Image Description: Abstract illustration of multiple pink, green, and cream-colored lines converging and intertwining at a central point on a dark blue background, with a finger touching the center. By Chloé via Unsplash.
The other day, in a fundraising conversation at IISC, we were discussing the perception that several funders that we know are moving away from investing in intermediaries – capacity-builders and those who support the infrastructure of the nonprofit ecosystem. Instead, they are focused on getting money to the “front lines” – community organizers and movement leaders, who are often those first in the line of fire from those who wield their power inappropriately.
In certain regards it makes sense to bring financial resources right to the action-takers and service providers. But it also made me scratch and shake my head when I think of it with the framing from energy systems science (ESS), a field that looks at how systems thrive and regenerate.
What Healthy Systems Teach Us
One of the valuable observations from ESS is that healthy complex systems tend to have combinations of many small entities, fewer mid-sized ones, and even fewer large ones, that are linked and create important pathways for the flow of crucial resources. Think of a river delta, a tree branching structure, or veins in a leaf or in our human bodies (see graphic below).
This structure helps resources, information, and support flow throughout a system so that communities on the ground can be strong amidst unpredictable turbulence (environmental, economic, cultural, political). This is crucial for any complex system’s “regenerative capacity,” or its ability to maintain long-term vitality, whether we are talking about banking and finance structures, complex human communities, or more-than-human ecosystems.
The Danger of a “Top Heavy” System
Something that can make a system fragile and unsustainable is when it becomes “top-heavy” – those at the top of the structure (aka “functional” hierarchy) suck up and hoard too many resources, essentially starving the rest of the system. This is obvious to many of us in these times of hyper-extraction and oligarchic capitalism. Another phenomenon that destabilizes a structure is when there is a hollowing out of the middle. For example, if you only have very large banks and/or other financial structures along with very small would-be recipients of funding, those on “the bottom” can easily get overwhelmed. And the entire system becomes destabilized with its “teetering top.” What is needed is a mitigating/mediating structure (for example, mid-sized banks/financial organizations) that can handle the flows from the top and then sustainably pass funding and other resources along.
The Missing Middle
We are hearing stories of many people who are suffering because of the shrinking middle – small municipalities and organizations suddenly receiving large amounts of federal funding they do not have the staffing or infrastructure to manage, and people spiraling in anger/outrage for lack of mediators who might otherwise help hold spaces for peaceful discussion and debate between (and among) those on top and those on the bottom. We also see growing challenges in the shrinking space of intentional and collective learning, which we can think about as sitting between total comfort with status quo and change that takes us into our “panic zone.” When a funder/financier says that they don’t think that “the middle” matters at this time, they are essentially contributing to the hollowing out and a further weakening of crumbling systems.
As an organization that plays a connective function, we at IISC know the value of “mediating” in a variety of ways (including through facilitation, convening, network weaving), as well as distributing key lessons from and to the roots (training and coaching). Others play crucial roles that can provide different kinds of cover, buffer and support for those who feel under threat and/or are overstretched. The point being that so much value is created in these spaces between “top and bottom,” core and periphery. And we are seeing this value being increasingly devalued.
Bridging Toward What Comes Next
The middle can definitely be a lonely place these days. And of course, that matters to those of us who can function as connectors in a variety of ways. But it is also true that this should matter to everyone, including funders/financiers, because the “missing middle” will continue to contribute to bloating the top, overwhelming and/or starving the bottom and risk taking us into very dark times.
Note: This post was originally published in October 2017. We have updated and republished it in response to recent enthusiasm around the network principles.
Image Description: Illustration of an interconnected root system spreading across the frame. Thick black branches from a big tree trunk are shown against a cream-colored background. Contour-like lines flow through the tree. By Andania Humaira via Unsplash.
“Relationship is the fundamental truth of this world of appearance.”
– Tagore
Over the past several years of supporting networks for social change, we at IISC have been constantly evolving our understanding of what is new and different when we call something a network, as opposed to a coalition, collaborative or alliance. On the surface, much can look the same, and one might also say that coalitions, collaboratives and alliances are simply different forms of networks. While this is true, it is also the case that not every collaborative form maximizes network effects, including small world reach, rapid dissemination, adaptability, resilience, and system change. In this regard, experience shows that a big difference maker is when participants in a network (or an organization, for that matter) embrace new ways of seeing, thinking, and doing.
The following revised list continues to evolve as our own practice and understanding does, and it speaks to a number of network principles to guide thinking and action:
1. Adaptability instead of control
Thinking in terms of networks means leading with an interest in adaptation over time. Given the complexity of the situations we are often called to help address, it is difficult for any actor or “leader” to know exactly what must be done, much less keep a diverse and decentralized social structure moving in lockstep. Iterative design and adaptive strategy serve us better.
