Beauty matters, nature nurtures us, this year’s “Social Change Institute” was a remarkable experience and a real privilege to facilitate. Get people with passion together, in the perfect setting, careful design and good facilitation, and good work is bound to happen.

- David Korten

David Korten: Walking Away From the King from Katie Teague on Vimeo.

Photo by dawarwickphotography

Part of what excites me about taking a network approach to social and system change is the notion that we lead with contribution before credential.  This means being open to the idea, for example, that a 15-year-old high schooler or home schooler might have as much to offer a given conversation as someone with a PhD, that lived experience can be as valuable if not more so than formal education, that those on the so-called margins often have a clearer view of what’s going on than those who sit at the center.  

We have all been trained to see others, and ourselves, in limited ways, to see what constitutes “value” in specific and limited ways. Our vision is constrained, in part, by the fractured systems that we have inherited and that get reinforced on a daily basis, including existing patterns of connection and flows of resources.  These “formal” systems (educational, economic, health care, political, etc.) make their own statements about what and who is of value.

The challenge, the opportunity and the invitation then is to engage in the work of redefining and reconnecting, to rewire these systems so that new kinds of value flow in new ways for the benefit of all.  This makes network building much more than simply building interpersonal relationships and trust, as much as that matters. It’s about changing the way see ourselves, one another, and really the world so that we can bring it closer to our shared vision.

In this sense, generosity can be a revolutionary act.  It starts with reaching inside ourselves and understanding all that we have the offer.  It continues with reaching out, learning about and appreciating the gifts others possess.  Then we weave myriad threads of these discoveries into systems of greater abundance that reflect and call on our better selves.

The following post has been reblogged from Seth’s Blog. He is a genius and we hope you enjoy it as much as we did! 

The tried and true is beyond reproach. It’s been tried, and of course, it’s true. True because it worked. In times of change, though, most of the tried is in fact, false. False because what used to work, doesn’t, at least not any longer. Sure, it might be what you’ve always done. But that doesn’t make it true, or right, or best. It just means that you already tried it. The nature of revolutions is that they destroy the perfect and enable the impossible. Seeking out the tried and true is the wrong direction for crazy times.

Andrea Nagel and I have been facilitating retreats for the Social Justice Funders Network (SJFN) of Massachusetts for the last year and a half or so. What an honor! Network members include individuals who work at foundations both small and large across the state and who have intentionally created a space for learning and relationship-building across roles, institutions, and issues.

What we know about networks from our practice at IISC is that organic and previously unimaginable collaborations can emerge from spaces such as these when we don’t jump too fast to action and when we make room for self-organized projects among various combinations of network members at any given time (check out Gibrán’s recent post about the Barr Fellows network for another example based on this idea. The SJFN chose to focus their last retreat in April on the topic of race and power dynamics. As grounding for the conversations of the day, we watched Jay Smooth’s TEDx talk “How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Discussing Race” and the third episode of Race: the Power of an Illusion, we heard reflections on the story of Haymarket People’s Fund‘s journey to practice philanthropy in alignment with racial and economic justice values, and we drew inspiration from these three quotes:

“Many of the stories that we tell now are really designed to make us both comfortable and feel powerless. In a sense, I think we have to be willing to be uncomfortable, willing to demand more of ourselves and more of our country, and willing to make the invisible visible; willing to make the structures that support the system to be able to put them on the table, and engage in real examination of those.” – john powell, Race: the Power of an Illusion

“Through our scientific and technological genius, we have made of this world a neighborhood and yet we have not had the ethical commitment to make of it a brotherhood. But somehow, and in some way, we have got to do this. We must all learn to live together as brothers or we will all perish together as fools. We are tied together in the single garment of destiny, caught in an inescapable network of mutuality. And whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly. For some strange reason I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be. And you can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be. This is the way God’s universe is made; this is the way it is structured.” – Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., “Remaining Awake through a Great Revolution”

“Can we stop focusing simply on transactional moves we see as winnable and start working for the transformation of the institutions that perpetuate suffering? Can we speak to people’s deepest needs – to feel a sense of connection, to feel love? Can we realize that working for the elimination of social suffering is an integral part of any spiritual project? Can we have a discussion about values that is grounded in hope and acknowledgment of our connected being? I believe that we can, and I believe that we must, if we are to heal the self and have a future at all.” – john powell, Racing to Justice: Transforming our Conceptions of Self and Other to Build an Inclusive Society.

About the Social Justice Funders Network (SJFN)

The SJFN network builds authentic relationships and advances learning among funders convened to shift power and systems that result in equity for all. At the core, the SJFN is rooted in four shared values of justice, respect, inclusion, and love. This self-organized network of individuals and institutions in philanthropy facilitates organic collaborations, nurtures creativity, and experiments as a decentralized network.

Photo by Joanna DeSilva

I read a quote earlier this week that I had seen before that went something like, “We need to act our way into a new way of thinking.” Indeed, increasingly what seems to be called for is the practice of prototyping and risk-taking, breaking the more linear and often drawn out process of plan-act-reflect-refine. This poem by Mary Oliver, from her book A Thousand Mornings, captures something of this spirit for me:

“Three Things to Remember”

As long as you’re dancing, you can break the rules.

Sometimes breaking the rules is just extending the rules.

Sometimes there are no rules.