After this past year of pandemic, global uprisings and economic crises, and major organizational shifts at NEC, our small team is in need of deep rest. We’ve collectively decided to slow down our work and close our office during the month of August. The majority of our staff will be offline, with one to two people contracted to hire and onboard new staff members. 

By closing our office, we feel we can create a different quality of break for our team. We want to honor that many members of our staff have not had time with their families and wider communities since the COVID-19 pandemic began. We see this as a time for staff to reconnect with loved ones and come back refreshed and more whole as we face the work ahead.

We also want to acknowledge and shout out NEC members who are implementing and inspiring similar practices of collective care, like the US Federation of Worker Cooperatives, Resource Generation, and others!   

The past year has been a time of major change at NEC. In the last 12 months, 6 staff members transitioned out of the organization, including 3 out of our 4 interim co-directors. Because of these changes, our work has shifted inwards. We have been deep in a process of self-reflection, landing our strategic plan, reorganizing our internal structure as a worker-self directed non-profit, and designing a new membership structure. 

We are truly thankful for the foundational contributions that past staff members made to all of these projects, as well as to our board members who have shown up to support us through this time.  

As we prepare to move from this phase of inward work to back to more outward-facing work, we want to be ready and rejuvenated to give the work the focus and energy it deserves. This means that for the month of August we will be pausing: 

• Our monthly all-member call and member update newsletter 
• All public facing communications and social media work
• The New Economy Roundup newsletter
• Some working group communications 

In general, we will be slower to respond to external communications and we appreciate your patience during this time. While we’re away, you can check out our member directory to learn about the incredible solidarity economy organizations in our network, catch up on the New Economy Roundup archives, and check out resources from our library.

Thank you for your support!

With care,
The staff at NEC