VITAL
LITTLE
PLANS
Vital Little Plans is an artist collective and giving circle that supports equitable, creative, and vital plans that are arts-driven and community-led for neighborhoods and places.
WHY WE EXIST
We believe all communities have the right to make independent choices about their future. We recognize the power dynamics existing between communities and governments, institutions, and economies are unbalanced and exploitative. This is rooted in systems of racism, colonialism, and patriarchy leading to the inequitable triple threat of underfunding, displacement, and lack of opportunity. Vital Little Plans exists to support creative and disruptive initiatives that are needed for communities to deconstruct harmful frameworks and advance equitable outcomes. We support initiatives led by and benefiting people who identify as Black, Indigenous, People of Color, Queer, People with Disabilities, and Working Class — and any intersection of these identities.
WHAT WE DO
We pool our money together to fund arts-driven and community-led plans
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We host a learning network for our peers working with communities
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We provide technical assistance to projects and communities
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MAMA'S DAY BAIL OUT CAMPAIGN
The People’s Paper Co-op / The Village of Arts and Humanities
Philadelphia, PA | Northeast
WHO WE ARE
We are artists and administrators, advocates, cultural producers, and grantmakers. We are storytellers, media producers, dancers, theater makers, and painters. Our collective is multidisciplinary, multiracial, and geographically diverse, and has committed to leveraging our personal time, talent, and treasure to advance justice in our communities.
Vital Little Plans supports network building and social weaving; we center relationships and trust in our work. We have a co-led collective that is horizontal, collaborative, and democratic. We give money, skills, time, and networks to artists and creative people in the U.S. who are doing hard work and leading positive, equitable change in their community.
GRATITUDE &
INSPIRATION
Our name, Vital Little Plans, is inspired by the remarkable urbanist, activist, and author, Jane Jacobs. She championed a holistic, human-centric, and community-based approach to city planning, which is central to our values and work.
We are also inspired by the work of ArtPlace America, and the incredible national community of artists, community developers, culture bearers, designers, government officials, philanthropists, and researchers it helped catalyze between 2010 and 2020 from rural, Tribal, suburban, and urban communities across the United States.
Our giving circle was incubated through Philanthropy Together’s Launchpad For You training program. We’re grateful for the incredible program and resources that helped us define our values and launch our collective work.
Possibility Labs have been instrumental in getting us logistically and technically prepared for our giving. Not only do the provide us with tools to get the work done, they are partners and friends in this work.
DROP US A LINE
Add your name and email for future communications from Vital Little Plans. If you have questions or suggestions for us, please fill out the prompt in the form and one of our team members will follow up in short order.