Red Eye

The Rain and the Reservoir: Two Ways to Sustain

We ask for a one-time gift and/or a monthly gift to support Red Eye as we enter a time of sustained federal overreach and instability.

THE RAIN: One-Time Gift of ANY AMOUNT: $10 - $1000 or more
THE RESERVOIR: A Fixed Monthly Gift of ANY AMOUNT: $5 - $200 or more

Why Now

Funding cuts and redirection at many levels, with increased competition, have put us on our back foot. We have been operating in an unsteady time, and we anticipate that this will continue. A resource-conscious response is to operate from a fallow mindset - one that tends and regenerates our capacity, allowing what needs to rest to rest while we build resilience for what's coming. However, we cannot possibly do that at this moment.

Federal overreach is being sustained in multiple ways—through healthcare, benefits, safety net services, the treatment of vulnerable people in our communities, censorship, and what types of artists get funded. State surveillance is being weaponized. The impact is ongoing and compounding, particularly for those experiencing the most oppression.

Our contexts are shifting vastly. As artists, it is our work to metabolize what is happening, to be part of an expressive ecosystem that makes things clear from real voices and real people. We want to have the real conversations and dialogues from the location of our communities, from the people who are living this.

These are the times where we need artists. We need our community—an entire community of artists including those who work at Red Eye—to be able to continue to be sustained, to continue to inspire, to create context, to lift voices into being.

The Rain: A surge when it's needed most. Your collective voice as flood and wash for our ecosystem in this unsteady time.

The Reservoir: Sustenance for the long march ahead. The work of metabolizing authoritarianism, holding real dialogue, and building networks of care requires infrastructure that can hold us through what's coming. Your $10, $25, $50/month is what lets us plan, dream, commit—not just survive, but sustain the conversations and creative work our communities need.

What Your Support Makes Possible Right Now

• Artist fees for our entire community of artists, including those who work at Red Eye
• Red Eye's space as sanctuary
• Accessible ticket prices - Sliding Scale (No one turned away for lack of funds)
• The ability to respond to immediate community needs
• Programming that metabolizes what's happening from real voices in our communities
• Long-term infrastructure for organizing and care work

Most importantly: we can tend to what is emergent, unfundable, unpackaged—the work of making meaning together and protecting each other.

Donate:

• Venmo: @RedEyeCollaboration
• HERE (Give MN)

Can't Give Money Right Now?

Here are other ways to tend:

Build your capacity for community care:

• Come to Know Your Rights trainings, Legal Observer trainings, Medic Trainings, First Aid Training etc. Consider these essential skills as a community member.
• Connect with your mutual aid networks—figure out what networks exist and really see the value of your time and contributions to your neighbors and community.

Stay connected and bring others in:

• Follow us on Instagram or Bluesky
• Sign up for our newsletter
• Come to performances and bring your friends
• Pay a little more on our sliding scale when you can
• Connect us to like-missioned organizations

Do the work that creates networks:

• Create your own networks that deepen our ecosystem
• Build the resources to mutually support each other, even interorganizationally
• When the time comes, we can band together and create powerful collective voices for culture change