em></p>
<h3>Week 4: Writing Sound</h3>
<p>The goal of this class is to introduce you to the families of non-alphabetic writing systems that nevertheless represent sound: these are the <strong>abjad</strong>, <strong>abugida</strong>, and <strong>syllabary</strong>. We'll be looking in depth at three systems: the Hebrew abjad, the Devanagari abugida, and the Cherokee syllabary. The class will finish with an exercise where we try to adapt the alphabet we made last time into an abjad, abugida, or syllabary.</p>
<h3>Week 5: Writing Meaning</h3>
<p>The goal of this class is to introduce you to the family of <strong>morphographic</strong> writing systems, systems which primarily encode minimal units of meaning (i.e. <strong>morphemes</strong>) rather than sound. We'll look at the ways these systems manage the complexity of representing all the morphemes in a language, when the number of morphemes in a language has no upper limit. We will use as our examples Chinese characters, Egyptian hieroglyphs, and cuneiform. Finally, we'll end with an exercise to add some morphographic elements to one of the writing systems we've worked on in previous weeks.</p>
<h3>Week 6: Workshop Session 2</h3>
<p><em>Workshop sessions are a combination of co-working, show and tell, troubleshooting, and office hours.</em></p>
<h2>Who Should Sign Up?</h2>
<p>This course requires no linguistic training, knowledge of any languages but English, or artistic prowess. What it does require is a spirit of curiosity and play: <strong>curiosity</strong> because you'll be learning a lot about how people have written things across time and space, and <strong>play</strong> because you'll be experimenting, brainstorming, sketching and revising until you've made the writing system of your heart's desire.</p>


Inventing Alphabets

Bülent Duagi


<p>I've been taking <a href="https://twitter.com/colingorrie">@colingorrie</a>'s Meta-Skills for Language Learning course via @hyperlink_a and it's been incredibly insightful!</p>


