This page shows what Stimpunks is working on right now — not polished outcomes or perfect plans, but the real, messy process of building tools, care, and ideas that make life more livable.
We track work that aligns with our values: lived experience leads, access is a right, and care is infrastructure. This space is meant to be transparent about what we’re focusing on, where energy is going, and how progress is actually happening — not as a performance metric, but as an honest reflection of labor, choices, and ongoing commitment.
You’ll find current priorities, experiments in progress, and the small steps that matter most to everyday survival, learning, and connection. We update this often because what matters changes with needs — and we expect that change.
The Now page isn’t a scoreboard; it’s a living snapshot of ongoing work, capacity, and real impact. Think of it as what we’re doing, why it matters, and how far along we are — honest, transparent, and humane.
Most websites have a link that says “about”. It goes to a page that tells you something about the background of this person or business. For short, people just call it an “about page”.
Most websites have a link that says “contact”. It goes to a page that tells you how to contact this person or business. For short, people just call it a “contact page”.
So a website with a link that says “now” goes to a page that tells you what this person is focused on at this point in their life. For short, we call it a “now page”.
What We’re Doing Now
This is where we are. Not where we’re headed in theory — where we’re actually putting time, energy, and care right now. It changes because we change, because needs change, because the world keeps moving. What you see here is real.
- Stimpunks.org Changelog for Week 36 2026: From the Condition to the Headline, From the Binder to the Public Page
This week ★ stuff added eight zines, a field guide, three Foundations pieces, a listening rack, two editions of a new weekly digest, and three new collections — and what it kept finding was a condition that had been printed right there in the source and fell off somewhere on the way to daylight. - Stimpunks Monthly Newsletter — August 2026
From the pile to the garden. From the gate to the looking. From the summary to the source. July was the month we made the work walkable. August was the month we built the instruments — and then found out what instruments cannot do. We started by building the thing that remembers for us. The Stimpunks Knowledge System went from nothing to a working system in seven days, learned to index ideas instead of filenames, and immediately told us we had been arguing from books we did not own. Then we gave it away as a template anyone can take. Then came the gates: eight automated checks on ★ stuff, each of which found real faults on its first honest run, and each of which also reported perfect health while broken. And then the corrections — our own Impact numbers, our own financials, our own counts, our own citations — published as corrections rather than quietly swapped. - Weekly Reflection for Week 35 2026
Dolly Parton died. We took the time to reflect on her life and learn from her dedication to kindness and belonging. Week 35 runs Sunday 2026-08-23 through Saturday 2026-08-29. The day headings below carry their dates. The companion piece is Stimpunks.org Changelog for Week 35 2026: From the Star to the Air, From the Summary to the Source, which records what shipped. This one records what it cost. - Stimpunks.org Changelog for Week 35 2026: From the Star to the Air, From the Summary to the SourceThis week ★ stuff added eighteen zines, four field guides, three listening racks, a working paper and a specimen sheet — and what they kept finding was that the problem was not where the sentence had put it. A star that appears to flicker is not flickering. A moss’s deficit list is accurate and running… Read more: Stimpunks.org Changelog for Week 35 2026: From the Star to the Air, From the Summary to the Source
- Weekly Reflection for Week 34 2026I spent the week working on Star Stuff with Helen and hanging in Discord with community. It was a nice rhythm.
- Stimpunks.org Changelog for Week 34 2026: From the Gate to the Criterion, From the Arrival to the OriginThis week ★ stuff added nine zines and five field guides, and the most interesting thing that happened to it was a change of authorship. Three weeks ago its pieces were written after Helen Edgar. Last Tuesday one was built with her. Yesterday one arrived from her, as a draft, and shipping it took six corrections and a restructure. Meanwhile our own machinery kept reporting good health while broken — a guard that refused the right call, a coverage figure of 93% on a page whose entire argument was unindexed, a front page that lost 87% of its search records without a single error — and the things that actually caught faults were people reading and rules written down. On this site: a sixth broadside that commissioned its own glossary entry, a twentieth entry on the AI alignments page, fifty-three dead citations repaired without burying anyone’s living work, and a new Discord room for the credit that never gets given. A name in astronomy is an arrival record, never an origin record. So is a diagnosis, and so is a citation.
