
Remote-First Institute will fight for your freedom of choice where and when you work.
Is this the end of the remote work revolution?
You probably heard about it, or maybe it affects you directly:

Office lobbies want to take away the freedom of choice where and when we work. Why is it happening?
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The Covid-19 pandemic has changed the world – it showed that our work could be done anywhere. It’s about the outcome, not the time or the location.
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There was a moment when we all thought that this would be our new standard of work…
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But the rainy days have come – most businesses still haven’t adapted to the change.
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They just copied & pasted the “office way of working” to the new, remote environment. With all its flaws: lack of trust, micromanagement, wrong communication behaviors, undefined ways of collaboration, and many more.
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And guess what? It’s not working out (at least for them), so they are trying to push back.
But WE, the employees know that the future of work is remote-first, and we will fight for it.
Support Remote-First Institute’s mission to help transition 100,000 companies to remote-first by the end of 2025.
Help yourself, help your peers.
If you donate, what can you get?
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Ambassador ($9: one-time)
Remote-First know-how to your inbox (monthly newsletter). -
RFI membership ($49: one-time)
Remote-how Academy access and community events. -
“Out-of-office” hoodie ($79: one-time)
A black hoodie with a print. -
Ticket to Running Remote ($749:one-time)
Join the world’s largest remote work conference (April 25-26th, 2023 | Lisbon, PT). -
Expert Membership ($799: lifetime)
A space for remote-first changemakers’ to learn, contribute, and network. -
Remote Work Score (RWS) – partner donation ($999:one-time)
Official supporter of our RWS Grant. -
Corporate education program ($2,399: one-time)
Learning resources, live events, and peer-to-peer support for employees (up to 1,000).
DONATE or SHARE!
Let’s fight together the #BackToTheOffice lobby!
How are we going to make this happen?
For Season #1, we are crowdfunding $50,000 to sponsor the 5 most-voted community initiatives called Paid Grants. This would allow us to support the remote-first transition of the initial group – 1,000 companies.
- Members with voting rights decide which grants get funding.
- Members can create grants or apply to participate in them.
- We already have several grants approved by the community, which are awaiting funding incl. Remote Work Score – free team assessment, Head of Remote course, open-sourced Remote-First Playbook, and Remote-First Certification for companies.
How have we started the Institute?
- Many of our members led distributed teams or advised them for 5+ years. When the Covid-19 pandemic hit, as remote experts, book authors, and practitioners, we did our best to give back to the community. But we felt we need more coordination and a larger scale.
- In September 2021 a group of remote-first activists launched the Remote-First Institute. A global not-for-profit organization that curates education programs, fosters community learning and creates high-quality content.
What have we done so far?
In just 6 months, the community:
- launched 84 mini-projects in the remote-first education space
- raised $60,000+ from donors
- grew to 741 members from 84 countries
- got on board activists from top remote-first companies Doist, GitLab, or Buffer.
What do our members think about RFI?
- “The Remote-First Institute is well-organized and informative! Led by inspiring leaders – well done!”Julie Lavergne
- “Thank you for a fab job with the RFI. I really enjoyed the sessions so far.”Vera Lakmaker
- “Very insightful with a lot of new techniques – this session opened my eyes on how to improve the remote setup.” Angelo B. J. Luidens
- “I attended the 5 tips for better virtual and hybrid meetings – what a great session!” Zainab Fatima Bokhari
Who is behind the Institute?
Our Founding and Honorary Members include:
- Dr. Beat Buhlmann, Lecturer & Author
- Ginger Dhaliwal, Co-founder @ Upflex
- Chris Dyer, Former CEO @ People G2
- Mine Dedekoca, Founder @ Happy Work Studio
- Marek Grygier, Co-founder @ Remote-how
- Michael Gutman, LinkedIn Learning Instructor
- Nadia Harris, Founder @ RemoteWorkAdvocate
- Lavinia Iosub, Founder @ Remote Skills Academy
- Jim Kalbach, Chief Evangelist @ Mural
- Adam Ambroży & Larissa Menocci, Co-founders @ MakeTeamWrok
- Iwo Szapar, Co-founder @ Remote-how
- Maaria Tiensivu, Founder @ Innovation Distributed
- Valentina Thorner, Guardian of Remote @ Klaus
- Sophie Wade, Workforce Innovation Specialist
- Chase Warrington, Head of Remote @ Doist