The Inclusive Makerspace: Key Insights Into How Open Works is Authentically Growing a Diverse Maker Community
Open Works is geographically located in Central Baltimore in Greenmount West — a neighborhood in a state-designated Arts and Entertainment District that’s seen a great deal of revitalization in the last five years. Today, the population of the neighborhood itself is diverse with a good mix of residents that span a spectrum of low- to upper-middle class incomes. There are two schools in our neighborhood, several artist live/work spaces, senior housing, and a handful of community-focused organizations such as Noisy Tenants, a youth social enterprise after school program, The Station North Tool Library, a tool lending library and public workshop and BYKE, a bike shop for youths and women that teaches kids how to use tools to build and repair bicycles.
It has not always been that way. Some nearby communities are still working to combat blight and build healthier neighborhoods. The Greenmount West Community Association works closely to build relationships not only with its residents, but also with the institutions and organizations in adjacent communities as well.
Some of the challenges we faced when we first opened our doors were that people that have lived in the neighborhood for years did not think that our organization was a place for them. Many did not consider themselves makers, even if they were, and most certainly did not think that anyone would invest tons of money on a new building and million dollars’ worth of tools and technology for neighborhoods that never even got a grocery store or library. As an artist myself who has been living and working in Baltimore for over a decade, it was more common than not to be the only or one of a few people of color in creative spaces. I was hoping to upset the status quo when I joined the Open Works team and grow a creative community that reflected the actual demographics of our city. Makerspace membership demographics, generally speaking, tend to skew white, male, college-educated, and middle class. Knowing this, we had to think outside of our comfort zones. Here are 3 key strategies that we employed to begin building a diverse and inclusive maker community:
1. Hire employees of color. For most people, our networks usually consist of people that look like ourselves. People are more likely to feel comfortable even walking in the door if they see someone that looks like them already inside. As a non-profit makerspace, we also selected a board of directors that is as diverse as the community we desired to grow. With two new invitees coming on our board in March, it will be comprised of three African American, two Asian American, and two white board members, with four of seven of them being women.
2. Be a good neighbor. When I first moved into my current neighborhood, my next-door neighbor and I had many conversations at our shared fence before we ever entered each other’s home. When Open Works moved into the Greenmount West neighborhood, remembering that we were in fact moving into a neighborhood and that we still needed to build neighborly relationships was key. We opened our doors about a month before our grand opening. Anyone that wandered in, we welcomed and gave them tours of the space. After we were open for several months, we also partnered with two community members who started a food justice consulting business to operate a weekly farmer’s market in our parking lot. Our market not only provided a platform for Open Works members to sell their wares or grab a bite to eat before working in our shops, but also became a platform for many first-time food vendors to grow their businesses, a place for the community to gather and socialize, and provided fresh produce options in a food desert. We also scheduled regular facility tours during the market hours to give market attendees an opportunity to see what was going on inside and we brought making activities outside to them. We slow-walked relationship building to give time for making genuine connections with community members.
3. Be Real. Be intentional. Be really intentional. It’s very easy to continue life with business-as-usual intentions. Challenging the status quo is hard; it’s especially difficult when we are challenging racial norms that are built on a 400+ year foundation. It takes a willingness to listen, to be wrong and to want to actually make change. One of the best things that our Executive Director has done for our organization is to recognize that as a white male who’s lived a mostly comfortable life, he should be open, a good listener and let others who have experienced the effects of racial and gender inequities take the lead. Some of the steps we took grow a diverse and inclusive community included:
* Hiring a community outreach person who is also the president of our community association. She helped us build relationships with residents who are most engaged in our community.
*Developing relationships with our neighbors and grew our maker community we asked for feedback about the how we were doing and we listened. We responded to seniors in our community when they said they would love to use our facilities but couldn’t afford the cost of classes by creating free and pay-what-you-can eight-week courses in woodworking and sewing. We also created a work-exchange program for access to membership for individuals who would normally not be able to afford membership and created a scholarship fund for classes.
* Using our classroom space to allow meetings of mission aligned organizations and community organizations for free or at discounted rates. We use our lobby space to host free events in conjunction with other organizations and we program our public space with events like pop-up shops for specific groups. On Black Friday we hosted an anti-big box pop-up shop that featured the wares of 30 black-owned maker businesses. We discovered that there were quite a few black makers in the neighborhood who were making and selling things, but not yet taking advantage of the resources we have here and all it took to get them in our doors wan an invitation. We’ve also done co-programming with other organizations like the Baltimore Women’s Maker Collective and Moms as Entrepreneurs to introduce our space and resources to as many women as possible.
Results: We have built a staff that is 50% people of color and our audience (membership + class enrollees) is 44% people of color. In our member survey taken last October, 3 of the top 4 positive things folks identified about being here included out staff, our community, and a supportive culture and atmosphere.
Are we done? Of course not! Have we made mistakes? Of course! We have a long way to go towards making Open Works the radically inclusive utopia we all know it can be, but it all starts with sincere intentions and follow through.