- Weekly Reflection for Week 33 2026Helen and I had a great time working on Star Stuff this week. It rewards exploration. I could spend a pleasant afternoon strolling it pages. That’s what I did on Sunday, enjoying what we made. Star Stuff — science and wonder and the beautiful diversity of being. We are all star stuff. This is Ryan’s… Read more: Weekly Reflection for Week 33 2026
- Stimpunks.org Changelog for Week 33 2026: From the Gate to the Looking, From the Claim to the CreditThis week ★ stuff stopped being a pile of zines and became a library. Twenty-three numbered zines, five field guides, seven printable sheets, thirteen collections, and six automated checking gates — built, in most cases, on the same day somebody thought of them. The broadside form came home from that site to this one as a new Broadsides library. And we rewrote our own Impact page and every financial page behind it, because our published numbers had been wrong for months. We had been marking ourselves down by more than twenty points using a framework built for organizations that hold galas and buy advertising. Along the way we built the machines that check our work, found the exact edge where they stop being able to help, and paid three citation debts we had been carrying without noticing. A checker can tell you the label is legible. It cannot tell you the animal is pointed the wrong way.
- Weekly Reflection for Week 32 2026This is Ryan’s weekly reflection log for week 32. It’s a companion to the week 32 changelog. This was an exceptionally busy week. The pace was intense but satisfying. I enjoyed being in flow state — head down in zone work. Next week, though, I hope to take it much easier and enjoy the fruits… Read more: Weekly Reflection for Week 32 2026
- Stimpunks.org Changelog for Week 32 2026: From the Pile to the Garden, From the Claim to the CountThis week we built the thing that remembers for us. The Stimpunks Knowledge System went from nothing to a working system in seven days — a shared, self-maintaining home for our research library and our organizational knowledge, mirrored to two places the whole team can reach. Then we documented it in the IT Field Guide, argued it as curriculum, and gave it away as a template anyone can take. Along the way it learned to index ideas instead of filenames, told us which books we had been arguing from without owning, and caught us being wrong in public more times than we would like. Bus factor 1 is a design failure, and the mechanism is almost never a bus.
Visit the full changelog.
Ongoing
This is the work that doesn’t have a finish line. Some of it is community care, some is infrastructure, some is knowledge-building. All of it is real.
Pattern language and design method
- Building the Stimpunks Pattern Library — a named, growing vocabulary for how Neurodivergent attention, energy, and experience work.
- Translating patterns into actionable Design Recipes for classrooms, workplaces, homes, and care spaces.
- Developing From Checklists to Patterns as a core design resource — reframing access as infrastructure, not aftercare.
- Expanding the Stimpunks Design Method with the ARLES ladder: Attention → Relational → Lived Experience → Environments → Systems.
- Restructuring and building out Cavendish Space, paired with Cavendish Cards — the tool that lets a child point instead of explain.
Sheets you can carry
- Growing the Stimpunks Broadsides library — printable one-sheets, CC0, with the refusal on one side and what to do instead on the other. Nine sheets now, from Eye Contact to Monotropism to Masking and Burnout. A link is no use in a meeting where nobody is holding a phone.
- Keeping the broadsides, the Why Sheets and the glossary in step, in whichever direction the work runs. A broadside commissioned its own glossary entry this summer, which was new.
- Adding to our always growing glossary — recent entries include Co-Design, Developmental Pace, and Psychological Torture.
AI ethics
- Building out the AI ethics cluster — an overview hub at AI, a dedicated AI Alignments hub, and the still-growing AI Collaboration guide with its guardrails, MADTech framing, harm reduction, and testimony distinctions.
- Producing crosswalk pages that map external frameworks — academic papers and allied-org work — to ours, using “converges toward / stops short of” for convergence and “lineage, not external critique” for direct intellectual descent.
A memory nobody has to hold alone
- Running and growing the Stimpunks Knowledge System — a shared, self-maintaining home for our research library and our organizational knowledge that indexes ideas rather than filenames. Bus factor 1 is a design failure, and the mechanism is almost never a bus.