<p>Learning a second language: Many people attempt it but few accomplish it. Despite the wide variety of books, apps, and courses promising fluency with little effort ("in only 15 minutes a day"), most language learners do not achieve their goals. But there is lots of research studying how language learning works and how to do it effectively. Unfortunately, few language learners are aware of it.</p>
<p>Let's fix that. This course is an accessible introduction to the science and practice of language learning. You'll learn:</p>
<ul>
  <li>How to select materials for language learning (and which kinds to avoid!)</li>
  <li>How to use language learning materials effectively</li>
  <li>How to manage motivation throughout the language learning process</li>
  <li>How your needs change as you progress from beginner to intermediate to advanced</li>
  <li>How to learn multiple languages at once (and whether you should!)</li>
  <li>How a little knowledge of how language works can save you a lot of time</li>
</ul>
<p>In short, this course provides you with a toolkit of knowledge, techniques, and mindsets you can use over your lifetime as a language learner.</p>
<h2>What You'll Get</h2>
<p><em>Meta-Skills for Language Learning</em> is a self-paced online course divided into 5 modules</p>
<ul>
  <li>Audio lessons with transcripts.</li>
  <li>PDF worksheets.</li>
  <li>Access to live monthly Q&#x26;A session</li>
</ul>
<h2>Structure of the Course</h2>
<h3>Module 1: Why most language learning resolutions fail</h3>
<p>In this module, you'll learn the answer to the question: <strong>Why do so many language learning resolutions fail?</strong> We'll talk about why we learn languages, and how your reason for learning a language affects how you go about learning it. We'll also highlight some unsuccessful strategies for learning languages and why they don't work. We'll discuss some assumptions people often bring to language learning and show you which are legitimate and which are false and unhelpful. Finally, I'll show you how to take an inventory of your language learning practice as it is today and use it as a starting point to build a new one.</p>
<h3>Module 2: The science of how we learn languages</h3>
<p>This module introduces the results of the last few decades of research in second language acquisition. We now know a lot about how language learning works. And it turns out that it's not much like the way most people go about learning languages. I'm going to bust language learning myths, and replace these myths with science-backed knowledge.</p>
<h3>Module 3: Spending your time and money wisely</h3>
<p>In this module we will use what we learned in the last module to review different types of language learning materials and methods: from formal classes and private tutors to conversation partners, textbooks, and apps. Along the way, you'll learn why <strong>the best apps for language learning aren't language-learning apps at all</strong>.</p>
<h3>Module 4: The language learning mindset</h3>
<p>This module introduces a factor that will make or break your language learning success: your mindset. I'll teach you practical techniques for working within the constraints of human psychology: techniques for maintaining motivation, fighting burnout, and keeping your love for language learning alive. I'll teach you <strong>the counterintuitive way you can keep your progress steady by doing less</strong>.</p>
<h3>Module 5: Creating your language learning roadmap</h3>
<p>In this final module, we'll taking what you've learned in the previous modules and apply it to your own language learning practice. We'll also discuss some special situations you may find yourself in, such as:</p>
<ul>
  <li>learning dead languages</li>
  <li>learning less-commonly taught languages, and</li>
  <li>learning multiple languages at the same time (including the age-old question <strong>how to learn Spanish and French at the same time without mixing them up?</strong>)</li>
</ul>
<p>Finally, you'll create a new language learning roadmap you can use to guide you over the coming months and years of your language learning.</p>
<h2>About Colin</h2>
<p>Colin Gorrie is a linguist and experienced language learner. He has been learning languages for 25 years and has spent a decade studying how language works. In this course, he joins his theoretical background in linguistics with his practical experience as a learner of many languages to give you the tools to get you making progress in your target language – and start having fun – once again!</p>
<h2>FAQ</h2>
<blockquote>
  <p>Is this course suitable for someone who has never learned a language before?</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Yes, this course is perfect for someone who wants to get start their language learning journey on the right foot.</p>
<blockquote>
  <p>Is this course suitable for an experienced language learner?</p>
</blockquote>
<p>If you are an experienced polyglot with a string of language learning successes under your belt, this course will likely be too basic for you.</p>
<p>However, if you've been learning a language for a while, and you feel frustrated with your lack of progress, this course will be able to help you.</p>
<blockquote>
  <p>Do I have to be learning a commonly studied language like French or Spanish?</p>
</blockquote>
<p>No, these techniques will work for any language – even dead ones! I'll show you how to adapt these techniques and apply these strategies to less-commonly taught languages as well.</p>
<blockquote>
  <p>Do I have to be available at a particular to take part?</p>
</blockquote>
<p>No, this class is completely asynchronous and self-paced.</p>

Meta-Skills for Language Learning

Fanny Luor


<p>Learning about the effectiveness of comprehensible input significantly improved my approach to learning German. Fewer boring flash cards, more interesting texts, podcasts, and videos. That insight alone was worth the price of the course.</p>


Glenn


<p>Colin is an absolute genius, a patient teacher, and a thrilling linguist.</p>
<p>He encouraged our cohort to explore unique directions and was able to facilitate everyone’s different ideas. Throughout the course, Colin brought each of our projects from a handful of lip-and-tongue noises to a complex, beautiful, and unique language. I hope to take another course with him soon!</p>



