Announcement · April 18, 2024
Collective care
takes work.
It also takes investment, curiosity, and connection. buildJUSTLY empowers community ideas and efforts, and connects and aligns mission-driven work across sectors.
Our mission
Empowering a future where shared resources, human connection, and collective care create lasting economic and cultural impact.
Collective care
Care is something a community builds, not something it waits for.
Collective care means people and organizations looking after what they hold in common. It doesn't happen on its own. It asks four things of all of us.
01
Work
Showing up, following through, and sharing the load so it doesn't rest on one or two people.
02
Investment
Time, money, and attention put where a community says it needs them.
03
Curiosity
Asking how others see a problem before deciding how to solve it.
04
Connection
Relationships strong enough to hold disagreement and keep working.
Why difference matters
The most diverse ecosystems are the healthiest. People are no different.
Our differences are our strength. When we recognize our shared humanity through them and learn how to work together, communities and local economies become more resilient.
What we do
Four ways we practice collective care.
We empower community ideas and efforts and connect the people behind them. Some of our work is a report or a tool. Some of it is a public meeting or a potluck. All of it builds the relationships a community runs on.
01
Coalition building
We give community efforts what they need to work together: data, tools, a nonprofit home, and bridges to people they don't yet know.
Research and data
Research that shows who is reached and who is missed, so partners can act on evidence.
Examples: the Latinx technology research study we were hired by Microsoft to run with the Georgia Hispanic Chamber of Commerce (2021–2022), and our maps of technology access.
Tools
Practical, shared resources that any partner can pick up and use.
Examples: Tech4all.biz, a technology learning resource for Washington small businesses.
Fiscal sponsorship
A nonprofit home for community efforts, so they can receive grants and donations before they build an institution of their own.
Bridge building
Bridging ties don't form just by putting strangers in a room. We extend existing trust carefully, partnering with organizations communities already rely on.
Examples: past coalition partners Workforce Central, BBR Academy, Multicultural Child and Family Hope Center, and both Pierce County library systems.
02
Local economies
Local money stays local, but it needs a shot in the arm. We help people rethink how money, policy, and funding move through their communities.
Rethinking investment and funding
We help investors, policymakers, and funders see how globally held wealth and local tax strategy shape what a community can do.
Examples: How we think differently.
Small business support
Resources and gatherings that help local businesses grow and find each other.
Examples: South Sound Entrepreneurship Week, the Tacoma Black Business Book, and Tech4all.biz.
03
Civic engagement
Democracy works best when more people help shape the decisions that affect them. We make public life easier to understand and more welcoming.
Participatory democracy
Helping everyday people take part in local government: following meetings, planning, and budgets, and building skills like public speaking and listening.
Examples: The Public Lobby and its working agreements.
Nonpartisan ballot parties
Neighbors gather at local businesses to work through local measures in plain language.
Policy work
Bringing community voices to the tables where policy gets made.
Examples: seats on the founding steering committee of the Pierce County Digital Justice Coalition, Washington's AI Task Force, and the University Place Arts & Culture Advisory Commission.
Intergenerational civic mentorship
We're exploring cohorts where older residents and young people learn together how local government works.
04
Humanity and shared joy
Belonging built in ordinary times holds in hard ones. We create low-pressure ways for neighbors to show up for each other.
Shared meals
Neighbors share food from their cultures, meet people outside their usual circle, and choose a local project to try together.
Examples: Hello Neighbor potlucks and its online Party Line.
Play
Friendly competition as an excuse to meet the neighbors.
Examples: the Tacoma Neighborhood Beef League, a weekly cornhole league. Winter 2027 try-outs are Monday, January 11.
How we think differently
Why do so many communities struggle, even with good people working hard?
It isn't for lack of effort or care. The systems around us pull people and money apart. We start from the questions most strategies skip.
Coalition building
Why do organizations end up looking the same?
Funder requirements, copying the most visible players, and best-practice templates push every organization toward one standardized way of working. Researchers call it isomorphism. Real coalitions make room for different ways of working.
Local economies
Why does local money leave?
Rising property costs, national retailers, and wealth held only in stocks and corporate banks carry money out of town, and the subsidies that fill the gap are failing. Local money stays local, but it needs a shot in the arm.
Civic engagement
Why do so few people help shape local decisions?
Public policy and government processes can feel confusing and closed. When only a few people take part, decisions reflect only a few people. Participation matters more than expertise.
Humanity and shared joy
Why don't we know our neighbors anymore?
Ordinary life used to put us in the same places, and now it rarely does. That isn't a personal failing, and it costs us: belonging built in ordinary times is what holds in hard ones.
What this means for you
Are you leading a community organization or business?
Our consultancy, run separately from our nonprofit programs, helps you rebuild your financial, governance, and relational infrastructure around how you really work.
Visit the consultancyDo you hold investments?
You have more power to build local resilience than you may think. We help you see how: saving on taxes, investing close to home, and giving the way you already do, more meaningfully.
Start a conversationDo you shape policy or funding?
We help you rethink how to work across sectors, build efforts that last, and rethink how they are funded.
Talk with usDo you want to know your neighbors?
Come to a potluck, join a civic conversation, or bring an idea you keep thinking about.
Say helloWhere we've been
Technology was always the means, not the end.
buildJUSTLY began with digital equity: research, tools, and programs that brought more people into how technology gets built. That work taught us what we do now.
2020
buildJUSTLY API map gallery
Maps of device ownership, income, age, and race that show who technology reaches and who it misses.
2021
Community Connections
Our first event, on March 18, connected people from historically underrepresented communities with the people who design, market, and build technology products.
2022
Latinx technology research study for Microsoft
With the Georgia Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, we surveyed and interviewed Latinx small business owners in English and Spanish about what helps and hinders their use of technology.
2024
Tech4all.biz and our first WSMA grant
A technology learning resource for Washington small business owners, launched with WSMA and SPEC, alongside a grant to support microbusiness growth.
Now
Collective care and local circular economies
A renewed mission built on shared resources, human connection, and collective care.
Our writing
What we're learning, in the open.
We write on Substack, where each piece can carry its own context and reach more readers. Subscribe to either, or both.
Newsletter
Building with Kuleana
Words for what you've been feeling uncomfortably, and a different way to build. Essays on the hidden cost of extraction and working at the speed of relationship, rooted in kuleana: the Hawaiian value that holds privilege and responsibility as one idea.
Read on SubstackNewsletter
Hello Neighbor
A messy, Mister Rogers–inspired experiment in building community one human at a time.
Read on SubstackFrom the archive
Research · March 8, 2022
First Anniversary of our Community Connections Program
Read the postResearch · March 7, 2022
Technology Study Partnership with Georgia Hispanic Chamber of Commerce
Read the postGet involved
Donate
Your donation is tax-deductible as allowed by law. Give by card, or give stock, crypto, or IRA funds.
Join a coalition
Bring your organization, or an idea that needs partners, to the table.
Get in touchVolunteer
buildJUSTLY runs on volunteer effort. Lend a skill, an evening, or a seat at the table.
Volunteer with usBoard of directors
[Board members to be announced]