- Giving it away: Start Your Own Knowledge Garden, Filling the Garden, and a template repository anyone can take. Step one needs no software. We also argue it as curriculum — school produces knowledge work for thirteen years and then throws nearly all of it away.
- Growing what we can actually search, and publishing the refusals next to it. An honest number you can audit is worth more than a hundred percent nobody counted.
- Keeping the automated gates, and no longer expecting them to grow into judgement. What closes the gap is written-down criteria and a person who reads. A collision is a position. An argument is not.
- Re-deriving our published counts instead of incrementing them, and publishing corrections that name the old figure and call it wrong.
★ stuff, with More Realms
- ★ stuff is now formally a Stimpunks Foundation × More Realms collaboration with Helen Edgar — zines written after her became zines written with her and then by her. Ninety zines, twenty-four field guides, and sixteen collections, plus print sheets and listening racks.
- Running Glimmers and Glimmer Wire — good science news that arrives with the belonging claim already inside it, and a weekly digest that publishes what it declined to tell you, with its grades showing.
- Paying the citation debts we find as we find them. A word used once looks borrowed. A word used fifteen times looks like vocabulary.
Accountability in public
- Publishing our governance rather than holding it for request — our bylaws in full, a Conflict of Interest Policy with a working public disclosure form, Board Roles & Responsibilities, and a signable Board Member Agreement. We write down what it costs to sit on our board, including the parts most organizations leave you to discover after you say yes.
- Publishing our money as it actually is. Where the Money Went carries the $90,027 deficit and the ratio underneath it — $17.64 spent for every dollar a person gave — instead of the flattering version.
- Rebuilding Impact around the places we fall short, including our own grant windows: they are published months ahead and still fill fifty applications in under a week, which makes them a speed test, and speed tests filter for the least Disabled applicant in the pool. Fixing that is on us.
- Keeping the Strategic Environment analysis — a public PESTEL and SWOT of the whole organization — current alongside our finances and governance in the Accountability hub.
- Maintaining the Framing Documents index — the documents we steer by, gathered in one place so you can see the compass and not just the course.
- Working through all 20 BBB Standards for Charity Accountability, with our crosswalk published as we go. It’s a lot of work.
- Transitioning from private foundation to public charity status, and documenting each step as we take it.
Access, ours and yours
- Keeping this site usable, which is never finished — a print stylesheet, a landmark and a real heading on every page, reduced motion honored, a reading-options panel with a font you can choose, and dark mode in a Solarized palette that holds in light and dark alike.
- Writing access riders down and encouraging other people to. Ryan’s splits needs into Essential and Desirable and says what the second one costs. “Accessible” on a venue website is a claim, not a fact.
Care, community, and mutual aid
- Helping people navigate healthcare and housing.
- Hosting weekly “Solidarity Sessions” in our Discord community.
- Hosting weekly “Campfire Learn Together” sessions — recent ones include a memorial briefing for Jason Arday, seated tai chi and bodily survival knowledge, and The Subtle Art of Normalising Dystopia.
- Hosting weekly “Infodumplings” sessions in our Discord community.
- Tending the rooms where credit gets given for work that never ships — a #props-and-gratitude channel, a Collaborative Nonsense category where typing one word is a complete contribution, and a community tree named Pando, after the aspen colony that is one organism. Recognition is not a bonus for exceptional work. It is maintenance.
- Consistently updating our Coping Page with new resources for food assistance, coping tools (such as the A.C.T. Tool), and more listings in our service directory.
- Check out our Web Store for some awesome Stimpunks swag!
- Publishing our monthly newsletter — what we built, what we learned, what’s next. Subscribe to stay connected.
Last updated: September 6, 2026
What We’re Not Doing Right Now
Naming limits as choices, not failures.
- Not accepting new consulting engagements.
- Not running in-person events.
- Not pursuing rapid growth.
Objectives and Key Results
OKRs are how we make intentions legible — to ourselves and to the people who trust us with their attention and support. They’re not a performance. They’re a commitment to honesty about what we’re trying to do, how we’re measuring it, and whether it’s working. We miss some. We change course. We report back either way.
