ThirdSpace Action Lab anchors our practice in the fundamental truth that protecting community brilliance is not merely a moral imperative, but a non-negotiable metric of urban design and institutional accountability. It’s from that brilliance that life is preserved and pushed to thrive, continuing a deep, emotional cycle of return.
Inevitability is always a focal point. Seeing it on the horizon, and accepting it, ThirdSpace Action Lab moved beyond the theoretical to operationalize radical imagination as a concrete tool for systemic survival and cultural preservation. We anchored our practice in the fundamental truth that protecting Black brilliance is not merely a moral imperative, but a rigorous discipline of urban design and policy. As you review these receipts, understand that every metric represents our unwavering commitment to building a future where our communities do not just endure, but govern.In the year 2025, ThirdSpace Action Lab (TSAL) underwent a profound and necessary evolution, moving decisively past theoretical frameworks to fully operationalize the concept of radical imagination. This was not a purely intellectual exercise; it was a deployment of a concrete, rigorous tool essential for systemic survival, the preservation of culture, and the development of resilient, self-determining communities.
Our entire practice was anchored in the fundamental and non-negotiable truth that protecting and fostering Black brilliance is far more than a moral or social-justice imperative. It is, in fact, a complex and rigorous discipline that must be embedded directly into the practice of urban design, public policy creation, and resource allocation. We operated under the conviction that the built environment and the regulations governing it must be architected to enable, not impede, the flourishing of Black life.
As we present the following "receipts"—the quantifiable metrics and narrative evidence of our work—we ask that you view them through this lens. Each data point, every success metric, and all documented instances of community impact do not merely represent output. Instead, they reflect our unwavering, year-long commitment to building a future where our communities are not simply forced to endure the systemic pressures placed upon them, but are fundamentally empowered to govern, determine their own trajectory, and actualize their collective vision for prosperity and equity.
Radical Imagination → Lived Reality.
That’s the work. That’s the assignment.
As we closed 2025, we’re holding two truths at once: the year asked a lot of all of us—and affirmed why ThirdSpace Action Lab and the ThirdSpace Reading Room must exist.
We are building in a sociopolitical moment shaped by backlash, divestment, disinformation, and displacement. In too many places, “equity” is treated like a passing trend. “Community engagement” is treated like a box to check. And decisions that reshape people’s lives are still too often made without the people most impacted holding power in the process.
But we’ve never been in the business of waiting for permission.
ThirdSpace exists because Black communities deserve infrastructure—not just acknowledgment. We exist because cultural preservation isn’t nostalgia; it’s strategy. We exist because justice doesn’t live only in language—it lives in design, in budgets, in neighborhood plans, in who gets listened to, and in who gets to stay.
This year, we continued the work of operationalizing radical imagination as a concrete tool for survival, governance, and possibility. We moved beyond the theoretical and stayed rooted in the practical: building strategies, supporting community-centered planning, convening neighbors and partners, facilitating engagement that isn’t extractive, and shaping projects where lived experience is treated as expertise—not an afterthought.
That’s why we do the work the way we do.
Our events, programs, and client engagements aren’t “offerings” separate from our values—they are expressions of them. We create learning spaces because knowledge is a freedom practice. We gather because community is a resource that cannot be replaced. We support partners because too many institutions still struggle to move with accountability, cultural intelligence, and care. And we consult because we believe Black communities deserve to set the agenda, not just respond to it.
In 2025, the receipts matter—the convenings, the workshops, the strategies, the milestones. But we also want to name what those receipts represent: not just output, but evidence of community power being built in real time. Evidence of a different way of working—one that refuses shortcuts and refuses to abandon the people behind the plan.
Our practices are not aesthetic. They are political. They are protective.
We listen deeply because truth lives in people.
We document because memory must be defended.
We build with care because care is a technology our communities have always used to survive and to thrive.
This is the work of ThirdSpace Action Lab.
And the ThirdSpace Reading Room exists as its sibling space—our public living room. A place that reminds us that movement-building requires more than meetings. It requires culture. Story. Study. Celebration. It requires places where people can breathe, reflect, and imagine beyond crisis.
This year, we also named something plainly: Bet On Black.
Not as a slogan. Not as a seasonal campaign. But as a practice.
To bet on Black is to treat Black leadership, Black creativity, Black joy, and Black futures as worthy of investment—without hesitation and without condition. It is to move beyond statements toward structure. It is to resource what you claim to value. It is to put real commitment behind the people and places that hold our communities together.
Bet On Black is our way of saying: we are not building from scarcity—we are building from soul power. From the kind of generational strength that made a way out of no way, and still insisted on music, laughter, beauty, and gathering. The kind of spirit that shows up like “Grandma’s Home”—warmth at the door, nourishment on the table, and care that doesn’t require explanation.
We are proud of what we built this year—and we are even prouder of how we built it.
To our team: thank you for your brilliance, your rigor, and the way you continue to raise the standard.
To our collaborators and partners: thank you for trusting us, building with us, and staying in relationship through complexity.
To our community: thank you for your honesty, your wisdom, your love, and your insistence that this work stay rooted in what’s real.
You make ThirdSpace possible.
As we share this report, we want to be clear: this is not a victory lap. It’s an invitation.
If you’ve been watching the work from the outside, we invite you to step in.
If you’ve been building in parallel, we invite you to link arms.
If you’re an organization ready to move differently—ready to practice accountability, invest in community leadership, and build long-term—let’s collaborate.
In short: bet on Black with your time, your trust, your dollars, your relationships, and your willingness to build.
Thank you for being part of this ecosystem of possibility. Thank you for showing up, for listening, and for helping make space—so that radical imagination can keep becoming lived reality.
With gratitude and deep commitment,
Mordecai Cargill & Evelyn Burnett
Co-Founders, ThirdSpace Action Lab + ThirdSpace Reading Room
80+ Community Practitioners & Co-Conspirators:
We didn't just host "meetings"; we facilitated intellectual sanctuaries. Across four intensive workshops, we convened over 80 leaders to dismantle the specific systemic hurdles facing our Latine and Black communities, moving from theory to actionable equity.
113,679 Intentional Points of Contact
The Vote Squad 2.0 executed a sophisticated ground game in Cleveland’s Central neighborhood. This wasn't just about "getting out the vote"—it was about reclaiming the narrative of civic agency in a neighborhood that the system often tries to forget.
4,773 Meaningful Engagements
We don't just count clicks; we count conversations. These nearly 5,000 successful interactions represent hours of deep listening and relationship-building, the essential "soul-work" required to move the needle on community power.
30+ National Platforms
TSAL is Cleveland-grown but nationally known. From the Social Purpose Real Estate Summit to Neighborhood Economics, we took our "Race, Class, and Power" framework on the road, showing the rest of the country that the "Cleveland way" is the future of urban repair.
5 Freedom Lectures
These sessions served as our public classroom. We explored the intersections of Black Feminism, Queer Liberation, and Future-making, providing our people with the language to articulate their own freedom.
5 Original Podcast Episodes
Through The Cleveland Pulse, we archived the brilliance of our local thinkers, ensuring that the evolution of our city’s movement is documented by the people actually living it.
Hough has long been subject to planning and investment that extracts value from its history without protecting the people who made that history possible. Development conversations often treated culture as an accessory rather than a governing force—leaving residents wary, fragmented, and rightfully skeptical of “plans.”
With deep community input, we leaned into a radical but grounded idea: cultural preservation is economic development. TSAL centered Black cultural assets, memory, and lived expertise as the foundation for shaping growth—asking not just what should be built, but what must be protected, named, and carried forward for future generations.
A people-and-place strategy that positions Hough’s cultural legacy as a non-negotiable anchor for development—informing principles, engagement practices, and long-term stewardship across Hough and MidTown Cleveland.
Hough has long been subject to planning and investment that extracts value from its history without protecting the people who made that history possible. Development conversations often treated culture as an accessory rather than a governing force—leaving residents wary, fragmented, and rightfully skeptical of “plans.”
With deep community input, we leaned into a radical but grounded idea: cultural preservation is economic development. TSAL centered Black cultural assets, memory, and lived expertise as the foundation for shaping growth—asking not just what should be built, but what must be protected, named, and carried forward for future generations.
A people-and-place strategy that positions Hough’s cultural legacy as a non-negotiable anchor for development—informing principles, engagement practices, and long-term stewardship across Hough and MidTown Cleveland.
The former Hough Branch held deep emotional and cultural meaning, yet its future risked being shaped without honoring that legacy—or the generations who saw the library as a civic and communal anchor.
Through place-based, intergenerational engagement, residents articulated a vision of the building as more than a structure: a site of memory, learning, and possibility. We reframed “reuse” as responsibility—to history, to youth, and to neighborhood identity.
Driving a place-based engagement process, we developed a community-rooted vision for reimagining the former Hough library branch. Our work centered resident identity, intergenerational learning, and cultural legacy to help shape an inclusive, future-oriented space for the future building owner.
Outdoor play spaces are often designed for families rather than with them—missing cultural cues, access realities, and the ways children actually move through the world with caregivers.
Parents, caregivers, educators, and community members helped reimagine play as intergenerational, sensory, culturally affirming, and joyful. We invited community wisdom to define what safety, imagination, and belonging truly look like in outdoor environments.
Clear, community-generated design guidance that CMC can build from—grounded in lived experience and rooted in access areas often left out of institutional design processes.
Affordable housing production often excludes racial equity analysis from day-to-day decision-making—especially within technical certification programs.
Using groundwater and racial equity frameworks, we created space for BIPOC housing professionals to interrogate systems, share lived expertise, and apply equity tools directly to their work.
A cohort equipped not just with credentials, but with language, analysis, and confidence to advance systems change in housing practice across New Jersey.
The Cleveland Freedom Dreams Coalition (CFDC), powered by PERC, is where we move beyond protesting the system to actually redesigning it. We recognize that for our communities to thrive, we must move from a state of constant reaction to a position of proactive governance.
FREEDOM LECTURES
FUTURISM WORKSHOP
Freedom Lectures are more than public talks—they are community gatherings designed to bring people together in good spirit, shared curiosity, and deeper connection. Hosted in the Reading Room or with neighborhood partners, each event creates space for real conversation and collective reflection. Rooted in the power of community, the series introduces Cleveland to changemakers from across the country who are advancing Black-led work and reshaping cultural narratives. Guided by themes from The Peoples Practice and shaped by the visions of the Cleveland Freedom Dreams Coalition, Freedom Lectures invite us to learn together, dream together, and build a freer, Blacker future side by side.
Rooted in the conviction that community is our greatest asset, this series bridges the gap between the national and the local, introducing Cleveland to the vanguards of Black thought who are actively reshaping cultural narratives across the country. Guided by the theoretical framework of The People’s Practice and the radical aspirations of the Cleveland Freedom Dreams Coalition, the Freedom Lectures are an invitation to engage in the praxis of freedom—learning, dreaming, and building a Blacker, more liberated future in real time.
The Premise: Imagination as Infrastructure Convened within the sanctuary of the ThirdSpace Reading Room, this session moved beyond the abstract to position radical imagination as a rigorous social practice. Facilitated by the visionary Ifeoma Ike, we explored imagination not as a fleeting daydream, but as a critical discipline—a mindset that allows us to see the world not in its current brokenness, but in its potential wholeness.
The Unlearning The workshop challenged the coalition to dismantle the "scarcity mindset" that insists there is no alternative. We interrogated how colonized frameworks and the daily grind of systemic survival often act as a ceiling on our most expansive thinking. Ifeoma guided us through a practical pathway of "unlearning"—stripping away the limiting beliefs of the status quo to reveal a trajectory toward just and regenerative futures. We did the heavy lifting of naming what we deserve, rather than settling for what current systems allow.
From Crisis Response to Future-Making A core tenet of the session was the shift from reaction to creation. For too long, our movements have been forced into a posture of crisis response. This workshop provided the tools—spanning foresight, design justice, and community-rooted value creation—to pivot toward "future-making." By disrupting dominant cultural narratives and centering those most impacted by inequity as the primary architects of the new world, we make liberated futures conceivable.
