• 2026 Ecosystem Survey

    2026 Ecosystem Survey

  • What This Survey Is About And Why It Matters.

  • This survey is for both members of New Economy Coalition (NEC) and organizations that see themselves as part of the Solidarity Economy Movement who are not formally NEC members. The survey is intended to help NEC better understand what is needed for the Solidarity Economy Movement and how our programs and offerings can be more responsive and accessible.

    This survey is designed for people representing an organization. If you're taking this as an individual, many questions won't apply to you. You may not know all the answers to these questions and that's okay! Please check in with other people in your organization. Better yet, take the survey together. Be sure to take care of yourself while you do: grab a snack, pour a drink, and take your time. 

    Past surveys offered important insight but often reflected the experiences of more resourced organizations. This survey creates space for a wider range of voices and helps NEC tell a fuller story about the ecosystem we serve.

  • What You'll Be Asked About:

    • How your group is run, how much money you work with, and how you raise funds.
    • Your organization's commitment to Black liberation, Indigenous liberation, and Reparations practices.
    • Taking care of each other and keeping your community safe.
    • How decisions get made and how you want to be involved.
    • What's going well and what's getting in your way.
    • How you use art, stories, and creativity in your work.
    • How your group is responding to what's happening politically right now
    • Whether you feel like you belong at NEC and what kind of collaboration you want.
    • Connections with solidarity economy work beyond the United States.

  • Estimated Time To Complete:

    • For NEC Members: 40 minutes - 1 hour
    • For everyone else (non-members): 20-30 minutes

  • How To Take The Survey:

    •  To begin the survey, click “Next.”
    • There are long-form questions that may also be answered with an audio response.
    • If you come to a blank page, simply click “Next.”
    • You can save the survey and come back to it if needed. The Save button is at the bottom of each page. It may require you to log in so it can save your data and allow you to pick up where you left off.
    • If you need any assistance, please contact Ro Keel at keel@neweconomy.net

  • Survey Incentives & Shared Values

  • NEC knows that completing a survey takes time and care. Incentives are offered as a thank you and as a way to practice reciprocity.

     

    • Two lucky participating organizations will receive $500 cash gifts.
    • 80 gift packages of Creative Wildfire Sticker Pack and the newest edition of Fortunately Magazine, raffled off in partnership with Worx Printing Cooperative
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  • About Your Organization

  • Are you currently an NEC Member?*

  • NEC defines xyz-led as:

    • The executive director, Highest paid staff, or equivalent is xyz and
    • At least 2/3 or more of the staff are xyz, or
    • More than half of the board, steering committee or other leadership bodyare xyz.
    • If only 1 person in your leadership body is of xyz identity, then it's not truly led by xyz leadership.
  • How does your organization describe its leadership?

  • Black Liberation, Indigenous Liberation, Reparations

    This section asks about your organization's commitment to Black and Indigenous liberation, reparations practices, and how racial justice shows up in your solidarity economy work.

  • If need be, please refer to the Solidarity Economy Principles Project: Racial Justice Principle. This document outlines a core racial justice principle and related practices for moving beyond performative racial justice, including:paying land taxes, offering scholarships to Native and Black people, engaging in land back, supporting reparations, addressing white supremacy in organizational culture, abolishing carceral systems, and more.

  • How strongly do you agree with this statement? Our solidarity economy work is part of Black liberation work, i.e. addressing anti-Blackness, uplifting decolonial thought, etc.
  • How strongly do you agree with this statement? Our solidarity economy work is part of Indigenous Liberation work, for example, Land Back uplifting decolonial thought, etc.

  • Care Practices

  • Which practices help your organization sustain care and collective safety?

  • Your Work

  • What kind of work does your organization focus on? Please select up to 3 areas of focus that best describe your organization's work. If you are a NEC member, we may use these areas to categorize your organization in our coalition directory. We recognize much of our work is intersectional, multi-issue, community-based and movement-oriented. While this list is imperfect and incomplete, we encourage you to choose no more than 3 selections that most accurately describe your work.*

  • Budget, Revenue and Fundraising

    We know money can be hard to talk about. You're not alone if these questions feel tricky. Please grab someone on your finance or admin team to help with the numbers. This section asks about your organization's budget size, how it's changed over time, and where your money comes from.
  • What is your organization's budget size?*
  • How does your current budget compare to previous years?
  • Provide an estimate for how much of your revenue comes from each of the following sources?
  • Rank how your organization currently prioritizes the following funding sources to advance your work? (If one of these funding sources does not apply, please click the x to eliminate the option).
  • Does your organization participate in any kind of collaborative fundraising? For example, collaborative grantwriting, federated funds,community-controlled funds, etc. to resource your organization or your local solidarity economy ecosystem. If yes, check any that apply:
  • Does your organization receive meaningful in-kind support or shared resources that help sustain your work? Select all that apply.
  • Do you have a dedicated development or fundraising staff person?

  • Relationship With NEC

    This section explores how your organization first connected with NEC and whether NEC currently plays a meaningful role in your work.