<h2>Course Goals</h2>
<p>This course is a hands-on introduction to making constructed languages (or <strong>conlangs</strong>) as a creative pursuit, taught by a linguist and experienced conlanger. The course also serves as an introduction to linguistics, but instead of learning the material in a dry, lecture style, you'll learn it all by doing. By the end of the course, you'll not only have created a language of your own, but you'll also have the ability to repeat the process and create whole worlds full of languages.</p>
<blockquote>
  <p>Colin is an absolute genius, a patient teacher, and a thrilling linguist.</p>
  <p>
    He encouraged our cohort to explore unique directions and was able to facilitate everyone’s different ideas. Throughout the course, Colin brought each of our projects from a handful of lip-and-tongue noises to a complex, beautiful, and unique language. I hope to take another course with him soon!
    —Jake
  </p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Length / Commitment</h2>
<ul>
  <li>Length: 6 weeks</li>
  <li>Classes: 2-hour live workshop sessions
    <ul>
      <li>These are live sessions but are recorded for you to review if you need to miss a session.</li>
    </ul>
  </li>
  <li>Homework: Approx. 1 hour per week</li>
  <li>Also includes:
    <ul>
      <li>Course textbook written by me, Colin (~90pp)</li>
    </ul>
  </li>
</ul>
<h2>Syllabus / Schedule</h2>
<h3>Week 1: Introduction</h3>
<p>What is a language and what does it mean to construct a language? In this session you’ll learn enough of the basics of linguistics to figure out what we need to do to make our first conlang. We’ll use this knowledge to break the task into chunks and set up a logical progression which will guide the rest of the course. Finally I’ll send you away with a mission to find a spark of inspiration for your first language that will guide you throughout the process.</p>
<h3>Week 2: Sounds</h3>
<p>What gives a language its unique sound? In this session, you'll learn about the range of sounds made by the languages of the world. You'll also learn a system of classifying sounds and use that information to create a palette of sounds for your language to draw on.</p>
<h3>Week 3: From Sounds to Words</h3>
<p>In this chapter, you'll learn how to combine sounds to make words according to a blueprint that you'll develop for your language. This is where your language starts develop its unique flavour.</p>
<h3>Week 4: From Words to Sentences</h3>
<p>This session is about going from your language’s first words to your language’s first sentences. To do this, we’ll learn the different strategies languages use to package meaning into words. Then we’ll learn about the different ways languages express relationships between words. This will give us the tools to start making sentences.</p>
<h3>Weeks 5–6: A More Powerful Grammar, Parts 1 and 2</h3>
<p>In these sessions we will start to increase the expressive power of your language by introducing the many things you can do with sentences that are not so simple. You'll learn thrilling grammatical strategies for adding additional details about when, where, and why something happened. You'll marvel at the ease with which you'll be combining sentences – ok, look: it's hard to write a captivating description of grammatical topics. But trust me, we'll have fun making your language capable of doing more.</p>
<h2>Artifacts</h2>
<p>By the end of the course, you will have created a set of core reference material for a new language:</p>
<ul>
  <li>A short guide to your language, including information on spelling, pronunciation, as well as how to form words and sentences.</li>
  <li>A small dictionary for your language</li>
  <li>A translation of a short fable (&#x3C; 100 words in English)</li>
</ul>
<blockquote>
  <p>
    I must say I was really curious before we started the course - and all of my expectations went completely fulfilled. I think the course is really well structured as a sort of path that guides the student through the basic steps of building a conlang. At week 0, I knew nothing about conlangs and in just two months I got to write a sample story, how exciting!
    —Sandro
  </p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Who Should Sign Up</h2>
<p>This course is for you if you:</p>
<ul>
  <li>Have a creative project you'd like to make a realistic language for (e.g. authors, game designers, worldbuilders).</li>
  <li>Want to learn to conlang as a creative pursuit.</li>
  <li>Are curious about linguistics and want to learn it in a fun and creative way.</li>
</ul>
<p>But it's probably not for you if you...</p>
<ul>
  <li>Are an experienced conlanger (this will be too basic for you).</li>
  <li>Are most interested in making a planned language for international communication (i.e. an auxlang).</li>
</ul>
<h2>Requirements</h2>
<ul>
  <li>No linguistics background is assumed.</li>
  <li>You'll need a Google account to participate in shared Google Docs/Sheets.</li>
</ul>


Language Construction Workshop

Jake Fee


<p>I've wanted to learn how to create a language but almost gave up hope until I found Colin's Language Construction Workshop. I started with nearly zero linguistics background, and in the end, I learned all the necessary foundations to create my first language. Colin is a fantastic teacher, and I want to recommend his course to anyone interested in making their first language!</p>


Ji Woo Kim

Natasha Lipman


<p>I must say I was really curious before we started the course - and all of my expectations went completely fulfilled. I think the course is really well structured as a sort of path that guides the student through the basic steps of building a conlang. At week 0, I knew nothing about conlangs and in just two months I got to write a sample story, how exciting!</p>


Conservation for everyone.

Recent Articles

The Climate Museum - At the intersection of climate and culture

AKCIJA Sarajevo - A non-profit art organisation's story

Art and sustainability - Reducing the sector’s environmental impact

Subscribe to my conservation newsletter