July – September 2026
A note on Q2: Q2’s OKRs pointed at the Pattern Library, Cavendish Space transmissibility, and printable recipes. We did that work — and the center of gravity moved. What actually carried the quarter, and rolled straight into Q3, was the crosswalk program, the AI ethics and alignments architecture, two new front-door microsites, and a public account of the whole organization. The Q3 OKRs below are drawn from what we’ve already been doing in Weeks 27–30 — not from what we planned in April. We name the real shape of the work and commit to the next stretch of it.
Objective 1 — Mature the AI Ethics and Alignments Architecture
Why this matters: The crosswalk is how we stay honest about where we stand in relation to everyone else doing this work. Convergence names who is arriving at our position from another direction. Lineage names who taught us to stand here in the first place. In Week 27 the AI pages got a map — a front door at /ai/, a split into a dedicated alignments hub at /ethics/ai-alignments/, three new crosswalks, and a root beneath them all in Dinah Murray’s monotropism-and-computing work. A crosswalk even handed us a name we’d been missing — relational opacity, the right not to be fully decoded. Q3 is about deepening that architecture without losing the thread that runs through it.
Key Results
- Publish 6+ crosswalk pages across the quarter — clearly marking each as convergence (“converges toward / stops short of”) or lineage (“lineage, not external critique”)
- Consolidate the /ai/ overview hub and the /ethics/ai-alignments/ alignments hub so the front door and the split hold as new crosswalks land
- Name and publish 2+ new concepts surfaced by the crosswalk work (following relational opacity), each with a home in the glossary or the alignments hub
- Keep the glossary human-authored — the legibility test holds; the glossary stays a soul-preserver, not a machine-screened one
Objective 2 — Open More Front Doors
Why this matters: Not everyone can say it out loud. In Week 29 two front doors opened, and neither one asks you to. Cavendish Cards (cavendish.app) lets a child point instead of explain. ★ stuff (starstuff.earth) says you were made of stars long before anyone asked you to earn your place. The tools exist. Q3 is about making sure people can find them — wiring them into the site, giving the zines a home, and putting the callouts where the people who need them already are.
Key Results
- Integrate starstuff.earth and cavendish.app into site navigation and the footer, so the microsites are reachable from the main site and not just by direct link
- Publish a /zines/ landing page that gathers the ★ stuff zines and field guides into one place on the main site
- Place cavendish.app callouts on 2+ pages where they belong — starting with Cavendish Space and the ARLES material
- Publish 3+ new zines or field guides on starstuff.earth, continuing the “no correct configuration of a human being” thread
Objective 3 — Show the Whole Organization in Public
Why this matters: In Week 30 we read the weather out loud. We published a PESTEL and SWOT of the whole organization and set it beside our finances and governance, where anyone can check it — strengths to be useful, weaknesses to be trusted. We gathered the nine documents we steer by into one place at /framing/, so you can see the compass and not just the course. And we gave the site a second skin — dark mode, a Solarized palette that holds in light and dark alike. Defaulting to open means you don’t just see the finished product; you see the hands that built it. Q3 is about holding that openness steady.
Key Results
- Keep the Strategic Environment analysis, finances, and governance current and public in the Accountability hub as conditions change
- Keep the Framing Documents index current as the compass we steer by, adding or revising documents as the work names new ones
- Complete at least 1 concrete step toward Candid Gold transparency and toward BBB Standards for Charity Accountability accreditation
- Extend the site’s accessibility work beyond dark mode and Solarized — verify the palette and contrast hold across the pages built or rebuilt this quarter
Objective 4 — Sustain the Public Knowledge Cadence
Why this matters: Consistency is how trust is built. Weekly changelogs and monthly newsletters are the backbone of working in public — they document labor, honor transparency, and keep the community connected to the work. And rest is part of that cadence, not a break from it: Week 28 was a rest week, and we let the weekly events carry it. Fungi work in the quiet and the dark, and sometimes so do we. Q3 is about holding the rhythm — including the rests.