  • For the next question, Please refer to the NEC Member benefits.

  • What are the most impactful Member benefits for your organization?

  • Governance, Power, and Accountability

    This section asks about your experience with NEC's decision-making processes, shared values, and how you want to participate in collective governance.

  • Please refer to: 

    • NEC Member Collective Governance 
    • Member Voting Process and Structure
    • NEC Board Elections
    • Endorsements 

     

     

  • NEC is a member-led network and worker self directed non-profit. We strive to have important decisions be directly shaped by the needs of members, staff and board. We do this through member votes and direct decision-making, member representation on the Board of directors, member leadership of working groups, and more. Most members vote on board elections every other year, and strategic planning approximately every five years.

  • Do NEC governance and decision making processes feel accessible to your organization?

  • Collective decision making may include our information sharing (having context and details), the platforms and tools we used (opavote, loomio, padlet, etc), spheres of influence (sociocratic circle structure) and our voting timelines. Please review the NEC Member Collective Governance document for more information.

  • Please refer to the DARCI grid to answer the following question. 

  • What kinds of decisions do you want a voice in (decider orconsulted in DARCI)?
  • What kinds of decisions are you comfortable just being informed about?

  • Finance, Capacity, Support, and What You Need Right Now

    This section helps us understand your organization's current challenges, barriers, and what kinds of support would be most useful in the coming years.
  • Do you participate in any kind of collaborative fundraising? For example, collaborative grantwriting, federated funds, community-controlled funds etc. to resource your organization.
  • If yes, check any that apply:
  • How would you describe your organization's current capacity to carry out the mission of your organization (for example, relational, staff, financial, etc)?
  • What barriers are most limiting your work right now?
  • What kinds of support would most strengthen your organization in the next couple of years? For example: My organization could use more legal support to navigate threats and fundraising support because our funding has been threatened.
  • Is NEC participation considered part of work time in your organization?
  • What lessons do you wish were better shared across the NEC network? Example: Lessons about governance challenges that exist when practicing worker self direction.

  • Member Dues

    This section asks about your experience with membership dues, and how you prefer to contribute.

  • For this next section, take a look at our Member Dues Structure that was adopted by NEC Membership in 2023.

     

  • NEC membership dues feel...
  • How clear are you on how membership dues are used?

  • Engagement With NEC Offerings

    This section asks which NEC programs, tools, or supports you have used in the past year and which would be most useful going forward.
  • What keeps your organization engaged with NEC?
  • Which NEC offerings have you participated in during the past year?
  • Rank Which tools or supports would be useful to your organization if available? (Please use the arrows to rank the choices, and if one of these tools does not apply, please click the x to eliminate the option).

  • Geography, Language, and Access

    This section helps us understand where your organization is based, where you work, and what language access would help you participate more fully.
  • What areas/territories does is your organization primarily serve?
  • Which best describes the geographic locale(s) where the majority of your work has impact?
  • What languages does your organization regularly work in?
  • What language access would help you participate more fully in NEC?

  • Solidarity Economy Work and Movement Ecosystem

    This section explores your organization's current movements, community ownership practices, stage of development, and NEC's role in your ecosystem. This section is for people that are members of movement organizations.
  • What stage best describes your organization right now?

  • Culture and Imagination

    This section asks how your organization uses art, storytelling, and cultural practices in your organizing work.
  • How does your organization use culture, art, or storytelling in organizing?

  • Political Moment and Collective Response

    This section asks how your organization is responding to the current political climate and what threats are impacting your internal and external work.
  • How is your organization responding to the current political moment?
  • What are the threats that are most impacting your internal operations right now?
  • What are the threats that are most impacting your outward-facing work? Please select the top three.

  • Emotional Resonance, Belonging, Reflection and Political Alignment

    This section explores your sense of belonging at NEC and what collaborations you want
  • What kinds of relationships and/or collaborations do you want more of inside NEC?

  • International Solidarity Economy

    This section asks about how you stay connected tomovements beyond your country and what global connections you wouldlike NEC to support.

  • Looking Ahead and Engagement

    This section asks about how you stay connected to movements beyond your country and what global connections you would like NEC to support.
  • What do you see that NEC is doing well right now
  • How would you like NEC to share survey findings back?
  • We are trying to improve the ways we collect info at NEC. Please let us know what options below would help improve this survey experience in the future?

  • If you would rather answer this question using a voice recording, please see the same question below and record your response there by clicking the “Record” button.

  • Would you like to stay connected to NEC?

  • Looking Ahead and Engagement

    Last section — you're almost done! Please share honest feedback about where NEC needs to sharpen its work, what missteps or missed opportunities you've seen, and why you think those happened.

  • Raffle Entry Information to Collect

    Please provide your contact information if you wish to enter the raffle. You can choose to keep this information separate from your survey responses.

  • Mailing Info:

  • Format: (000) 000-0000.

  • Consent and boundaries

  • I understand my raffle entry information will only be used for raffle purposes*

  • If you want to keep survey anonymous

  • Would you like your raffle entry kept separate from your survey responses*
  • Should be Empty: