inCUBATE was inspiration for the new mutual aid micro grants on Valley Art Share.

 From their website:

InCUBATE is a research group dedicated to exploring new approaches to arts administration and arts funding. We at InCUBATE act as curators, researchers and co-producers of artists projects.  These activities have manifested in a series traveling exhibitions called Other Options, an artist residency program, and various other projects such as Sunday Soup (a monthly meal that generates funding for a creative project grant). We don’t have non-profit status, instead we are interested in what kinds of organizational strategies could provide more direct support to critical and socially-engaged art and culture beyond for-profit or non-profit structures.  Our core organizational principle is to treat art administration as a creative practice.  By doing so, we hope to generate and share a new vocabulary of practical solutions to the everyday problems of producing under-the-radar culture.  Currently we do not have a physical location and we work together on an ongoing project basis. http://incubate-chicago.org/