You can make a living, build community, and stay in your integrity.
Anti-capitalist business coaching in liberatory marketing and finance for folks who are done choosing between their values and their survival.
check out liberatory finance
Hey, I'm Emily Eley —
an anti-capitalist business coach, activist & organizer, parent, and firm believer that business can be a tool for liberation, not exploitation.
I help small business owners build values-aligned businesses that center care, community, and sustainability — not hustle, urgency, or endless growth.
I come to this work as a Marxist, socialist-vibing facilitator, gardener, and mother who believes deeply in a post-capitalist world that prioritizes people and planet over profit.
So glad you're here. 👋
come read more of my story
marketing is often a loaded topic.
Most small business owners don't actually hate marketing. They hate what it's become. They hate the pressure to perform. The urgency. The pretending. The sense that you have to strip your work of context and politics and humanity in order to sell it.
Liberatory Marketing is about doing it differently. It's about finding your voice in a sea of panic and noise — not to shout louder, but to speak clearly. It's about knowing you have something real to offer and believing that sharing it, in right relationship, might actually be part of the antidote to this moment.
join the next 6 week liberatory marketing series
low and behold your relationship with money didn't start when you opened your business.
It's been shaped by your upbringing, your culture, your class, and every message you've absorbed about what money means and who deserves it. Before we talk numbers, we talk about all of that. Because knowing your numbers isn't about becoming a better capitalist. It's about knowing your power.
Liberatory Finance is a 6-week series where we unpack the money narratives that are quietly running your business. We'll demystify the financial reports that actually matter. We'll map your cash flow, figure out how to pay yourself, and explore what "enough" actually looks like — for you, not for some growth-obsessed benchmark.
Money has no morality. But you do. Let's build a financial practice that knows the difference.
want newsletters that make you think, feel, and do something?
Same. I send a mostly-weekly-ish letter to folks who are trying to run values-aligned businesses inside a system that wasn't built for care, rest, or community.
These emails are about unlearning the relentless push to consume and do more and remembering how to do business like a human being.
I write about small business ownership, ethical sales and marketing, class, parenting, collective care, economic systems — and trying to live a values-based life in a world that rewards the opposite.
Generosity Without Burnout: Sliding Scales and Sustainable Giving in Business
If you've ever wondered how to offer sliding scale pricing without underselling yourself or burning out — this one's for you. It's one of the most-asked questions in office hours, and this post works through it honestly.
read the post →
want deeper support?
Sometimes what you need isn't a course or a workshop. It's someone who will actually sit with you, think with you, and help you work through what's specific to your business, your life, your constraints.
My 1:1 coaching is for small business owners who are overwhelmed, in transition, or craving thoughtful, politically-grounded partnership. We work on whatever is alive — pricing, marketing strategy, financial clarity, values alignment, or figuring out what you actually want this thing to be.
I offer financial aid because I believe this work should be accessible. I'm also proud to be a VSAC-approved non-degree course provider here in Vermont.
No pressure. No funnels. Just honest support when you're ready.
learn more about 1:1 coaching
14 Steps To Build an Anti-Capitalist Business:
Beyond Capitalism: Building Community-Based Businesses in a Post-Capitalist Economy
Not sure what it actually means to run a business that's rooted in your values? This is the post people keep coming back to. A practical, honest framework for building something that holds up.
read the post →
your emails are worth reading. let's make sure people actually open them.
A free guide to writing subject lines that sound like a human wrote them — because you did. If you've ever stared at the subject line field for ten minutes and typed something like "August Newsletter" — this is for you.
get the free guide →
free monthly office hours
a monthly business commons
First Thursday of every month. 9:00–10:30am ET. On Zoom. Always free.
Office Hours is a free, monthly gathering for small business owners who want their work to reflect their values. I call it a business commons because it's shared. We bring questions, lived experience, strategies, and contradictions into one room and think together. Knowledge circulates. Insight builds collectively.
You can bring a specific question and get clarity quickly. Or you can listen and absorb. Either way, you leave steadier than you arrived.
come hang with us at office hours →
Land Acknowledgement
I live and work on the unceded land of the Abenaki people, who have stewarded the Champlain Valley and the wider region we now call Burlington, Vermont, for thousands of years. I honor their past, present, and future care for this land, and I commit to learning from and standing in solidarity with Indigenous communities.
