December 5, 2022
SFPC Winter 2023 Community Fundraiser logo and banner designed by Lynne Yun.In honor of our 10 year anniversary coming up on November 1, 2023 of this year, the School for Poetic Computation is proud to announce our first annual Community Fundraiser, which we hope will inaugurate a tradition of mutuality and reciprocity within and beyond our school. This season, we have an ambitious goal of raising $60,000 to go towards opportunities for free and subsidized classes and events.
SFPC's organizers, teachers, and admin have given their time, their labor, their hearts, and their minds to create a beautiful place of learning. Now, we kindly and gently ask for others to reciprocate. In the spirit of shared accountability, we’re encouraging our more privileged friends of the community near and far to take part in this fundraiser to ensure that everyone has a chance to study without bearing an undue financial burden. It is clear to us that sharing resources is paramount to the goals of SFPC. If our vision resonates with you, and you are financially able, please consider contributing generously to this fundraising effort. There is enough wealth in this community to make sure no one is ever rejected because of their inability to pay. Please help us make SFPC the impactful, imaginative, and transformative center of poetry and justice that we know, and have demonstrated, it can be.
Artists within the SFPC community have donated a wealth of objects, art, prints, ephemera, gadgets, merchandise and more, which you can purchase in our community market. All proceeds from purchases made in our online store will go directly towards the Community Fundraiser.
Six ways to support our community fundraiser
There are many ways to participate in our community fundraiser! Here are six ways to help us get to $60,000!
- Make a one-time or tax-deductible donation!
- Become a member on Withfriends!
- Buy an item from our community market!
- Ask your employer to match your donation!
- Share a testimonial!
- Spread the word about our community fundraiser!
Our history, politics and values
SFPC was established at a time when the question of access was at the forefront of our collective minds. Who is and isn't granted access to resources and opportunities — and why? Born within and from the context of the Occupy Movement, the founders of SFPC conceived of the school as a protest against the oppressive financial structures of most universities. The new co-directors of SFPC have taken this vision in an even more radical direction: Today, our primary goal is to create an alternative framework that embraces mutual aid and intellectual/emotional nourishment; we act in direct opposition to institutions and financial models that prevent people from participating in continuing education programs.
At our core, we believe that a different funding model for schools is possible — and deeply necessary. So far, we have mainly relied on tuition, but we’re increasingly looking to escape the for-profit model and find new ways to fundraise for our community. We spend considerable time thinking about the practical barriers that people may face in their efforts to join our community and how we may be able to alleviate them. We know that financing continuing education is a big deal, and is simply unattainable to many of the people we’d love to welcome into our community. For that reason, we’re putting everything we’ve got into making this program more accessible to everyone.
Our commitment to wealth redistribution
In July 2021, we shifted to asking applicants to name their ability to pay—including inviting participants with intergenerational wealth, professionalized jobs, or savings, to pay more than full price to support the learning of their peers. And we’re grateful that so many people have done so, proving SFPC’s potential as a platform for wealth redistribution. We want to keep this energy going!
In just two years, SFPC has distributed more than $120,000 in scholarships. Imagine what more we could do with this yearly community fundraiser, what difference we could make if the wealthiest among us redistributed their wealth and shared their access to their resources. This is an immense opportunity for our school and the community at large, and we’re so grateful for the chance to make it real.
A big thank you to…
We’re thankful to our generous donors and Withfriends members for supporting scholarships in such a direct way. Gratitude for our community—past, present, and future—for our supporters, for those with curiosity who take a leap into this space, for the teachers, participants, and everyone in between.
Credits
- Fiscal sponsor: Gray Area
- Organizers: Che-Wei Wang, Galen Macdonald, Melanie Hoff, Neta Bomani, Tega Brain
- Community Market donors: American Artist, ann haeyoung, Carolyn AHearn, Chang Yuchen 常羽辰, Char Stiles, CW&T, Cy X of Pleasure Ceremony, emma rae bruml norton, Fern Goldfarb Ramallo, Galen Macdonald, Herdimas Anggara, Ida Benedetto, Jackie Liu, Jer Thorp, Jie Qi, Juan Miguel Marin, Kameelah Janan Rasheed, Liza Stark, Luke Demarest, Matt Jacobson, Maya Man, Meghna Dholakia, Mindy Seu, MORAKANA (Tiri Kananuruk and Sebastian Morales), Neta Bomani, Paola Antonelli, Paul Soulellis, Ritu Ghiya, Ruha Benjamin, Ryan C. Clarke, Samantha Griffith, labr (Sam Lavigne & Tega Brain), Shannon Finnegan, Shiraz Abdullahi Gallab, Simone Browne, Space Type (Lynne Yun & Kevin Yeh), SPACEFILLER (Alex Miller), Surya Mattu, The Coding Train, Tiny Tech Zines, Zainab Aliyu
- Design and web development: Space Type, Zainab Aliyu
- Editorial: Kate Silzer, Neta Bomani
- Advisors: Legacy Russell, Makayla Bailey, Momo Ishiguro
- Former founders and administrators: Amit Pitaru, Jen Lowe, Taeyoon Choi, Zach Lieberman; Casey Gollan, Lauren Gardner