Zebras that Dazzle: How Aria Joughin is designing a more just and democratic future
Hi everyone, this is Linzi Fidelin, coming to you with another inspiring Zebra in the Wild!
This month I spoke to Aria Joughin, who is a Founding Member of Zebras Unite Coop and the Oregon New Economy Project, as well as the Founder and Principle of MakeWith, a collaborative consultancy providing research, design, and strategy for a more just and democratic future.
Aria has a lot to say about educating about economic democracy, building their business, which has Zebra written all over it, and about what it took to get them to the point where they were ready to launch into their life work.
If you are at the beginning of starting a new initiative, if you’re wondering what being a Zebra means and how it can benefit you, or if you are interested in the economic democracy space; then this one’s for you.
Hey Aria. Tell us about your journey to becoming a Zebra:
My journey to becoming a Zebra actually began when I was 19 years old, long before the concept of Zebras Unite was even a twinkle in the doulas’ eyes. I went to the same college as Mara Zepeda, who was in the process of starting a project called Switchboard (which would later become her first startup). I was traveling around the Bay Area with my dog and I used the Switchboard hotline to find a place to stay; I got connected to a lovely stranger who welcomed me into his home even though he wasn’t even going to be there. The experience was such a breath of fresh air that I wrote a love letter to Switchboard, and to the vision of mutuality, trust, and community that the project embodied.
When I graduated I ended up coming on board as one of Switchboard’s first employees. Since then, Mara and I (and eventually Jenn Brandel) have maintained parallel paths, coming in and out of collaboration along the way. It was only natural that when I was ready to start my company I would connect with Zebra’s Unite and jump in to contribute as a Founding Member.
Tell us about what makes your company, MakeWith, a Zebra?
So much of what we do at MakeWith is informed by Zebra values. Our approach to research, design, and strategy is oriented around creating mutual value, increasing meaningful participation, and producing outcomes that are good for business, people, and planet. We’re deeply informed by systems thinking, interdisciplinarity, and community organizing and we believe real equity requires shared power. This is especially important in our work with ecosystem builders because they hold so much power in determining what resources are available and how they are distributed to individuals and organizations.
We’re also striving to embody Zebra values in our internal structure. As a first-time business owner, I am trying to be as thoughtful as possible about things like ownership and governance, procurement, and operations, as well as how we can always be reinvesting in community. One thing I value about being a Zebra is that it gives us foresight. Because we’re part of a community of people who are all asking similar questions and engaging in similar struggles, we get to skip through some of the harder lessons and learn from our peers who have come before us.
I also find enormous value in Zebras as a space to explore how knowledge about finance, ownership, and business structures can be put in the service of social movements. These things can be complicated, problematic, and deeply unsexy but I think they are extremely important to engage with in our fights for racial, economic, and environmental justice. Outside of MakeWith, I am involved in a variety of projects focused on growing economic democracy, which is a framework oriented toward producing racial, economic, and environmental justice by democratizing ownership and decision-making in different aspects of our economic lives. One project is the Oregon New Economy Project, which is working to advance worker ownership in Oregon. Another is the Economic Democracy Exchange, which is connecting service providers with movements for economic democracy across the USA. Finally, I am working on launching two new initiatives. The first is focused on equipping journalists with more tools to report on economic democracy. The other is focused on creating networks, research, and shared infrastructure that will enable more youth and school-based education related to economic democracy across the U.S.
So, yeah, you might say I’m pretty much a Zebra through and through. Ha!
It sounds like you have been doing some incredible work. What have you learned about yourself along the way?
When I think about lessons, most of them revolve around what it took for me to be willing and ready to start a company. It was always something I had considered doing but I avoided it for a long time. My early career was characterized by a lot of ambivalence and the never-ending search for “unequivocally good work.” I freelanced. I traveled. I wasn’t rooted in any communities. And then eventually the moment arrived. I think it was informed by a confluence of factors, getting older, a lot of self-work, and a global pandemic, but I decided “you know what, I’ve invested nearly ten years in this career, I’m good at it, and there are even things I like about it — maybe I should just commit and see what happens when I take full responsibility for my work.” So that’s what I did. I let go of my attachment to perfection, to finding “the perfect job,” and I embraced the idea that wherever you’re at right now is a really good place to do the work.
Though super important, those weren’t the only shifts that I needed to make to get to where I am now. Learning how to have and hold healthy boundaries was a prerequisite for taking responsibility for my career. As was pushing through the fear that I couldn’t or shouldn’t try to contribute to the conversations that matter to me. Through reflection, experimentation, and the help of many friends, I finally came to the conclusion that a.) everyone I’ve ever learned from was someone who has chosen to share even though they know they aren’t done learning themselves, and b.) it’s more important to be willing to listen and gracefully adjust your behavior in response to feedback than to anticipate the exact right way to contribute all the time, which isn’t possible anyway.
So those are some of the things I’ve learned about myself that led to my starting MakeWith. Since starting, I’ve been thinking a lot about how hard it is to live up to my commitments to do things in a more ethical and thoughtful way when I am rushed. Hiring, contracting, communication. I can have the best intentions but the minute I experience a sense of urgency, it’s so easy to fall back on whatever is closest or easiest. One of my biggest long-term goals is to build the internal capacity of the company, through relationships, structures, and processes, to minimize urgency and be able to act on our best intentions.
Tell us what the world will look like when your vision is achieved.
I want to live in a world where people are able to exercise collective self-determination in every part of their lives. Where people make decisions together about the way that they work and what to do with what’s left over after the bills have been paid. Where people, especially those who have consistently been denied the right of self-determination, get to decide together what gets built, what resources are available, and what collective good looks like in their neighborhoods, cities, and regions.
It’s not a fixed state. It’s not some utopia…it’s having the tools, capacities, and frameworks to constantly renegotiate our reality so that it serves all of us in real time. That’s the world I want to live in.
Who would you like to shout out?
These three organizations are doing incredible community and economic development work that specifically advances collective ownership and democratic decision-making as a tool for building real economic power in Black and brown communities. They are a constant inspiration.
And do you have a question for the Zebras Unite community?
As I mentioned earlier, one of the initiatives I’m working on is around proliferating youth and school-based education for economic democracy. So my question to the community is;
What are the skills, knowledge, or experiences that you would like to see the next generation of Zebras learn before they begin their careers? How would having access to these things earlier helped you in your journey?
I’d love to hear from folks about their experiences, and also from others who are interested in this work. You can find me at any of the following places:
Aria Joughin @acjoughin
Founder + Principal, MakeWith @MakeWithCo
Founder Economic Democracy Exchange
Founding Member Zebra’s Unite Coop
Founding Member Oregon New Economy Project
Co-founder Design Justice Network Portland Node
Thank you so much Aria, it’s been just wonderful speaking with you.
Thank you, Linzi.
