Recess Strategic Plan
Parameters and Process Transparency
In this period of new leadership, we are in a moment to cast renewed visions for sustaining our work at Recess and beyond.
This Spring, we embarked on a strategic planning process to address our role in seeding liberatory futures for our ecosystem. We need your help! Through a series of engagements throughout 2026, we're asking for your input to imagine that future.
Calling all artists and cultural practitioners in the Recess community! We would love to know more about YOU and your experience of Recess. Please complete our Community Survey by October 26! All who complete the survey will be entered in a raffle where 5 people will win a Recess T-Shirt or beanie of your choice.
Who will be reading my answers?
You have the option to remain anonymous. Your responses will be viewable by Recess’s Co-Directors Lindsay C. Harris and Ladi’Sasha Jones as well as our lead consultant, Maura Cuffie-Peterson.
What happens to my data?
This data will be stored securely and available to Recess’ staff until December 2031.
How will my contribution be acknowledged?
We are deeply grateful for your time, honesty, and thoughtfulness. If you choose to name yourself in the survey and there are specific data points that we plan to name in the final Strategic Plan, you will be notified in advance to confirm your consent. In addition, everyone who completes the survey will enter a raffle to win a Recess tshirt or beanie. 5 raffles will be drawn in November for the five winners.
What is a Strategic Plan and Why does Recess need to do one now?
Justice-seeking organizations like ours need to be accountable to their mission, values, and community. Every few years it’s worthwhile to check on progress and even more importantly to imagine what new visions we share with our community and figure out how to get there. We are embarking on a strategic planning process to help us do those things: check-in and envision anew. After the last few years of change in staff and structure and some major declarations about our relationship to economic justice and abolition, we decided it's time to reflect and imagine.
What’s happening in Recess’ Strategic Plan? Who is involved?
We are approaching this strategic planning process a bit differently. We will be co-hosting a series of dinners, holding Abolition Teach-In style workshops, and putting out a community survey as methods to gather input, ideas, and new visions for what will eventually become our plan. That means we want to work alongside the many rings of our community to inform what comes next for Recess. Along with our amazing staff and board, we are working with a consultant to help steward and co-facilitate the process.
Why are you asking me to participate?
We want our plan to reflect the imagination of the very people who will be impacted by the work we do: that is artists from across our three programs, past partners, and peer collaborators just to name a few. We don’t want to make plans without YOU!
How will my participation become part of the final plan?
All of these Activities will be documented in thorough and creative ways, from recording, to note-taking, and at times photos and other media. All of this documentation will be read by the Co-Directors, Lindsay C. Harris and Ladi’Sasha Jones, as well as Maura Cuffie-Peterson our lead consultant, as they embark on analyzing the information and transforming it into a final document.
Who do I talk to if I have a question or concern about how my experience will be used in the plan?
You can reach out directly to the Co-Directors at leadership@recessart.org