Emergence and Community Building: Finding the Critical Mass
How does a group of individuals become a community? Let’s explore emergence, entropy, and percolation theory—and learn what helps communities reach critical mass. The idea of emergence…
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Who Gave You That Right?
There’s a factory upstream. The people downstream take care of their little piece of the world. They look after the land, share resources, help their neighbors. They’ve…
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Hardin, Ostrom, and the Rest of Us
This essay argues that humans are wired for both competition and cooperation, which is why the tragedy of the commons is avoidable in theory but hard to…
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It All Started With This Thought
After years of working in community building, social services, and bottom-up social infrastructure, I have conceded to an understanding that many before me came to. Humans are,…
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Someone Still Has to Do the Work
I chair (lead) the Outreach and Development committee (sub-circle) for an international nonprofit—an organization that operates sociocratically. And… I believe in the process. I believe in the…
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Borrowed Capacity
On Tuesday, our staff was having a not-so-infrequent conversation that people who help people probably need to have more often. We were frustrated. At the community resource…
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Create or Die
As AI continues to take over the information marketplace, humans have a new opportunity to capitalize on what humans do best – create. Humans are ingenious creatures.…
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I’d Rather Have “It” Than Be Beautiful
I know. Everyone has their own kind of beauty. And I do, mostly, believe that. Beauty comes in all shapes and sizes, they say. And sometimes even…
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How Nonprofits Became Corporate Puppets
These day, my life revolves around nonprofit work. So when I say that there’s something terribly wrong with the way nonprofits are funded, I’m speaking about a…
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The Organization Is the Grant Proposal
Article prepared by RiverStephens.org and RiverGPT I recently met with two city officials whose work is to manage housing precarity and homelessness in both the city and…