2. Contribution before credentials
You may have heard the story about the custodial staff person in a shoe company who anonymously submitted his idea for a new shoe design during a company-wide contest, and won. Or the homeschooled teenager who contributed tremendously helpful information on nitrogen pollution to an open and crowdsourced call for research. “Expertise” and seniority can serve as a bottleneck and buzzkill in many organizations, where ego gets in the way of excellence and vital experience. If we are looking for new and better thinking, it should not matter from whence it comes.
“Your generosity is more important than your perfection.”
-Seth Godin
3. Giving first, not taking
You’ll see it when you create it. Often, people are drawn to networks by the promise of abundance, but stand back and wait for something to happen. The key to generativity is generosity, to being first to make a humble offering – of ideas, truth, courage, attention, and other resources. We often fear that there isn’t enough to go around. Yet that scarcity becomes self-fulfilling when we hold back our experiences, gifts, and capacity instead of sharing them generously. For more on the importance of giving, see Adam Grant’s work.
4. Resilience and redundancy instead of rock stardom
You see it on sports teams all the time. When the star player goes down, if the team is built around said star, so goes the team. Resilient networks are built upon redundancy of function and a richness of interconnections, so that if one node goes away, the network can adjust and continue its work.
5. Diversity and divergence rather than the usual suspects and forced agreement
New thinking comes from the meeting of different fields, experience, and perspectives. Preaching to the choir gets us the same old (and tired) hymn. Innovation is not the result of dictating solutions or choosing from existing options. It comes from expanding possibilities and moving beyond convergent thinking toward a more creative, design-oriented approach. And network action is not about everyone engaging in one large collective effort. It is about cooperation, connection, and many people contributing in parallel ways.
6. Intricacy and flow, not bottlenecks and hoarding
Networks are key to supporting life and liveliness – life is after all, a network. A constant threat to aliveness is rigidity, hoarding, and exclusion. Economically, we are seeing plenty of evidence of this, pushing us towards what Jane Jacobs once called socio-economic “necrosis.” With hyper-concentration of resources, patterns of exclusion, and growing inequality, we see the entire system put at risk. The antidote is robust, diversified local networks that are connected to other such networks, which are collectively able to move resources of many kinds fluidly from and to all parts of the social body. Keep reaching out, keep interconnecting, keep things flowing.
As with any complex living system, when a group of people comes together, we cannot always know what it is that they will create. The whole is greater than the sum of the parts. Vying for the predictable means short-changing ourselves of new possibilities, which is one of the great promises of networks. Furthermore, network effects and change stem from many different experiments rather than looking for the single best answer.
8. Shift focus from core to the periphery
As living entities, networks are defined by the nature and quality of their edges. The core of the network tends to be made up of those who are most connected to others in the network, as well as interested in and engaged in the work (albeit in some cases through exclusionary dynamics of power and privilege). Those on the edge, or periphery, may be less connected and engaged, and also bring considerable strength, to the extent that they provide lessons about adaptation, a willingness and ability to play in different spaces, and have connections to other important domains. In many cases, there is strength in following the lead of the margins. As Ceasar McDowell says:
“If you take a tent and you stake it far out at the margins … the middle is always covered. And the further out you stake it the stronger the structure you get. And why is that? Because in our systems and our social systems the people at the margins are actually living with the failures of the systems. And they are creating adaptive solutions to them. So when we design to take care of them we build stronger systems for everyone.”
“Network theory suggests that what a system becomes emerges from the complex, responsive relationships of its members, continuously developing in communication.”
– Esko Kilpi
9. From working in isolation to working with others and/or out loud
I spoke to a leader of an amazing organization in Pennsylvania who was bemoaning the situation where a number of his newer staff thought that “getting the job done” meant paying attention to the tasks on their list and working on them in an independent and efficient way. What they were not doing was involving others, communicating about what they were working on, where they were in their process and what they were learning as a result. One network mantra I have heard is “Never work alone.” Or to put a more positive spin on it, “Work in good company.” Why? Because our thinking and ideas are made better by others. Furthermore, sharing our work is crucial since communication is the lifeblood of networks (and networked organizations) if they are to be intelligently adaptive and resilient to changing and challenging times. Even if we are physically alone in our workspaces, we can show and share our work in helpful ways, to ourselves and others, using virtual tools.
