Co-Working Space
Maker’s Space continued to make a difference in their region and local communities until it sold in the summer of 2024. The project finished with Professionals International in December of 2023 as it finished up its latest agreement and became self-sustaining.
Significant Challenge(s)
While certain parts of India had already experienced the rise of freelancing and co-working spaces, other regions found it difficult to embrace freelancing, especially among women. In the eyes of those around them, freelancers are often seen as lazy and foolish, bringing shame to the family. Their choice of profession is therefore risky and because of the lack of support and exposure to opportunities, many creatives become discouraged and give up, losing much of their passion and potential to the demands of family and society.
Traditionally, women in the local community have not been allowed to work outside of the home. Some exceptions have been made for those with highly respected careers, such as doctors or teachers. However, for the majority of women, their workplace has strictly been in and for their home and family.
With the rise of globalism, more women are breaking the mold and are seeking the empowerment of women through entrepreneurship. Many women are opening boutiques and interior designers businesses, are painters and free-lance writers proving they are valuable assets to the local economy. Their businesses are what they have to keep their creative hopes alive. Some open their shop in their place of residence, but have little by way of encouragement, support, and business education. The same can be said for other marginalized creatives, such as artists and freelancers. Training for these women, as well as for locals in creative fields (artists, freelancers, start up companies, etc.), is needed to empower them to think outside of the traditional box when it comes to growing their business, or gaining a presence locally or globally. They need something close to home which will help them gain a new perspective, open their eyes to see their potential, and collaborate with a supportive community.
Satisfying Solution
Starting in April 2018, The Maker’s Space launched a members-only, innovative workspace, seeking to cater to the creative entrepreneur and freelancing community in India. They desired to do this by stimulating the growth of their members’ skills and experiences in their professional fields through networking, collaboration, and developmental training events. By providing them a place to work outside of the home, but still allowing them the freedom to work for themselves, the desire was to pioneer a change in identity and bring a sense of dignity to the freelancer and creative entrepreneur.
They secured a location and opened in January 2019 and began providing desks, meeting rooms, wifi, printers, an office postal address with mailboxes, etc.- the things necessary for our members to have a professional place to work from, alleviating pressures of society to work from a proper office.
They also provided networking events and cross-cultural celebrations which led to members developing closer relationships, deeper conversations, kind actions, and overall care between other members. Maker’s Space provided scholarships to women freelancers and entrepreneurs.
The Covid-19 pandemic made room for a lot more people in corporate jobs to move from larger cities and work remotely from home. After working from home through the worst of the pandemic, they realized that working remotely wasn't going to be sustainable, yet their corporate offices were still closed. As they began looking for alternatives in coworking spaces, Maker’s space started to include more corporate workers. This shift also helped keep them stay afloat as a business during the time they were also closed. However, this change was minor and temporary and are now back to mostly small business, freelance, and creative demographic of members.
Business Geared Toward Promoting Decent and Inclusive Work, Reducing Inequalities, and Increasing Gender Equality Particularly with Girls and Women.
Target: Support access to safe and productive workspaces (Extension of Target 5.a)
Target: Promote and support productive activities, decent job creation, entrepreneurship, creativity and innovation, and encourage the formalization and growth of micro-, small- and medium-sized enterprises (Adapted from Target 8.3)
“Measured by” Outcomes
Aug 2018 - Dec 2023
Amount of Grant Given
“What Does Your Donation Go Towards?”
Stories of Substantial Impact
Over the course of 4.5 years of launching, they saw 238 people visit or become members of the co-working space. Here are 3 memorable stories of impact:
1. One of the female members who had been a member for 9+ months got married. As an entrepreneur, having a space outside of the home was helpful for her during the wedding planning season. Indian weddings are full out, huge productions for Indian families and the stress of planning and hearing opinions from all sides gets tiring. She appreciated having a space outside of her home to "escape" during the day where she could clear her head and focus on work without the pull of family pressuring her to make wedding decisions. Additionally, after marriage, a new daughter-in-law begins living with a new family having new expectations of her. The Maker's Space again became her safe place to escape the pressures of her new family. Without having membership, she would not be able to be as productive in her business if she was working from home. Her business is flourishing because of it, having hired more team members and taken on more clients.
2. A team of 4 women and one man took a private office on membership. Their motivation for taking a private office was to have a professional place to do their work together as they planned, prepared, and hosted Art Week as an initiative of the public arts trust of India, which she started. Having a place outside of her home to meet as a team gave them a private workplace away from the distractions and difficulties that come with hosting a team of 5 for daily meetings. They were able to conduct professional meetings to invite and prepare artists from all over India for the week-long showcase.
3. There have been significant breakthroughs in relationships with marginalized freelancers and entrepreneur communities both personally and professionally. Providing steady, consistent services and showing up daily with open avenues for conversation, resulted in members seeking out advice in many areas of life. A major pain point for members is the feeling of being misunderstood by family, especially parents. A member who was having significant issues with her family not understanding her (who felt like her desires and her family's desires for her were completely opposite) landed a job with a company in a larger city and was hoping to move there. Her family wanted her to come back to their small city and get married. Through conversations, discussions occurred of what it means to honor parents and to balance that with our desires. These hard conversations were fruitful and she took work in the big city after having authentic conversations with her parents, who became less opposed. She lives peacefully with her decision and does not fear the rejection of her choices by her family.
Maker’s Space continued to make a difference in their region and local communities until it sold in the summer of 2024. The project finished with Professionals International in December of 2023 as it finished up its latest agreement and became self-sustaining.