Key Results
- Publish weekly changelogs for all 13 weeks of Q3 (Weeks 27–39)
- Publish monthly newsletters in July, August, and September, each built from that month’s changelogs
- Add 8+ new human-authored glossary entries, continuing the vocabulary of neurodivergent and Autistic life
- Honor rest weeks as legitimate cadence, not failure — a light week that keeps us present for what matters counts as the work working
Objective 5 — Build Toward Financial Sustainability and Mutual Aid
Why this matters: Sustainable funding protects the work, honors labor, and makes mutual aid possible. We don’t over-promise on fundraising — but we build the infrastructure and make intentional progress. And we hold the door open for allies: our friends at the Lilypad Library launched their Kickstarter this quarter, and we’re proud to stand beside them.
Key Results
- Distribute mutual aid grants at the 1-every-other-month cadence, keeping the aid grant pipeline moving through the quarter
- Submit or advance 2+ grant applications to community-aligned funders — including the DIF Collaborative Grant with Human Restoration Project, the Disability Frontlines Fund application, and the ASAN mini-grant
- Continue supporting Lilypad Library as fiscal sponsor, including their Kickstarter push
- Keep the 2026 Fundraising Goal Stack current as a public, living document with concrete milestones
Implementation Notes
- OKRs are directional beacons — not scorecards. The goal is honest, care-grounded work, not perfect metric completion.
- Qualitative evidence matters alongside numbers. If something helped someone, that counts.
- Rest is part of the work. Light weeks are not failures. They are how we stay present for what matters.
- These OKRs reflect what we’re actually doing — not what sounds impressive.
Alignment With Past OKRs
Q2 named the Pattern Library and Cavendish Space as its center. The real center turned out to be the crosswalk program, the AI alignments architecture, the two new microsites, and a public account of the whole organization. Rather than treat that as drift, we treat it as data: it told us where the work actually wanted to go. Q3 OKRs are recalibrated to match it — deepening the crosswalks and alignments, wiring the front doors into the site, holding the org open to inspection, keeping the public cadence, and building slow-and-steady toward sustainability.
The through line across all quarters: access as infrastructure, not aftercare.
April – June 2026
A note on Q1: Q1’s OKRs were overly optimistic. What we actually built was different — and better suited to who we are and how we work. Q1 was a foundational quarter: we built the Neurodivergent Design System, launched the Pattern Library, shipped the hub architecture, and earned Candid Silver. None of that was on the Q1 OKR list. The Q2 OKRs below are drawn from what we’ve actually been doing and what we’ve already committed to doing next.
Objective 1 — Deepen the Pattern Language
Why this matters: The Pattern Library is the core vocabulary of the Stimpunks design method. A richer, more connected language enables more people to recognize themselves — and to build environments that work for neurodivergent people. Recognition leads to design, and design leads to livable worlds.
Key Results
- Expand the Pattern Library from 18 to 30+ named patterns (including Environmental Weathering, Bodymind Break, and Bodymind Affirmation)
- Publish 3+ Pattern Clusters connecting related patterns into ecological groups
- Connect the Pattern Library to 5+ real-world environment pages or case studies, so patterns lead to action — not just description
Objective 2 — Build Cavendish Space as a Usable Model
Why this matters: Cavendish Space makes the pattern language concrete. It’s a model for regulation-first, attention-aware learning environments that can be understood and applied by teachers, administrators, and designers. The work is already underway — Q2 is about making it transmissible.
Key Results
- Publish 5+ Cavendish Space Design Patterns connecting the model to the broader Pattern Library
- Publish 1 Cavendish Space case study or workshop reflection grounding the model in real practice
- Connect all Cavendish Space pages to relevant Pattern Library entries and Design Recipes
Objective 3 — Ship Practical, Usable Tools
Why this matters: A pattern language only helps if people can use it. Printable recipes, classroom tools, and navigation aids reduce the distance between Stimpunks’ ideas and practice in real environments. Access as design, not aftercare.
Key Results
- Publish 5+ printable or classroom-ready Pattern Recipes (building on the 8 already published)
- Add 3+ new resources to the Regulation & Coping Hub — practical, not decorative
- Expand Browse by Need to cover at least 5 additional need-based entry points, making it a genuine primary navigation option for new visitors
Objective 4 — Sustain the Public Knowledge Infrastructure
Why this matters: Consistency is how trust is built. Weekly changelogs and monthly newsletters are the backbone of Stimpunks’ commitment to working in public. They document labor, honor transparency, and keep the community connected to the work. We maintained this cadence through Q1 — Q2 is about holding it.