The Result This was about translating insight into infrastructure. Coalition members engaged in deep reflection to surface the assumptions shaping their vision, redefining who gets to sit at the drawing board. We left equipped to be better designers of new systems—institutions guided not by profit or growth for growth’s sake, but by possibility, deep belonging, and collective liberation.
PEOPLE’S SOLUTIONS LAB
Led by the Cleveland Freedom Dreams Coalition, the People’s Solutions Lab mobilized over 50 residents to transmute lived experience into legislative power. We moved beyond simple engagement to co-create specific policy strategies, ensuring our community was not only #ElectionReady but equipped to define the agenda for the municipal elections. This initiative establishes a rigorous standard of accountability, affirming that the architects of our policy must be the people themselves.
Led by the Cleveland Freedom Dreams Coalition, the People’s Solutions Lab mobilized over 50 residents to transmute lived experience into legislative power. We moved beyond simple engagement to co-create specific policy strategies, ensuring our community was not only #ElectionReady but equipped to define the agenda for the municipal elections. This initiative establishes a rigorous standard of accountability, affirming that the architects of our policy must be the people themselves.
THE CLEVELAND PULSE
Through The Cleveland Pulse, we archived the brilliance of our local thinkers, ensuring that the evolution of our city’s movement is documented by the people actually living it.
Ground-Truthing the Work: An Exploration of Place with The People’s Practice
In 2025, The People’s Practice—our national initiative for Anti-Racist Community Development (ARCD) supported by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation—moved beyond theory to prioritize the discipline of presence. We operated from the understanding that equity is not a "one-size-fits-all" model; it requires a rigorous engagement with the specific geographic, demographic, and historical contexts of the communities we serve.
We anchored this inquiry by launching our Regional Action Planning intensives. In Jackson, Mississippi, we convened 40 practitioners for a five-week deep dive, stress-testing the ARCD framework against the cultural and political realities of the Deep South. This wasn't just training; it was a co-design process to determine how to operationalize anti-racism in a region defined by both deep trauma and profound resistance. By November, we pivoted to the Midwest, gathering 60 local leaders in Minneapolis, Minnesota to map the specific contours of justice in the Twin Cities.
Looking ahead to our 2026 engagement in Appalachia, we recognized that respectful entry requires relationship-building before the work begins. Our team undertook a 1,000-mile ethnographic journey across West Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Virginia. conducting 18 site visits with 40 stakeholders. This listening tour allowed us to honor the unique wisdom of the region and reimagine how community development can function outside of urban-centric norms.
Simultaneously, we amplified this local wisdom on the national stage. Our team influenced the discourse at over 30 major convenings—from Neighborhood Economics to the Social Purpose Real Estate Summit—and partnered with thought leaders like Urban Strategies Inc. and Purpose Built Communities. Through our quarterly digital publications and virtual learning events, we continued to interrogate critical intersections of environmental justice, safety, and wealth building. We invite you to explore these resources and join us as we continue to refine the "place-based" pedagogy of liberation.
Our partnership with Case Western and NP3’s Bending the Arc Podcast series presented an opportunity to hear transparent thoughts from our team on our initiatives. We sat down with the ever-inquisitive Dr. Mark Joseph, who challenged us to think, but more importantly to re-embrace the work that we consider needed to be done. The seven-part series broadens your understanding of our day-to-day, and how each component of ThirdSpace works together to imbue its listeners. From the why, to the history, consulting, anti-racist community development, the bookstore and The Space, we talk about it all, and we don’t shy away from any of it.
June always has a special feeling in the air. We think it’s the ancestors calling us to remember and honor them. This necessary excitement emerged post-Black is Free 2023. We knew that our vision to make Cleveland the “Galveston of the North” could happen and was within reach.
2025, amongst the cultural pushback experienced in Nov. 2024, we decided that it wouldn’t deter us from celebrating because honestly, that’s not our problem. 20+ events happening in Glenville, plus the creation of a community calendar to highlight NEO’s Black celebrations.