Financial Transparency
Support Voices in the Dust
The Repair Lab is currently collecting donations to maintain and expand Voices in the Dust, with the hope of raising $30,000 for three Community Archive Training Workshops. Support Voices in the Dust: Donate
100% of all donations will be spent on item/activity specified.
Costs to Date
Voices in the Dust, the research it includes, and the labor it describes have come at considerable cost. Why has it cost residents, activists, and advocates so much to engage in democratic processes with billion-dollar corporations? Why has it cost so much to collect and produce the evidence to compel decision-makers and regulators to respond when there have been decades of community complaints? When the black dust residues are visible with an unaided eye? The Repair Lab includes their costs below for the sake of financial transparency.
We highlight the immense day-to-day costs borne by residents who subsidize coal export through the Dominion Terminal Associates, Kinder Morgan Bulk Terminals, and Norfolk Southern Pier 6 Terminal with their physical and mental health and quality of life.
Repair Lab
In 2021–2024, the Repair Lab received $2,000,000 from the University of Virginia Karsh Institute of Democracy for their operating and programing expenses. Only a portion (about 25%) of these funds were dedicated to research, labor, and activities around coal dust, including team member salaries and the Repair Lab's Practitioner-in-Residence program. Financial support from the Karsh Institute of Democracy was also used for the work on sea-level rise in Norfolk, educational programing and opportunities for University of Virginia undergraduate and graduate students and postdoctoral scholars, and the production of artistic works, academic articles, and books on environmental justice.
In 2024–2026, the Repair Lab received $663,471 from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The funds were spent to collect and analyze dust samples from inside over 100 residents' homes, primarily in Southeast Newport News, conducting oral histories and surveys on coal dust impacts, and team member salaries. The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation grant supported the creation of the pre-release version of Voices in the Dust.
In 2025, Anthropocene Institute made an unsolicited gift of $50,000 to the Repair Lab, which the Repair Lab used to purchase air monitors and data plans to augment its VOICES Network.
Over 2024–2026, the Repair Lab has received $21,568 from the University of Virginia Department of Environmental Sciences Goodell Fund. The Repair Lab has used these funds to purchase air monitors for the VOICES Network, pay team member salaries, develop innovative communication approaches, and conduct isotopic analysis on dust samples collected inside residents' homes.