We are arriving at the end of another cycle of the return of the sun, and once again we have to close and reflect on the impact of the work we have done this year as a community. We are preparing for rest to recover the necessary energy to implement everything we’ve learned this year.

We want you to join us with joy, in a shout of celebration for the successes that MÁS has had this year!

We are celebrating growth in our collective management, conceptualization and production capabilities. This year we have planted seeds of healing that are germinating in our internal structure, through our work on “Soñando con MÁS”(our organizational planning) and Collective Budgeting, and in external relationships through events produced in collaboration with artists and organizations that complete our MÁS family.

We also want to celebrate that we have lived up to the goals we have set and that we continue dreaming and taking steps to heal our relationships with money and work through abundance-centered self-management structures that align with our values and desire for collective liberation.

Another reason for celebration is that we are including rest and recreation as a priority in our work agenda and as a strategy for restoration, social justice and racial equity. We celebrate that we are shortening distances, erasing borders, expanding language access, crossing territories and extending bridges to connect regions, resistance and culture throughout Abya Yala.

We celebrate that we are dreaming of radical changes and creating new ways of relating within the nonprofit field.

Here we leave you more details of our growth and successes, divided by programs and collaborations.

COLLABORATIONS

• RVC: This is our second year participating in the two-year fellowship for leaders of color to learn and support capacity building in BIPOC-led and serving community organizations committed to equity. Thanks to this collaboration we have been able to connect with our wonderful development coordinator Megan Gomez, who has done an excellent job leading our Collective budgeting process and bringing so much abundance to our organization.
• Clip: This year CLiP has supported us in creating a space for healing during the construction of our collective budget.
• BBA: We collaborated with the Beacon Business Alliance (BBA), in the production of “Beacon Hill Small Business Pregones”, an outdoor event that celebrated the oral traditions of Latin America and the Caribbean. The event highlighted the cultural diversity of Latin American and Caribbean communities in Seattle, reflecting the contributions of Indigenous and Afro-descendant peoples. As a result of this collaboration, 5 groups created promotional songs for 5 small businesses in Beacon Hill.
• UCC: We continue to grow in partnership with the UCC. This year we built a small work table and we will officially be using the space as an office twice a week.
• Mental Health Matters: We serve as a bridge to bring artists to Mindfest, a free community event to celebrate and promote mental health with music, entertainment, art, vendors, panel discussions and more.
• John Stanford Intl Elementary School: We organized an in-person student assembly with 400 students and a virtual panel discussion between a Brazilian artist Silvio Dos Reis and a Puerto Rican artist Otoqui Reyes, about their art forms and how it intersects with their traditions, culture, and community, historically and currently, and the importance of Afrodiasporic art in advancing the racial equity movement.
• Benaroya Hall: Thanks to the Seattle Symphony’s Community Stage Fund grant we were awarded this year we were able to produce an event at Seattle’s Benaroya Hall, showcasing a variety of music and dance traditions from more than 9 regions in Latin America. Ancestral whispers aimed to unify our Afro-diasporic communities by bringing the cultural knowledge and artistic manifestations of the Afro-Latin American diaspora and exemplifying the deeply rooted cultural connections.