Black Lives Matter.
Fall Kill Creative Works is dedicated to bringing members of the community together to share stories and create art. For over ten years we have been present as a community of makers in the middle-Main community of Poughkeepsie. As a Board, directors, staff and members we feel that we are long overdue in publicly adopting policies and formally committing to engage as allies in the fight for racial, economic, and gender liberation*. We believe that Black Lives Matter.
We acknowledge that we have fallen short in our response to racial, economic, and gender justice for too long and as we step into the new year of 2022 we would like to publicly commit to fulfilling our mission to “foster connection and celebrate community by sharing our stories and creating together” with a lens focused on inclusion*, liberation, and accountability*. This commitment marks the beginning of a process of being a better nonprofit, community, arts space.
For those who have felt forgotten or silenced within our community and our organization, we deeply apologize and commit to targeted improvements. It takes more than words to earn the trust of the public – what is needed is action and accountability. As part of that commitment we recognize that we are embarking on a process of change, we commit to moving forward in the following ways:
In our community:
We commit to showing up in support of our community and with our efforts to improve the quality of life in Poughkeepsie. This means:
We will be a consistent presence at community events, celebrations, and initiatives that work to end inequity in Poughkeepsie.
We will center these events as a time to be in community with others and to participate actively as a positive force and constructive partner.
We value the stories that tell our collective truth as a rich, diverse city, but one fraught with racial tension and inequality. We will lift up the lived experiences of our community members in ways that celebrate culture, equity, and liberation. This means:
We will increase diversity in those taking our classes, working at our studios, and on our board to reflect the demographics of the city that we serve.
We will provide consistent opportunities for community members to lift up their own voices and experiences, using art and fine craft as a catalyst. This will be reflected in our programming options, in our commitment to youth & families, and in our gallery use.
We are dedicated to using our resources and spaces to ensure equitable access to the arts and opportunities for community groups seeking to improve our community. This means:
Our spaces will continue to be open to community groups seeking to engage in equity work for meetings, gatherings, or organizing efforts.
We will seek out partnerships with community organizations that are led by and serve our Black community and other marginalized groups.
In our field:
We are dedicated to amplifying the voices of those underrepresented in the arts. We will do this by hiring and promoting work of artists, staff, and volunteers who represent marginalized communities.
We dedicate our organization to leveling systems of hierarchy and prioritizing consensus-based decision-making.
We acknowledge the role that the arts has played in gentrification and displacing longtime residents in art-centric neighborhood spaces and we commit to channeling our resources into our local community and those who carry the historical legacy of Poughkeepsie. We commit to prioritizing long-time residents and historically oppressed communities in our work.
We will collaborate with other arts and community organizations in order to amplify our impacts.
In our organization:
Our leadership and Board are committed to establishing Fall Kill Creative Works as an anti-racist organization in our structure and impact on the community. The directors and board will continue to be engaged in critical analysis of the organizational practices, community impact, and personal relationships to power and privilege that permeate the work we do.
We are committed to receiving feedback through regular surveys, community meetings, and regular presence at community events. We will also complete an anti-racism audit within the first quarter of 2022.
We will continue to train our staff in Restorative Justice and Anti-Racism practices in order to structure equity of voice, sharing of stories, and self-determination as essential zcomponents of being in community together.
We will continue to offer tuition assistance for anyone who needs it at whatever price level works for them and find the funding streams to make our work accessible to anyone in our community. We are committed to making the process of obtaining tuition assistance non-invasive and dignified.
We commit to seeking out authentic involvement and participation of Black, Latinx, Asian, Indigenous and queer people on our board, on our staff, and within our classes. We commit ourselves to honoring the knowledge that comes from genuine diversity and the ways in which we will be better when we have a true representation of our community present in all aspects of our organization. We commit to authentic relationships with our community and denounce tokenism.
How we will hold ourselves accountable:
We will ask for feedback at the end of each season of classes from students, teachers, volunteers, board members, community partners, and community members. We will focus not only on trends in feedback, but specific feedback as it pertains to feeling valued, seen, heard, and liberated in our spaces.
We will critically assess our demographics and commit to reflecting the city’s demographics in all of our work.
We are committed to providing free and donation-based community events which lift up the success, knowledge, culture, and experiences of underrepresented groups through a spirit of joy, resilience, and community.
We will review this document critically twice per year, seeking out objective feedback and reporting to the public our progress with honesty and openness.
We will use equity and anti-racism at the forefront of our board's decision making to ensure that our commitment is woven into our structures.
This document is a work in progress and will be updated as we move through our improvement. If you or any of our community members have questions, suggestions, ideas, or comments, please feel free to contact Sara Boeck Batista, executive director, at director@fallkillcreativeworks.org
With deep respect for our community,
The Fall Kill Creative Works team
*For transparency, clarity, and accountability we would like to explain our working definitions of a few terms mentioned above:
Ally- Allys
hip is not determined by those with access to privilege but by those experiencing oppression. We seek to be allies and hope to earn that label based on our actions.
Liberation- Empowerment is often listed as the goal of anti-racist initiatives, yet this term is reliant on a group with power and privilege as gatekeepers to accessing that power. We prefer to use the term liberation to describe our goal. We wish to see restrictive systems, structures, interactions, and behaviors dismantled and unlearned in order to see a new way of living together in this world. Through liberation we are able to celebrate the deep wisdom, creativity, and joy of historically oppressed communities and this is our ultimate goal.
Inclusion- Our definition of inclusion rejects the status quo of systemic oppression and seeks to change systems rather than incorporate oppressed groups into our existing systems. We are committed to dismantling power structures that have created the need to include those othered.
Accountability- Our strategies for analyzing, naming, sharing, and improving our systems, structures, practices, and behaviors. Our commitment to honest, transparent, visible change can only be tested through accountability measures.