Financial Safe-Enoughness: The Story of the Enabling Pot

This blog post is no longer just an "organizational" report. Originally, it was planned to be writen from an outside perspective, but we realized that doing so failed to translate the actual impact this resource has had on our lives.

For that reason, this story is shared by us—Carla and Naima—two members of the brafe.space community since 2022 and 2024.

This blog includes:

• Structure & Intention: moving Beyond the Transaction

• Material Impacts: The Tangible "Yes"

• A Personal Reflection: From Skepticism to Restored Belief By Carla

• Financial Safe-Enoughness: From Survival to Intention By Naima

• The Ripple Effect: Trust as a Resource

• The Enabling Pot by the Numbers

Structure & Intention: Moving Beyond the Transaction

At brafe.space, we believe that true co-creation cannot happen if someone is stuck in "survival mode." When we launched in 2021, we realized that for our community to show up fully, we needed to build a financial infrastructure that was "safe enough" for everyone—not just those who already had a safety net.

Most organizations operate on a "pay-to-play" model. You pay a fee; you receive a service. We chose a different path: no membership fees.

By removing the initial transaction, we shifted the relationship from a contract to a connection. But we knew that "free" wasn’t enough. If a founder has to choose between a community meeting and paying for childcare or a train ticket, the choice is already made for them.

The Enabling Pot was born to bridge that gap. It is a trust-based fund designed to support individual needs—ranging from ad-hoc transportation and care work to multi-year scholarships.

Our Reflection: We don't use rigid "qualifiers" or proof of income. Why? Because financial reality is complex. We prefer a relational approach. We talk, we listen, and we trust. This ensures that our community doesn’t become "monotone" and that the room is filled with diverse lived experiences, not just those who can afford the time.

The organization also decided that the Enabling Pot would live in brafe.space as a dynamic, community-funded initiative rather than as a static part of our budgeting. This decision ensures that the Enabling Pot and its resources truly sit in the community and serve as a point for meeting in relationship.

Rather than speaking with one another about what we need and the structures which would make that possible, we feared that a too-centralized process would concentrate all the discussions around the org team, minimizing their potential for relational impact. We also feared avoiding or over-simplifying factors of 'safe-enoughness' which can not be financially compensated, creating situations where we participate beyond our boundaries because funds have been accepted.

Keeping this resource in the community and relative to its fundraising has encouraged rich, nuanced and sometimes difficult conversations regarding what fosters 'safe-enoughness', including the important and limited role of money. This blog shares what has come of the initiative and what we are leaning in that process:

Material Impacts: The Tangible "Yes"

The Enabling Pot isn’t just a nice idea; it is a train ticket, a babysitter, and a cleared schedule. It is the foundational support that allows a person to physically and mentally enter the room.

• Care Work: It allows parents to pay for help so they can focus on their own growth.

• Accessibility: It covers the "hidden costs" of participation that are often ignored.

• Sustainability: It ensures that founders in the fragile early stages of their organizations don't have to sacrifice their own stability to participate.

A Personal Reflection: From Skepticism to Restored Belief

By Carla

There was a long road between my initial invitation to brafe.space and my actual ability to show up. When Lisa first invited me, I felt a lot of judgment toward the idea. In my previous experiences, joining groups with people from "different life circumstances" (wider resource gaps) usually meant exposing my life and trauma in the hope that people would feel connected or value my presence. The reality was that nothing ever truly came out of those experiences for me.

Being a Scholarship recipient for multiple years changed that. It gave me the chance to invest my time in something that brought me joy and space. I finally had the "luxury" of looking into myself continuously. It even allowed me to support my family during times of extreme hardship—something that, in any other circumstance, would have cost me my capacity to participate at all.

Aside from that, it gave me the opportunity to take on the role of a Circle Host—a position I had felt deeply curious about and hopeful to occupy. It allowed me to be part of co-creating formats and advocating for people with backgrounds similar to mine, which, once again, only became possible because of the scholarship.

As I write this, I sense a bit of discomfort. Not because it feels wrong to share, but because this experience has fundamentally changed how my nervous system reacts to people with more resources or privilege than me. Where there used to be only skepticism, fear of judgment, and the aftertaste of not being heard, there is now something else. I have met people here who I truly believe would stand with me under unimaginable circumstances.

Whether that is put to the test or not, I don’t know. But for now, there is a restored belief in me that didn't exist before this experience.

Financial Safe-Enoughness: From Survival to Intention

By Naima

I’m not long part of brafe.space — it’s a completely new space for me. Entering it made me reflect on where I’ve been standing over the past years, and what kind of spaces I’ve been moving within.

