From Online to Onlined: The Quiet Shift to Real Community
Somewhere along the way, since the advent of social media, the internet convinced us that “community” was just another word for “anonymous crowd (mostly bots to be…
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Community Building Isn’t About Making Everyone Happy; It’s About Making Progress
There’s a certain point in any good community project where someone crosses their arms, leans back in their folding chair, and declares that you’ve lost your mind.…
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Beat a Drum, Build a Tribe, Start a Movement
I recently watched a TED Talk where the speaker ended with a, to me, powerful line: “Beat a drum, build a tribe, start a movement.” I can’t stop thinking…
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Book Review: Building Communities from the Inside Out (By John L. McKnight and John P. Kretzmann)
If you’ve ever worked in community development, you’ve probably noticed that most efforts start with what’s broken (poverty, addiction, unemployment, poor health) and then try to fix…
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The One Thing That Keeps a Community From Falling Apart
Accountability is truly the glue that holds a community together. Without it, even the most well-intentioned group begins to unravel. People start slipping away; first in spirit,…
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Eight Simple Rules for a Better World
Today I was volunteering at a community free clinic that was being held in a Boy Scout lodge on the grounds of a Methodist church. It’s a…
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The Garden and the Machine
For most of modern history, our financial systems have behaved like machines; cold, efficient, and designed for extraction. They take from the earth, from labor, from communities,…
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The Beauty of Natural Systems (and the Tragedy of Human Ones)
Nature has a knack for doing things in a beautifully simple way; and it makes human invention look almost comical. A tree, for example, doesn’t hold a…
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Building a Bigger Life Around the Pain
You can’t get rid of painful memories. They’re not stains you can scrub away or files you can delete. They’re part of the structure now; like knots…
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Why Relationships May Outlast Hierarchies in a Changing World
Hierarchies and Human Connection For most of human history, societies have leaned heavily on hierarchy to keep order. From monarchs and generals to managers and mayors, people…