Key Results
- Publish weekly changelogs for all 13 weeks of Q2 (Weeks 14–26)
- Publish monthly newsletters in April, May, and June
- Complete at least 1 step toward Candid Gold transparency certification (building from Silver)
Objective 5 — Build Toward Financial Sustainability
Why this matters: Sustainable funding protects the work, honors labor, and makes mutual aid possible. We don’t over-promise on fundraising — but we can build the infrastructure and make intentional progress.
Key Results
- Distribute 1 mutual aid grant to a community member (at the rate of 1 every other month)
- Submit 2 grant applications to community-aligned funders
- Publish the 2026 Fundraising Goal Stack as a public, living document with concrete milestones
Implementation Notes
- OKRs are directional beacons — not scorecards. The goal is honest, care-grounded work, not perfect metric completion.
- Qualitative evidence matters alongside numbers. If something helped someone, that counts.
- Rest is part of the work. Light weeks are not failures. They are how we stay present for what matters.
- These OKRs reflect what we’re actually doing — not what sounds impressive.
Alignment With Past OKRs
Q1 2026 named ambitious targets that we didn’t meet — not because we didn’t work, but because the work we actually did was different in shape. We built knowledge architecture, not events. We built design infrastructure, not zines. Q2 OKRs are recalibrated to match our real cadence and capacity: deep knowledge work, consistent public documentation, Cavendish Space development, and slow-and-steady financial sustainability.
The through line across all quarters: access as infrastructure, not aftercare.
Objective 1 — Expand Care & Support Infrastructure
Why this matters: Direct support and care systems are core to mission and reduce harm in real lives.
Key Results
- Distribute at least 5 care grants (e.g., aid, tech access, services) to community members
- Launch 2 new coping tools or resources on Coping and Field Guide pages
Objective 2 — Grow and Deepen Learning Pathways
Why this matters: Education grounded in lived experience reframes systems and supports community capacity building.
Key Results
- Finalize and publish 1 new learning module (e.g., Neuroqueer Learning Spaces, Cavendish Space, Ed Design)
- Host 6 Campfire Learn Together sessions focused on these modules
- Gather 10 pieces of user feedback (qualitative) to improve future editions
Objective 3 — Increase Visibility & Outreach
Why this matters: More people reached means more liberation language and more community connected to resources. (Stimpunks Foundation)
Key Results
- Grow newsletter subscription by 15%
- Deliver 8 public events (solidarity sessions, public editorial meetings, or community forums)
- Publish 5 guest articles or collaborative pieces with allied networks (e.g., education or disability justice partners)
Objective 4 — Strengthen Financial Stability
Why this matters: Sustainable funding protects care infrastructure, honors labor, and plans for long-term support.
Key Results
- Apply for 4 community-aligned grants focused on mutual aid, education, or accessibility
- Raise $3,000 in unrestricted support from individual donors
- Secure 1 funding partnership with aligned organization
Objective 5 — Build & Share Knowledge Publicly
Why this matters: Stimpunks prioritizes lived experience and open resources that challenge harmful norms and systems.
Key Results
- Publish 10 new “In Brief” entries (frameworks and models)
- Release 1 visual zine or poster collection summarizing key briefs and manifesto points
- Create a “Take a Walk in Our Shoes” interactive series for deeper engagement
Implementation Notes
- Qualitative feedback (stories, testimonials, user comments) should be collected alongside numbers for true impact reflection.
- OKRs are not about perfection; they are directional beacons to guide work rooted in care and lived reality.
- Emphasize tools that genuinely help the community survive and thrive—not just visibility metrics.
Alignment With Past OKRs
Past efforts in 2025 included fundraising, virtual events, and learning experience development. Q1 2026 builds on those foundations by scaling support infrastructure, advancing educational content, increasing reach, and stabilizing funding.