10. From “Who’s the Leader?” to “We’re the Leaders!”
Leadership can be a confusing and fraught concept. In certain quarters there is still glorification of and deference given to heroic individuals, with little recognition of the interdependent nature of, well, everything! The late Mila N. Baker made the case that the individualized and command-and-control leadership lexicon is grossly insufficient for our changing, complex, and interconnected world. She promoted the use of peer-to-peer (P2P) IT architectures as models for thinking about leadership and how people organize themselves. In P2P arrangements, everyone becomes a generative and recipient node in a network, and has easy access to other nodes. This embodiment of leadership is stymied by rigid hierarchies, fixed positional authority, and purely transactional mindsets (without regard to underlying and authentic relationships). Flipping this script means seeking arrangements where everyone leads and follows, trust and reciprocity are fundamental values, and thriving is linked to connection.
What might the integration of these principles do to the way you lead and do your work? What opportunities and outcomes might be created?
Image Description: Illustration of thin, flowing blue lines curving across a dark navy background, forming large wave-like patterns. By Andania Humaira via Unsplash.
I recently read a LinkedIn post on the concept of “Trojan mice” that my former IISC colleague Gibran Rivera brought into our midst several years ago. The idea is that small, unassuming experiments can bypass the defenses of rigid systems and create change more effectively than a single large “Trojan Horse.”
This immediately brought to mind the Three Horizons framework, especially what it calls “Horizon 2” (see image below). The core idea of Three Horizons is that systemic change unfolds as dominant systems (Horizon 1) decline and more regenerative alternatives (Horizon 3) take root. Between these sits Horizon 2, which I understand as innovations in the form of relatively small experiments that draw from the spirit of Horizon 3 and can help break the iron hold of Horizon 1.
What’s been helpful about the past few years of unraveling in this country is seeing this dynamic a bit more clearly in many networked collaborative change efforts that we at IISC support. If Horizon 2 is where the future first becomes visible, then our task is to notice, nurture, and connect these experiments. Here are three examples:
Bringing More Good Fire to the Land
For years now, we’ve supported both the Fire Adapted Communities Learning Network and the Indigenous Peoples Burning Network (IPBN) as they have worked to bring “good fire” back to the land. This includes proactive ‘low-intensity’ or ‘prescribed’ burns, known as ‘cultural burns’ in Indigenous contexts, that build resilience in forests and grasslands. You can find more information here about that practice. At a recent IPBN gathering we helped facilitate, great news was shared about how major state funding is now going to tribes in California to establish learning centers focused on prescribed burns as an alternative to the dominant “fire suppression” system (Horizon 1). In other words, the growth of prescribed burns (Horizon 2) is helping regenerative land stewardship (Horizon 3) move toward the mainstream.
Farming Local Solutions to Hunger
Another example comes from northern Michigan, where we support a collaborative network focused on hunger. For about 30 years, the Northwest Food Coalition has worked to ensure that food pantries in the region have enough food for those experiencing food insecurity. This reflects the dominant (Horizon 1) “emergency food” system at work. In recent years, through efforts to ensure that the food provided is not just caloric but also nutritious, a program known as Farm to Neighbor was created to source fresh produce from nearby farms to make available at food pantries. This is a clear Horizon 2 example. It advances a more resilient vision in which local farms help ensure no one goes hungry while supporting growers of non-commodity, more Earth-friendly crops (Horizon 3).
Being the Better World We Want to See
A last example comes from numerous multi-organizational change efforts that we support. In all of these efforts, we encourage the practice of the notion that “how we meet and treat each other” can be a taste of the better future we know we need and want. We are now seeing evidence of overly transactional conversations and relationships (Horizon 1) giving way to more “care and wellbeing-centered” practices (Horizon 2) that can seed new cultures and systems (Horizon 3) where people are not living in poverty, unhoused, neglected, or without the supports they need (and deserve) to contribute fully to community life.
As we continue our work in 2026, I will keep in mind and heart how we can intentionally weave connections across Horizon 2 experiments, so they reinforce one another. When small innovations remain isolated, they can be dismissed. When they are connected, they begin to form patterns, and patterns can become movements.
The invitation, then, is not to wait for Horizon 3 to arrive fully formed. It is to notice where it is already flickering into view through small, innovative experiments. It is to nurture those efforts, connect them, and protect them long enough for their logic to take root.
Systemic change rarely announces itself with a single dramatic shift. More often, it spreads gradually, through relationships, practice, and persistence. The work before us is to tend those second-horizon sparks until they become the future.
Some work is bigger than any one organization. It grows through relationships, shared leadership, and the care of a network. The Food Solutions New England (FSNE) 21-Day Racial Equity Habit Building Challenge has always been that kind of work. Each year, thousands of people step into a shared practice of learning, reflecting, and taking action together.
Beginning this year, Interaction Institute for Social Change (IISC) will serve as the new host of the Challenge, in partnership with the University of Vermont Institute for Agroecology (IFA) and KAS Consulting, led by long-time Challenge co-leader Karen Spiller.
