At first glance, the posters lining a table at Arbeiter Brewing Company in south Minneapolis look like bold, graphic art prints.

For artist and community organizer Sean Lim, they're also a way to move money and attention toward neighbors who need it most.

"Every single print that I make through my passion project, which I've been calling mutual aid movement art for mutual aid, has been twofold," Lim said. "One is the facilitation of getting art out into the world … I also raise funds through all of this art. So dollar for dollar, every single poster that I'm selling, all of those funds go directly back to mutual aid and on-the-ground legal support for different organizations in the area."

Lim is part of a larger art collective that creates posters, banners and placards for local movements and community groups. His work has shown up on porches and front windows in south Minneapolis, in union marches and at events where people want to signal support without picking up a megaphone.

"It's always the community that we host at our studio to create all sorts of different kinds of different placards and signage that people can use," he said. "Art has always been a through line, because it is, at the end of the day, I believe, an invaluable tool in the toolbox of organizing."

The "porch posters" on display at Arbeiter Brewing Company are part of that effort — a limited run that people can grab. Lim also mails posters directly and has shipped fabric patches around the country and overseas.

Two years ago, he opened a simple online form offering free screen-printed patches to anyone who requested one.

"When we came back to it, it had around 2,000 requests," Lim said. He and others spent weeks printing and mailing them out.

That demand showed up again at a winter market this week. Lim says his table alone raised $2,000 through print sales.

"That's $2,000 that's directly being distributed, redistributed to on the ground immigration law clinics and organizations that have been doing tireless advocacy for our immigrant neighbors and community here in the Twin Cities metro area," he said.

After supplies and shipping costs, Lim says the money from his posters goes to five organizations: the Minnesota chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, Ayada Leads — an East African women-led advocacy group, Volunteer Lawyers Network, Mid-Minnesota Legal Aid's Immigration Law Project and the Immigrant Law Center of Minnesota. 

Lim says the posters are just the starting point. The impact, he insists, belongs to the community that keeps putting them up.