Raise $1,700 in funds and apply for 3 grants
- Apply for 3 grants
- Raise $1700 in organic and peer-to-peer donations
- Raise $500 with partners
Apply for 3 grants
100%
Raise $1700 in donations
100%
Host 13 virtual events and 24 public meetings
Host 1 conference
100%
Host 12 public operations meetings
100%
Host 12 public editorial meetings
100%
Develop 2 learning experiences
- Develop Neuroqueer Learning Spaces training
- Develop Map of Monotropic Experiences training
Develop Neuroqueer Learning Spaces training
100%
Develop Map of Monotropic Experiences training
100%
Numbers updated on June 28, 2025.
Raise $1,700 in funds and apply for 3 grants
- Apply for 3 grants
- Raise $1700 in organic and peer-to-peer donations
- Raise $500 with partners
Apply for 3 grants
33%
Raise $1700 in donations
100%
Raise $500 with partners
0%
Host 19 virtual events and 24 public meetings
- Host 9 Weekly Solidarity Sessions
- Host 9 Weekly Variety Hours
- Host 1 conference
- Host 12 public operations meetings
- Host 12 public editorial meetings
Host 9 Solidarity Sessions
100%
Host 9 Variety Hours
100%
Host 1 conference
100%
Host 12 public operations meetings
100%
Host 12 public editorial meetings
100%
Develop 2 learning experiences
- Develop Neuroqueer Learning Spaces training
- Develop Map of Monotropic Experiences training
Develop Neuroqueer Learning Spaces training
95%
Develop Map of Monotropic Experiences training
95%
Numbers updated on March 31, 2025.
Transparency Log
We default to open — not because transparency is easy, but because openness is a form of care. This log is where we share what’s happening behind the scenes: decisions, changes, setbacks, and ongoing work that usually stays hidden.
The Transparency Log now lives on its own page. Read the full log at Transparency Log — grants issued, pipelines opened and closed, board decisions, and the corrections we have had to make to our own published figures.
Next Steps for Our Community
Our work doesn’t happen in isolation — it happens alongside a community that’s also figuring things out. Here’s where we’re pointed together.
- Raise funds.
- Raise money to direct into the communities we serve.
- Create ecologies of care.
- Keep people housed, fed, and alive via our aid grants.
- Help people navigate our care systems.
- Provide warm lines and peer respite.
- Support our 4 pillars.
- Engage with Mutual Aid, Creator Grants, Learning Space, and Open Research — the four pillars that hold up everything we do.
- Explore the Pattern Library and Design Method.
- Use the Stimpunks Pattern Library to name and recognize how neurodivergent attention, energy, and experience work.
- Apply Design Recipes in classrooms, workplaces, homes, and care spaces.
- Learn the Stimpunks Design Method and the ARLES ladder: Attention → Relational → Lived Experience → Environments → Systems.
- Defend public education.
- Tell the story: Free, life-changing, and available to everyone.
- Advance progressive education.
- Work with Human Restoration Project, PINE, EALA, Autistic Realms, and others to advance progressive education.
- Continue creating why sheets to assist students, parents, and teachers with their advocacy.
- Advocate for Cavendish Space and Neuroqueer Learning Spaces.
- Tell the story: We’re raising whole children, not Frankenstein children.
- Tell the story: Henry Cavendish, Xerox PARC, and Caves, Campfires, and Watering Holes.
- Support creators.
- Grow our creator grants and bring more creators into our Discord community.
- We will need art and competency networks more than ever.
- Build community.
- Join our Discord community and show up weekly — for Solidarity Sessions, Campfire Learn Together, and Infodumplings.
- Engage in collaborative niche construction at human scale.
- Grow the rhizome by connecting with other cosmo-local bands of marginalized people.
- We will support each other. We will build our own ecologies of care and our own competency networks. We will build communities and network rhizomatically.
- Engage with our AI ethics framework.
- Read and apply the AI Collaboration guide — harm reduction, guardrails, and a neurodivergent frame for working with AI thoughtfully.
- Use and contribute to the glossary.
- The Stimpunks Glossary is a living knowledge infrastructure. Use it to find language, share it to spread it, and help us keep building it.
- Participate in research.
- Participatory research that aligns with community priorities and values gives us advocacy ammunition to fight back against regressive practices. Participate in studies.
- Tell stories.