IISC is stepping into this role as a longtime partner, not a new one. We have been connected to the Challenge since it first launched in 2015 through FSNE. That year, IISC’s Curtis Ogden, along with Karen Spiller and Johanna Rosen of Equity Trust, took work that was originally created by Dr. Eddie Moore, Jr. of The Privilege Institute, and Debbie Irving, author of Waking Up White, and developed an online food system-focused version of the 21-Day Racial Equity Habit-Building Challenge. Over the past twelve years, that version has grown into a nationally and internationally recognized learning experience, bringing together thousands of individuals and hundreds of organizations each year.
Evolving Through a Network, Grounded in Continuity
As of July 1, 2025, FSNE transitioned from its longtime institutional home at the University of New Hampshire into a new partnership with the University of Vermont Institute for Agroecology. This transition reflects something that has always been true about this work: that strength lives in the network itself, which is bigger than any single organization or institution. The relationships, commitments, and shared purpose continue even as structures evolve.
Hosting the Challenge here at IISC feels like a natural continuation of that shared stewardship. The collaboration, trust, and values that shaped the Challenge from the start remain at the center of what comes next.
For some, the current political climate has made racial equity work feel more scrutinized, exhausting, or difficult to advance publicly. Many organizations are navigating uncertainty about how to continue this work in increasingly constrained environments, and some may feel cautious about participating in spaces focused on racial equity learning.
At the same time, we are seeing many people lean in more deeply. We are hearing from leaders, organizers, practitioners, and community members who are looking for places to stay grounded, learn in community, and reconnect to why this work matters. The Challenge is designed to hold space for both of these realities. It offers an accessible, reflective, and community-rooted way to continue learning together.
What the Challenge Offers
For 21 days, participants receive daily emails with curated resources, carefully crafted reflection prompts, and invitations to deepen understanding and to engage in concrete practice. Some engage individually, while others participate as teams or organizations. Many return year after year because the Challenge becomes both a learning opportunity and a sustaining practice that deepens their sense of purpose, connection, and possibility.
Now entering its 12th year, the Challenge remains open to anyone looking to strengthen their racial equity practice and work more generally for a just world.
Registration opens March 5, 2026, and the Challenge will run from April 20 through May 10.
While the Challenge has historically been free, registration will now be $21 for 21 days. This small fee helps support the coordination, curation, and stewardship that allow this learning community to continue growing while staying accessible to participants.
The FSNE 21-Day Racial Equity Habit-Building Challenge continues to be shaped by the communities, partners, and participants who have carried it forward since 2015. We feel honored to help steward this next chapter alongside IFA, KAS Consulting, and the broader FSNE network.
The invitation is open to anyone who wants to learn, reflect, and take action in community with others working toward a more equitable and just food system and society. Save the date for March 5 when registration opens here. We hope you’ll join us!
Image Description: Illustration of a silhouetted person sitting inside a dark cave, looking out toward a calm blue ocean and horizon beyond the cave opening. By Beatriz Camaleão.
So many groups, organizations, and networks that we at Interaction Institute for Social Change supported in 2025 struggled with capacity and focus. So much has been coming at all of us that it can feel difficult to do anything more than respond to the momentary needs.
In an effort to help people stay grounded and strategic as they responded to funding cuts, legal challenges, hunger and housing needs, and physical threats, and to rise a bit off the “dance floor” to have a “balcony” perspective, we have found a few things helpful.
This is not an exhaustive list, but it speaks to some of what we are seeing as fundamentals for navigating ahead:
• Continue to create space for grounding and embodied practices to prevent nervous systems from constantly firing.
• Create opportunities for people to share what they are feeling, for real, as a way of moving intense emotion through their bodies so that it is not stuck, looping, and draining them.
• Bring in the so-called “Eisenhower Matrix” to conversations, asking people to consider where “urgency” and “importance” meet, and when they fall into the habit of responding to every little unimportant thing as if it is a crisis. Encourage them to think about doing more in the important and non-urgent quadrant.
• Bring the “Impact Matrix” to conversations, and ask people to consider the correlation between effort and impact. Ideally, we should be conserving as much energy as possible in these times and looking for opportunities where less effort can yield more impact, while ramping down what requires a lot of energy with little to show for it.
• Invite people to find even brief moments for strategic reflection as they navigate various kinds of real crises. An example of this is work I did last year with a regional food security network as it responded to the federal SNAP cuts. As this amazing coalition organized itself in rapid response mode, I provided a shared document that people could access on their laptops and phones with columns for people to note: (1) what they were learning about both needs and opportunities “out there”, (2) what they were experiencing as strengths of their network, and (3) where they were seeing gaps in and needs for strengthening the network.
There is a lot that will continue to ripple through systems as they unravel and as we iterate our way into the better. Along with practices for “transitional hygiene,” staying focused, strategic, and collaborative will be our collective superpower.
