Pollen Midwest

Justice is rarely offered freely. It is instead demanded and fought for by a populace ready to move beyond the inequities of the status quo, and toward a world that is freer, more just, and more loving. 

But a community can’t be ready for change if it’s mired in old narratives. To leave the status quo behind, communities need to imagine a new path forward. 

Pollen explores those paths through stories, art, and the power of human connection. We break down harmful narratives, and build up narratives rooted in justice, community, and our shared humanity. 

BLOOM WITH US

Lasting narrative change requires multiple spheres of influence, which is why Pollen is committed to growing, nurturing, and strengthening our region’s capacity for building narrative power. Investing in a strategy centered around narrative change means investing in our team of expert storytellers. To be better catalysts for narrative change in our communities, we spent the better part of 2022 restructuring our organization, investing in our team, and preparing for an executive director transition to guide Pollen on this new path. Read more about our process, reflections, and takeaways in our Bloom series. 

  Our goal to raise $55,000 by the end of 2022 to scale the impact of our work and continue investing in our team. Funds raised will go toward:

• Professional development and leadership coaching for the entire team
• Staff retreats to dive deeper into our narrative change strategy
• Attending narrative change conferences and conducting research and analysis on the impact of narrative change to expand our knowledge and expertise in the field
• Hiring additional positions in 2023 to continue building our capacity

INVEST IN NEW NARRATIVES

Stories encourage us to fight for each other when our beautiful and flawed humanity is threatened. Right now, those threats are numerous and compounding. That’s why Pollen exists — to create and share narratives of possibility that inspire us to imagine something better, connect us, and ready our hearts and minds for the work ahead.

Every story Pollen publishes, every event we host, and every job or action we share is an opportunity for the personal, collective, and systemic transformation that narrative change requires. When you donate to Pollen, you make it possible for transformational change to take root in your community—the kind that shifts power and makes way for a new narrative that reflects our shared humanity.

Support Pollen. Support new narratives. Imagine something better.

The financial support of Pollenites like you power our work to:

• Reveal the stories of individuals who help us find hope in a future that we cannot yet see, reshape our culture’s values, and rethink the narrative of poverty. 
• Connect with a community of cross-sector influencers, civic leaders, creatives, culture bearers, and justice-seekers who are working to change our collective story for the better. 
• Host multimedia story events that bring our community together to tackle the thorniest of issues and examine new perspectives through narrative explorations. 
• Curate and distribute meaningful jobs, events, and actions that support people working to change the narrative of their own lives and communities. 
• Work with and support a community of more than 140 creative freelancers—writers, illustrators, designers, animators, photographers, filmmakers, performers, musicians—every year.

We know Pollen is just one part of a larger ecosystem of change. Our region is full of visionaries, organizers, collectives, organizations and leaders of all ages who are pushing for a better future in so many ways. We are proud to be part of that ecosystem, doing our part to help our communities get ready for the future we need.

Thank you for being in community with us.

Jamie Millard, Meg Lionel Murphy, Julie Cohen, Jerome Rankine, Melanie G.S. Walby, Ruby Oluoch, Tom Loftus, Andrés Pérez, Brenda Tran, Annemarie Eayrs, & Liz Atchison.