Bernie J Mitchell shared notes from the gathering of members of the European Coworking Assembly in Portugal. They discussed what actually makes coworking spaces work.

Key takeaways: your email list beats social media for building real community, and coworking alone rarely covers the bills so most operators run a second business to stay afloat.

From Providing Aid to Reconstruction.

What happens when emergency aid transforms into lasting infrastructure? Leading voices Jeannine van der Linden (European Coworking Assembly), Helga Moreno (Spacebring), and Marko Orel (Prague University of Economics and Business) will examine:

🌍 How did coworking communities across Europe mobilize to support thousands of displaced professionals—and what lessons emerged?

🇺🇦 What does it take for Ukrainian coworking spaces to operate as community anchors under wartime conditions?

🔨 How are these networks shaping new collaboration models that could inform post-war reconstruction?

💡 What can the global coworking movement learn from this crisis about resilience and solidarity?

Join us and discover how temporary refuge is evolving into permanent community, and what this means for the future of coworking as social infrastructure.

Jeannine van der Linden runs the De Kamer coworking space network in the Netherlands and leads the European Coworking Assembly and shares more about talking to councils so they actually fund your projects on the Coworking Values Podcast.

The European Coworking Assembly shared that there is now a digital map resource listing all 443 coworking spaces that have committed to providing a welcome and inclusive environment to anyone with a migrant background.

Amazing to see so many spaces offering support to refugees, asylum seekers and other newcomers to their cities.

Jeannine van der Linden shares her coworking journey, from working in a construction business, to being a high-conflict litigation lawyer in Atlanta, to building De Kamer – a network of rural and e-commerce-focussed hubs in the Netherlands.

Not that she’s done making an impact, Jeannine also introduces us to the RES-MOVE project, which is funded by the Asylum, Migration and Integration Fund with the big audacious goal of creating a network of European coworking spaces to serve as integration hubs for refugees – especially focussed within rural areas.