A new collective project.
I’ve long been frustrated by the duplication of effort across the ecosystem. So many brilliant communities, supporting freelancers, spend time doing the same things: creating resources, running surveys, promoting campaigns, all aligned with their mission to put things in place to help their members.
But what if, rather than 100 communities spending 100 hours creating 100 articles called “How to start freelancing”, we did it once, together, saving time and money, which can be better used on the things which don’t already exist?
In pursuit of reducing effort, I’ve launched the Independent Community Coalition this week, 10 freelancing communities, representing 10,000+ freelancers in the UK - with a shared mission to work together to deliver more impact for our members.
Beyond the improved impact, this creates a collective voice, which allows us to better push for change. 10,000 freelancers speaking at once are louder than 100 small groups vying for attention.
I hope this allows us to unlock doors and push for greater change.
Small beginnings, big ambitions.
Thanks to Doing it for the Kids, Freelancer Magazine, Freelancing for Good, Clear Connect Network, Elsie, Shelance, Blkbk, Outside Perspective, Leapers and Not Your Business for being part of the founding group.
» The project homepage is here.
If you run a UK freelancing community, and you’re keen to join the collective, drop me a note. If you’re a member of a community, feel free to share our details.
Matthew Knight is an independent strategist, and founder of The Independency Co.
For ten years, he's been a vocal advocate for freelancers and improved ways of working with independents.
Founder of the award winning Leapers project - supporting over 250,000 freelancers, he writes regularly on the topic of independent work and has featured in titles including Freelancing Magazine, Design Week, Creative Bite, The Guardian, Bloomberg, Future Trends, Courier and the BBC.
He is a member of the Mental Health at Work Leadership Council, and has contributed to a number of government panels on the topic of independent work.
Creating confidence in freelancing.
Our work supports both freelancers and hirers to work better, together.
Whether it’s our award winning mental health project Leapers, our free resources on freelancing.support, or our communities like Outside Perspective - we’ve been making freelancing work better for almost ten years.
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