A new partnership between funding intermediary Common Future and WorkFour, a relatively new nonprofit that advocates for a four-day workweek across sectors, is a logical fit for a number of reasons. Common Future supports efforts to create an equitable economy and moved to a four-day workweek itself in 2021. Just last year, the organization adopted a co-leadership model that divides the CEO role among three people.
The intermediary and organizing group are clearly sold on the concept, but it’s also a smart move from a strategic standpoint. Common Future is getting in on the ground floor of an idea that is gaining real momentum without a lot of financial or organizing support. It’s the latest in a series of promising moves from the intermediary, including some impressive fundraising that’s boosted the organization’s war chest.
In addition to becoming WorkFour’s fiscal sponsor, Common Future is providing the currently all-volunteer nonprofit with a $20,000 unrestricted grant and plans to act as a strategic advisor on work including programmatic and fundraising planning. Common Future has also become integrally involved with WorkFour; one of the funder’s co-CEOs, Jennifer Njuguna, has joined WorkFour’s board of advisors. While not a huge investment, financially at least, it could prove to be a catalytic one.
Vishal Reddy, the acting executive director of WorkFour, said that his organization reached out to Common Future as part of its search for a fiscal sponsor that was aligned with WorkFour’s values around both the four-day workweek and racial equity.
Common Future’s Njuguna said that the move makes sense for her organization because CF sees WorkFour’s efforts as a component of their overall work to advance economic justice and build an equitable economy.
“We do that by partnering closely with community-rooted organizations that are at the leading edge of different initiatives and projects that can really reshape our economy,” she said.
WorkFour definitely fits within the larger portfolio of CF’s work. The funder’s 2023 annual report outlines accomplishments including its first full year as owner of the alternative lender Community Credit Lab, $500,000 investments in two separate investment funds “designed to provide patient and flexible capital in the form of revenue-based loans to entrepreneurs” in local communities, and expanding the number of other, smaller organizations it was able to invest in.
Common Future’s approach, and its 2019 shift to focus on racial equity, definitely seem to have caught on with other funders. CF reported net assets of $24.1 million in 2022. That’s not a huge number, but it is 10 times the amount the organization reported just five years ago. The organization’s past and current funders include the Kataly, Ford, EBay and JPB foundations.
Why a four-day workweek?
WorkFour seems to be an excellent fit with Common Future’s overall values and direction, but this particular partnership still leaves open an important question: In a country where employment crises include an effort to eliminate the National Labor Relations Board, employers restricting low-wage workers’ hours to the point where they can’t make ends meet, and an estimated $50 billion in wage theft every year, why focus on a four-day workweek?
Reddy and Njuguna had several answers to that question. Among other factors, they spoke of the need to address increasing worker burnout, the fact that Common Future’s own experiment with a shortened week has been so successful, and the reality that the COVID-19 pandemic and resulting cultural rethinking of how work should fit into people’s lives has created a prime environment to “put something big on the table,” as WorkFour’s Reddy put it.
There’s also the fact that advocacy for a four-day workweek is already catching some fire, with little fanfare and less formal organizing to date. Its time may have come, in other words, and a big win here could have a positive impact on other workplace issues.
Leaving aside the many countries that have experimented with or even adopted a shortened workweek, there is also some notable movement happening here. Four states have proposed four-day workweek pilot or research programs; six state legislatures have introduced bills implementing the measure, national legislation has been introduced; and several municipalities across the country have implemented shortened workweeks for their public employees. This doesn’t sound like much, but, again, much of this activity has taken place in the absence of any formal organizing behind the idea.
“This is an incredibly popular idea with no organized support so far,” said WorkFour’s Reddy, which leads him to make this suggestion to other funders: “With all this momentum, wouldn’t you want to shape this vision for what the future of work looks like?”
WorkFour is taking a meticulous approach; Reddy said that his organization plans to work with Common Future to complete strategic plans for its programming and fundraising with a goal to have “concrete fundraising” in place by next year. Funders eager to help score a big potential win for workers on an issue that’s gaining momentum fast may not want to wait.
