Our Town/Nha Vida

Equity Budget Framework

The ‘Our Town/Nha Vida’ used a radical budget framework, conceptualized by the Marion Voices Folklife+Oral History Program. At its simplest, the framework asserts that “…the chief space of praxis and ethics for any community-based cultural work project is its budget” and that everyone who is involved in the project,  specifically community members of color, is worthy of being paid for their time and emotional labor. In addition, the framework looks outside of the actual funds to ensure that there are fair and equitable practices applied throughout the project that ensure that the cachet and cultural capital of the collaborative work is fully attributed to our community partners/members. 

While there is no single model of equity budgeting that fits all projects, there are some core ideas that aim to acknowledge the political economy of cultural work and that ground the framework. The following were applied to “Our Town/Nha Vida”: 

• Payment to all individuals who would traditionally be expected to volunteer their time and services and who are not part of a formal institution that  already pays them for their labor;
• Compensating those who are being documented just as those who are doing the documenting are being compensated;
• Individuals who participated in the exhibit were supplied—at no cost to them—with all of the materials they identify as being necessary for their participation in the exhibit.

This text is adapted from the webpage “Equity Budgeting: A Manifesto” available here