What have you found helpful in keeping eyes and efforts on what matters most?
If your organization, network, or partnership is navigating similar terrain and could use support in creating space for reflection, strengthening collaboration, or sharpening strategy, we’re here. Reach out to explore how we might partner with you in this season.
Image Description: An abstract illustration of a teal human silhouette against a dark background filled with flowing pink, orange, and white lines, along with scattered stars and circular shapes. By Gemma Evans via Unsplash.
“Network intelligence is the ability to learn from a diverse group of connections. Wherever you work, look beyond your walls: there are more smart people outside than inside your organization.”
– Reid Hoffman (digital strategist)
2025 has been one for the record books. So many shocks to so many systems, including most nonprofit organizations in this country. Sudden cuts and changes in funding flows, threatening policies, toxic and unstable political leadership, economic uncertainties, culture clashes, literal fires and floods…all resulting in physical and mental health challenges, staffing shortages, and ongoing fatigue teetering towards burnout. We have definitely seen and felt it in our own organization.
In times like these, even finding basic stability can feel unclear. We have written in other posts about the crucial nature of leadership practices that center on care and well-being (see blog here). Those are certainly foundational, and alongside them, we continue to emphasize the importance of leaning into and cultivating strong networks. Networks are a source of resilience, resource-sharing, extended capacity, creativity, and mutual support. They remind us that no one has to navigate uncertainty alone.
What Networks Make Possible When Conditions Are Hard
We know the power of nurturing connections to keep our energy going and flowing. Sometimes that looks like turning to people beyond our organizational walls to be seen and heard, share honestly how we are feeling, and perhaps commiserate. In one place-based network we helped to launch and now co-steward, a community of practice for executive directors has become a crucial space to unburden and not feel so alone.
In another network we have supported on and off for a decade, we have seen how like-minded program directors can mentor one another around practice and innovation. Bringing in perspectives from other organizations and communities can feel like a breath of fresh air – one that can help us see things differently, spark new ideas, and increase energy and enthusiasm.We just recently witnessed this at a national gathering of this network, where a series of “spark talks” about different initiatives happening around the country got people talking excitedly about possibilities, which they carried home with them.
In a multi-state watershed network, we have seen how shared capacity can stabilize the whole ecosystem. Organizations take turns leading based on bandwidth and hand off stewardship when they need a pause. Knowledge-sharing across the network, from grant opportunities to policy updates to new technologies, has become essential for groups trying to stay grounded amid constant change.
We are also seeing more organizations that have needed to shrink explore shared infrastructure with other organizations, from co-locating office space to pooling administrative support. Some ecosystems are even asking a bigger question: What work is each organization best positioned to hold right now? While the losses in these cases are real, there is an upside, as “doing what you do best and connecting to the rest” can support the creation of diverse and interconnected ecosystems, which are inherently more resilient.
Steps Leaders Can Take Now
Whether you are already part of a larger network or starting to build one, nonprofit leaders can begin cultivating the benefits of collective power by:
Keep looking beyond your organizational walls
Map the larger ecosystem of which you are a part
Identify peers and mentors with whom you might connect
Consider where you might let go in the name of doing what you do best
Gauge where you have excess capacity to share with others in your ecosystem, and let them know
Meet with others to discuss where there are collaborative efficiencies to be gained through joint staffing, shared back-office resources, use of technology, and peer-to-peer exchanges
Encourage funders to support convenings/collaborative conversations and invest in stronger ecosystems
In a time when certainty is scarce, networks offer something steadier: collective possibility.
Where might you reach outward, even in a small way, to strengthen the web that can hold you, your team, and your community through what comes next?
Editor’s Note (updated 2025): Originally published in 2016, this piece has been lightly updated to reflect current language around Indigenous fire stewardship and the growing movement to restore cultural burning as a practice of ecological and community care.
Controlled burn in Sequoia National Park. By James Fitzgerald via Unsplash.
I’ve had the pleasure of supporting some important work happening through The Nature Conservancy’s Fire Adapted Communities Learning Network. According to the FAC website, a fire-adapted community “acknowledges and takes responsibility for its wildfire risk, and implements appropriate actions at all levels.” Actions in these fire-threatened communities “address resident safety, homes, neighborhoods, businesses and infrastructure, forests, parks, open spaces and other community assets.” In addition, it is noted that every community is unique in terms of its circumstances and capacities, so that local action may vary from place to place.
While there may be differences from community to community in the FAC network, it is also united by a common belief that there is a need for more of the right kinds of fire that support the regenerative capacity of ecosystems. As I’ve learned from members of these communities, “controlled fires” can be used to help build resilience into forests, feeding and encouraging new growth and diversity.