- Help build a progressive storytelling ecosystem to offer an alternative to the right-wing ecosystem.
- “The pro-democracy movement needs to build its own funnel, now. It cannot and should not be a mirror image of the right’s funnel. It should be grounded in truth, not lies, and generosity, not closedness. But it needs to be a total media ecology that can meet people at any level of annoyance, curiosity, irritation, gripe, doubt, with any question — and move them toward a more humane and magnanimous view of the world.” —Anand Giridharadas
- Name the systems of power.
- Defuse resentment.
- Increase our impact.
- Consult our Impact page. Consider the things we measure. How can we make those numbers go up?
Last updated: 2026/05/03
4 Pathways
Stimpunks exists inside broken systems. We can’t fix them from the outside, and we can’t wait for them to fix themselves. So we move along four pathways at once — protecting people from immediate harm, disrupting what needs disrupting, defending what’s worth defending, and building the alternatives we need to survive and thrive. None of these pathways is optional. All four are always in motion.
These are the four directions that orient our work when systems are under pressure. Not a checklist — a compass.
We Will
This is our commitment. Not a mission statement written for funders — a declaration of what we actually do, in the language of people who live it.
We will…
- catalyse Stimpunks projects,
- coordinate neurodivergent and disabled peer support,
- document neurodivergent and disabled culture,
- conduct neurodivergent and disabled research,
- develop and deliver education based on lived experiences,
- host events that celebrate neurodivergent and disabled culture.
Problems to Keep in Mind
Every organization has questions it can’t stop thinking about. These are ours — not problems to solve and move on from, but problems to keep present, to test new ideas against, to return to. They shape what we build, what we fund, and what we refuse.
You have to keep a dozen of your favorite problems constantly present in your mind, although by and large they will lay in a dormant state. Every time you hear or read a new trick or a new result, test it against each of your twelve problems to see whether it helps. Every once in a while there will be a hit, and people will say, “How did he do it? He must be a genius!”
—Richard Feynman via “Forte, Tiago. Building a Second Brain: A Proven Method to Organize Your Digital Life and Unlock Your Creative Potential (p. 62). Simon Element / Simon Acumen.”
Feynman’s approach encouraged him to follow his interests wherever they might lead. He posed questions and constantly scanned for solutions to long-standing problems in his reading, conversations, and everyday life. When he found one, he could make a connection that looked to others like a flash of unparalleled brilliance.
Ask yourself, “What are the questions I’ve always been interested in?”
In the spirit of Richard Feynman’s 12 problems, here are some questions to keep in mind as we go about our business:
These are ours:
Design and knowledge infrastructure
- How do we make the Pattern Library and Design Method usable by people who aren’t already fluent in the language?
- How do we build tools that work for the people with the least capacity, not just the most?
AI and technology
- How do we use AI without reproducing the harms it encodes?
- How do we stay honest about what tools do and don’t do for neurodivergent people?
Community sustainability
- How do we raise more funds?
- How do we keep our community safe while including more people?
- How do we set boundaries to protect our mental health without being called performative?
- How do we increase community engagement in Discord and on social media?
- How do we support our 4 pillars: Mutual Aid, Creator Grants, Learning Space, Open Research?
- Who should we add to our board?
- How do we prevent burnout in a community where many members are already running on empty?
- How do we honor the labor of volunteers and contributors without exploiting it?
Systems and advocacy
- How do we help people survive the dismantling of healthcare systems and the administrative state?
- How do we resist behaviorism in education and healthcare?
Epistemic and identity
- How do we keep lived experience at the center as the organization grows?
- How do we resist the pressure to translate our work into language that makes funders comfortable but loses what matters?
Care and access
- How do we reach people who need us most but have the least capacity to find us?
- How do we build care infrastructure that doesn’t depend on any one person’s capacity?
What should we add?
Changelog
We publish a weekly changelog. Working in public means you don’t just see the finished product — you see the hands that built it.
Newsletter
We publish a monthly newsletter — what we built, what we learned, what’s next. Subscribe to stay connected to the work.
Glossary
We constantly update our glossary.
Feeds
We’re on pretty much all of the social networks, but we are most active and engaged on our Bluesky.
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