STRATEGIC GOALS
Advancing self-determination for individuals and communities
We envision a future where individuals and the communities they come from have the conditions they need to live life to their full potential and agency. This vision is the foundation for our strategic goals and how we prioritize our resources and energy.
Research to Impact Lab’s Strategic Goals:
Individual Self-Determination
Ensuring benefits and protections for all, regardless of work or income status.
Community Self-Determination
Empowering communities to build wealth and own their resources and systems.
R2i Lab’s approaches prioritize specific issue areas that we believe help bring us closer to creating conditions for greater individual and community self-determination.
Photo courtesy of Kickstart Your Arts Career. CSULB.Pictured Elena Muslar. 24 February 2023. Center for Cultural Innovation. Long Beach, CA
Research to Impact Lab’s Strategic Goals:
Individual Self-Determination
Ensuring benefits and protections for all, regardless of work or income status.
Community Self-Determination
Empowering communities to build wealth and own their resources and systems.
R2i Lab’s approaches prioritize specific issue areas that we believe help bring us closer to creating conditions for greater individual and community self-determination.
Photo courtesy of Kickstart Your Arts Career. CSULB.Pictured Elena Muslar. 24 February 2023. Center for Cultural Innovation. Long Beach, CA
INDIVIDUAL SELF-DETERMINATION
Ensuring benefits and protections for all, regardless of work or income status.
Gig work comes in many names and forms: freelance, solo entrepreneurs, and under the table work to name a few, but the major commonality among all these nontraditional forms of work is that all of them are excluded from social support and protections that we believe ALL people, regardless of their work status, deserve. The social contract that ties social and economic security to a traditional 9-5 job, or W-2 employment, as the primary path for life’s necessities — health insurance, aid time o ff, retirement, and workplace protections — is an outdated expectation. We are in desperate need of a new social contract that legitimizes gig work and guarantees the same social and economic bene fits as W-2 workers. Additionally, non-W-2 workers need the opportunity to build power, receive basic labor protections, and have the ability to collectively bargain. America’s workforce is changing, with more and more people pursuing gig work because of its flexibility and rising cost of living. Too often, individuals are blocked from pursuing their purpose and exercising self-determination because their basic security is tied to their traditional W-2 job.
With our decades of experience supporting individuals in the arts, we know all too well how artificial intelligence is currently upending the workforce for creative industries. Intellectual property (IP) and individuals’ ability to have full ownership of where and how their unique IP is used is crucial not only in creative industries, but for all individuals engaging with technology and developing a digital footprint. We believe in ethical data ownership and stewardship — especially in the face of big tech and centralized power. We pursue issues that help further transparency and accountability of data used in technologies with AI, and empower artists and other gig workers to be a part of shaping the future of AI and IP legislation and regulation.
SSI is a social security benefit that is provided to individuals in some of the most vulnerable communities who are unable to access conventional W-2 employment. People living with disabilities or who experience other barriers to traditional employment still deserve dignity and the opportunity for economic mobility. We believe firmly in removing the income and asset caps for people receiving SSI, which force poverty on individuals and block them from pursuing self-determination.
COMMUNITY SELF-DETERMINATION
Empowering communities to build wealth and own their resources and systems.
Providing public options for social programs such as healthcare, childcare, and retirement serve as a baseline good or service that competes with private market options. We are interested in policy efforts that establish public options for current social and economic benefits that are currently only made available to W-2 workers through their full-time jobs. We recognize that many people stay at their full-time jobs — whether they want to or not — because they do not have other options for healthcare, paid time off, and retirement.We prioritize opportunities that help further public options for necessary social and economic programs that could help facilitate greater community and individual self-determination.
The 2012 Jobs Act enabled easier access to capital for small businesses by facilitating crowdfunding, which allowed for communities to invest in small and/or local businesses. We believe that all communities deserve the opportunity to build wealth and steward their assets. We support opportunities that help make local communities and values-aligned investment more accessible.
The Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA) sets minimum standards for most voluntarily established retirement plans such as pensions and 401(k) plans. These standards dictate that fund managers must prioritize investment returns for their plan participants, regardless of their impact on community or other values-driven priorities. Research to Impact Lab supports ERISA reforms that establish that investments must also consider the potential harm caused to communities and other social and environmental justice issues. We are also interested in supporting efforts towards greater transparency for program participants in knowing where their funds are invested. We believe that communities deserve the opportunity and options to influence where their investments are going and that the current retirement system reduces community self-determination.