Indigenous fire stewards have long practiced cultural burns to support the long-term health of the forested landscape, enrich the soil, clear pathways for fauna, and promote biodiversity, all of which contribute to the health of their own communities. However, these cultural fire practices were criminalized through colonization and U.S. fire suppression policy, severing communities from their stewardship traditions. The result of the new management practices was a decline in the health of the forests and a rise in the vulnerability of those living in or near them. As one community leader put it, they are working to “reclaim prescribed fire and give fire back to people.” Today, cultural fire leaders and public agencies are collaborating to restore these Indigenous-led practices at scale – not as an emergency tactic, but as a path toward resilience and ecological justice.
This idea of giving fire back to people metaphorically resonates with the network-building and democratic engagement work we do at IISC. Much of our capacity building focuses on creating processes and structures that are more inclusive, specifically for those who have been historically marginalized, to support more just, healthy, and sustainable communities. And increasingly, we see the need for more distributed, diverse, flow-oriented approaches to social change as both the means and ends of our work. At IISC, we see “regenerative networks” the same way: when power is shared and flow increases, resilience grows.
Energy network sciences suggest that focusing on diversity, flow, and intricate structures in human networks can be a foundation for long-term and equitable prosperity. In many ways, this is about extending the lessons from fire-adapted communities regarding what it means to tend to the holistic health of the forested landscape – the importance of considering and conserving biodiversity, choosing strategic interventions and disturbances that encourage resilience and new growth, and empowering those who know local landscapes the best to act.
The “cool burns” of human networks might be thought of as “disruptions” in the form of learning, truth-telling, resource sharing, power building, and prototyping that allow new possibilities to spring up. The lessons from fire – distributed power, shared stewardship, and regenerative disturbance – may be exactly what our movements need now.
How are you tending the regenerative “fires” of learning, power sharing, and collective care in your networks? What might become possible if we did this together?
For more on “good fire,” listen to this podcast hosted by Amy Cardinal Christianson and Matthew Kristoff, watch this short video, or check out the Indigenous Peoples Burning Network website.
Image Description: An illustration of a person holding a glowing lantern, walking in darkness. The figure is framed by two large protective hands forming a shelter around it, symbolizing guidance, care, and protection during challenging times. By Naila Conita via Unsplash+
In our last blog post, we reflected on network weaving as “light work” – the gentle, steadfast practices of connection that counter fear and isolation. We drew on teachings from the Brahma Kumaris and Father Richard Rohr to remind ourselves that while the noise of destruction is loud, the quiet tending of seeds can be even more powerful. We named how fear, misinformation, and division are being used to fracture communities, and how networks can serve as lanterns in the dark, offering warmth, clarity, direction, and care.
That first reflection highlighted a simple truth: networks are not just technical structures or professional associations. They are living systems of relationships. When woven with love, they can help us break out of isolation, amplify what matters most, and remember that the light is always present, in and around us, even when circumstances try to convince us otherwise.
Networks are most powerful not only when they respond to crises, but when they sustain possibility, care, and connection in everyday life. In our recent webinar, we explored how weaving relationships can be both practical and profoundly spiritual work, fueling resilience, amplifying joy, and keeping us tethered to what matters most. Our guests, Noel Didla and Keith Bergthold, shared powerful examples of weaving connections, sharing resources, and bringing light and love to places that might surprise you.
In conversations leading up to that session and since, we’ve been naming the everyday choices that sustain this kind of work: how we listen, how we show up, how we keep one another tethered to what matters most. So this follow-up offers a closer look at these practices that many of us are already experimenting with or longing to deepen. They are often small and simple, yet when repeated and shared across networks, they generate warmth, resilience, and joy.
Here are some of the practices that have come to mind and heart:
Collective Action & Mutual Care
Doing mutual aid work
Facilitating restorative circle work
Banding together with others to defend those who are most vulnerable
Protecting our leaders (including protecting them from themselves)
Keeping in mind “excess” resources/capacity and offering to others
Practices of Wellbeing & Connection
Holding space with loving intention
Sharing the appreciations we have for one another
Seeing one another and reflecting back our strengths and values
Engaging in dialogue while holding complexity and not devolving to blame
Care-full listening to ourselves, others, and the more-than-human world
Respecting and savoring both silence and stillness
Inner Work & Growth
Grounding ourselves deeply in a sense of humility
Remembering not to take ourselves too seriously and being willing to laugh
Practicing gratitude and forgiveness (for/of ourselves, others, the universe)
Doing our own “shadow work” so that we are not projecting on others
Doing “bridging work” rather than defaulting to “breaking” behaviors
Setting loving boundaries to keep from being overwhelmed
Staying curious and always eager to learn
Spiritual & Cultural Wisdom
Extending the teachings of elders to these times and our specific places
Remembering and honoring our more-than-human kin
Expressing awe and wonder about … everything
Taking time to step back and look at the bigger picture
Living like you believe a more beautiful world is possible
Keeping focused on the higher goal of your work/life
Loving without any good reason
These practices can become that much more powerful through what Grace Lee Boggs once called “the invisible fabric of our connectedness.”