For a long time, I’ve mostly existed within my own bubbles, within my community — a community shaped by shared experiences of discrimination and racism. It’s a space where I feel safe and seen. Staying there was not accidental, it was a conscious choice. A way to protect, to build, to root.

At the same time, that choice also meant carrying a lot within a certain closeness — emotionally, politically and materially.

About 3 years ago, I quit my corporate job to fully commit to my non-profit work — to building community, to creating spaces of care and to challenging the impact of racism in our everyday lives. That decision came with a cost. It meant letting go of financial security, moving through burnout, holding many community stories at once and trying to explain to my working-class family what it is that I actually do. It also meant, slowly, quietly, letting go of my own art — something that has always been an essential part of me.

With the Enabling Pot, I felt something I hadn’t felt in a long time: a kind of “safe-enoughness.” A small but significant shift away from survival mode.

I noticed how deeply ingrained it is in me to step back instead of forward — to think “others might need it more,” “I’ll manage,” “I don’t need to ask.” Especially when it comes to financial support, asking has always felt heavy. Growing up with little often teaches you to stretch, to endure, to make do — but also to carry things alone for longer than necessary. It creates a quiet instinct to minimize your own needs, to adapt instead of reaching out.

Receiving this support asked me to move against that instinct. To allow myself to be supported without over-explaining, without proving, without shrinking. And to recognize that I, too, deserve to be held.

This micro fund arrived quietly, but its impact was immediate. Not loud or life-changing in an obvious way, but subtle in the way it shifted something inside me. It created space — not just in my schedule, but in my body.

For the first time in a long time, I wasn’t only moving out of necessity. I could pause without guilt. I could sit with ideas without calculating their outcome or urgency. It felt unfamiliar at first — almost uncomfortable — to not operate from pressure, but from intention.

Financially, it covered what needed to be covered. But more than that, it interrupted a pattern. The constant negotiation in my head: what is essential, what can wait, what can be sacrificed — often, my art being the first thing to go.

With that weight slightly lifted, I found my way back to the projects I had archived somewhere between responsibility and exhaustion. Not with force, but with care. With curiosity again.

There is something powerful in being supported without having to prove your struggle in detail. In being trusted with softness.

As part of brafe.space, this shifted how I show up. Less guarded, less in survival mode. More present. More open. More willing to take up space — not because I have to justify it, but because, for a moment, it simply feels allowed.

The Ripple Effect: Trust as a Resource

What becomes visible through this sharing is a subtle but significant shift: a movement away from survival mode towards a sense of “safe-enoughness”. What sits underneath this shift — and becomes clearer when looking closer — is that its impact is not only financial, but relational. It is rooted in the trust that comes with the way support is given. When you receive support without having to "oversell" your struggle or justify your worth, you feel held.

Voice 1: The Power of Receiving Trust "At first, I was in disbelief, it felt surprising and deeply affirming to be seen and supported in this way. What stood out to me most was that I didn’t have to oversell myself or justify why I needed the support. That in itself created a sense of ease and trust. Emotionally, it allowed me to feel held as part of brafe.space, reminding me that my work and my wellbeing matter. It strengthened my sense of belonging and made me feel more connected and valued within the community.’"

The Conversations We’re Still Having: This process forces us to look in the mirror. Who decides who gets what? How do we unlearn the "I must deserve this" narrative? We are still only scratching the surface of how money can be a tool for reflection rather than just a source of tension.

Voice 2: The Power of Reflecting “Money has always been a source of tight feelings and unlearning and stripping down from a deeply seated perception of it has been and is a hard process. In different scenarios, I had a good illusion of 'I deserved this.' as part of a selection process that required me to prove that I lack resources, I have high ambitions and that I am capable of bringing this vision to life. The lack of that process, or, the no strings attached way Brafe handled the Enabling Pot last year, thereby, has put a mirror for reflection. Reflection of power and authority. Who decides? Who decides who decides? I'm still sitting with some of the questions arising in me as I think of this. I felt the trust and goodwill of brafe.space during this process and I feel closer and warmer partly as a result of that.”

The "Enabling Pot" by the Numbers

To keep us grounded in reality, here is a summary of our journey since 2021. Please bear in mind these numbers are estimations, given the fact that we are in the middle of our fundraising and distribution:

Total community size = approximately 150 individuals as of January 2026.

Writing Contributors:

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Project Tres

Carla Maria de Souza

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roots Berlin

Naima Nazir