Which of these speak to you?
What might you add?
Want to learn more about the power of networks? Join us for Feeding Ourselves: Networks, Data and Policy for Just and Sustainable Food Systems, a live webinar on October 30, 2025, from 12 – 2 pm ET. Register here.
Image Description: An illustration of Earth surrounded by an explosion of colorful, stylized foliage and flowers. The continents are marked with small red hearts, and the colorful leaves and petals radiate outward in all directions against a black background. By Getty Images via Unsplash+.
There’s a quiet revolution underway. You can see it in church gatherings and small-town meetings, on Zoom calls between elders and young organizers, in community art projects, healing circles, and protest planning sessions.
Across the country, IISC has had the deep honor of supporting and witnessing this movement: the call for food justice in Mississippi, the fight for immigrant rights in Florida, and unincorporated towns in California’s Central Valley organizing and standing against corporate land grabs with the memory of ancestors alive in their bones.
This June marked 32 years since IISC was founded to build collaborative capacity for social change. As we reflect on more than three decades of work, we are clear that real transformation is rooted in the relationships, strategies, and structures that make long-term change possible.
This is what power-building looks like – not only marching or resisting, but reimagining how we live, lead, and make decisions together.
We’re living in a moment full of pressure and possibility, where movement leaders are not only responding to harm but also building blueprints for belonging, designing ecosystems of mutual care, shaping decision-making structures that reflect their values, and challenging the status quo about who leads, who benefits, and who gets to be fully seen.
And in the background, behind the chants and policies, something quieter (and often invisible) is also happening: Movements are collaborating in deeper, more intentional ways. And we are helping to seed and shape that work together.
Power Building Is Infrastructure Work As capacity builders, we’ve learned that what sustains movements isn’t just energy or the rightness of the cause – it’s the infrastructure that doesn’t always show up on a stage, but holds everything in place. While people typically think of “infrastructure” as technology, tools, funding, and flows of information and resources, there is a deep need for relational, human infrastructure and the skills that enable people to make and sustain change together.
Behind every campaign or viral hashtag, there is slow, deliberate work. Networks negotiating values, grassroots leaders navigating conflict and decision-making, and organizers choosing to stay in relationship when things get hard because they know liberation isn’t a solo act.
This is the kind of power that movements are building and that we co-construct with them. Power built through:
Clear strategy rooted in shared values
Equitable decision-making across lines of difference
Leadership that centers collaboration, healing, and shared accountability
Networked action that multiplies impact rather than fragments energy
This kind of infrastructure does not emerge overnight or from passion alone. It takes facilitation, training, culture-building, relationship tending, strategic clarity, and people who are willing to hold space for discomfort, emergence, and transformation. It takes collaborators who understand that the right kind of structure does not limit people; it liberates them to move together toward something more powerful than any of us could hold alone.
Movement Work Is Evolving, and So Must Our Support In this era, the most critical support for power-building groups is not marketing or messaging or a one-time DEI workshop – it is long-term, trust-based relationships coupled with visionary strategy that build the muscle of collaboration, collective care, and self-governance. It is support that meets movement leaders where they are, with tools that are grounded in deep equity, shaped by experience, and designed not just to help organizations “function” but to help them thrive in alignment with their purpose and people.
This is the kind of capacity-building work we at IISC and many peers in the practitioner ecosystem are committed to:
Facilitation that invites truth and transformation
Strategy development that is relational, emergent, and rooted in values
Cohort design that cultivates brave space
Network weaving that strengthens interdependence
At its core, this work is about building the capacity for collective liberation, and doing so in ways that reflect the values and visions of the people who are most impacted.
Deep Investment and Choice We are witnessing a moment of both resurgence and retaliation in the U.S. and globally. While movement leaders dream and deliver bold new futures, political parties and their supporters are doubling down on repression. And yet, movement leaders keep showing up. They keep convening. They keep trying to do the impossible: imagine a future where everyone can thrive and build together toward that day while under attack.
What would it look like if we, as capacity-builders, met their courage with our own?
What if philanthropy prioritized sustained infrastructure for movements instead of short-term wins?
What if intermediaries slowed down to listen deeply and moved at the pace of trust instead of deliverables?
What if everyone pursuing justice understood that strategy, facilitation, and organizational development are not extras but essential nutrients and foundation for the long road to justice?
The Invitation If you are building power, thank you. If you are funding frontline power building, consider funding infrastructure as well, to resource the ecosystem as a whole. And if you’re an infrastructure-building organization, be humble, be bold, and be in right relationship with folks who are building power.
Change is already underway. And what grows next will depend on who is willing to hold it with both courage and love.
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What does it really mean for a system to work? For years, I’ve sat in rooms full of passionate people wrestling with that question. And one quote still echoes for me:
“In a sense, it’s not a system until it’s working for the people on the front-line, and above all the parents who need services for their children.”
-David Nee, former Executive Director, Graustein Memorial Fund
The Beginning of the Work
Back in 2011, my dear colleague Melinda Weekes-Laidlow and I dived into “Right From the Start,” a large-scale statewide system analysis/change and network development effort in Connecticut to understand and change early childhood systems. The initiative was led by the William Caspar Graustein Memorial Fund. We had already been training their grantees and staff in Facilitative Leadership™ in support of their local community collaboratives, reaching about 400 people. To their credit, Memorial Fund leadership was interested and willing to invest additional resources to help members of their already robust network come to a better shared understanding of what was driving, as well as what might be done to address, persistent inequitable opportunities and outcomes for young children.
Uncovering the Roots of Inequity
As we peeled back the onion and got to the deeper levels of the “systems iceberg” (see image above), we uncovered mental models (individual and shared beliefs) that led to the “othering” of certain children and families based on race, class, and ethnicity. We also discovered certain resistance to change, feelings of overwhelm, and considerable risk aversion (“It’s a lot of effort to change the status quo!”). All of this was fueled by a persistent negative systemic archetype known as “Success to the Successful,” or “The Rich Get Richer” (see image below), held in place by a cultural narrative that convinces people that somehow this is all okay, or even playing out according to some kind of divine order. Wow!
Looking back, I’m asking myself, “Has any of this really changed?” One could argue that the underlying systemic dynamic and cultural narrative we found in Connecticut are the same and getting more entrenched across systems and scales – in other states and the country as a whole, even as there is more awareness of economic disparities and systemic racism. So what are we to do?
What We Tried: Ten Pathways Forward
At the time, we identified nine high-leverage interventions that felt both urgent and hopeful. Many were adopted by Right From the Start (especially awareness building, reaching out to political leaders, and integrating service providers):
Emphasize the importance ofnurturing relationships as early as possible
Focus on children most at risk, and the fact that we have a changing population in Connecticut
Engage invillage-building and local infrastructure strengthening
Make the economic case for investing in ALL children to the business community
Build awareness around inequities, specifically racial and socio-economic
Changethe mindset of the system to focus on the family experience first
Get to the heart of the Governor (who can make changes that help us all)
Change the rules of the system/state structures to be more equitable
Integrate health, education, social services,and family engagement
To me, all nine of these still hold true as valid and valuable strategies, and not just in Connecticut. Today, I would add a tenth:
10. Shift the narrative that lives inside so many of us, that convinces us that the current systems are in any way defensible or inevitable.
Because they are not. The vast majority of us know this, but some part of us may be preventing that truth from arising and really taking hold. Without this happening, the other actions can only get so far. And as systems continue to fail, we are all put at risk.
The Questions That Matter
And so I am sitting with these questions:
Why do we believe we are not worthy?
Why might we not trust the larger truth of love?
What do our hearts most yearn for that stands to liberate us?
How can we support each other to stand in our power and sense of worthiness?
How can we help people understand that “your success is my success” and vice versa?
Where We Go From Here
We need each other to affirm our worth, to hold hope, and to build systems rooted in justice, love, and shared power.
For more on recurring “negative” systems archetypes such as “Success to the Successful” and also a few countering “positive” archetypes, including the importance of status quo disruption, intensity of collective action,and regenerative relationships, see this resource.
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At IISC, we believe that networks, love, and power are at the heart of lasting change. That’s why we’re honored to be part of the Knowledge Share Group, a collective of multi-racial, racial equity capacity-building organizations that’s been quietly (and boldly) reshaping how we work, learn, and grow together.
In a new piece published on the GEO blog, “Strengthening the Ecosystem: Resourcing Racial Equity Capacity Building Organizations for the Long Haul,” members of the Knowledge Share Group reflect on what becomes possible when funders invest not just in individual organizations, but in relationships across difference, silos, and time. The post includes powerful stories of collaboration, trust, and shared strategy from the field.
“This group has been willing to share the deep-rooted tensions in their organizations without masking, competing or pretending,” said Kelly Frances Bates of IISC.
This kind of honesty from the piece captures what so many of us are craving in a sector often shaped by scarcity, isolation, and burnout. And it is what allows us to build something new. Whether it’s opening our books to each other, co-creating offerings, or writing love letters to funders, the Knowledge Share Group is modeling an ecosystem rooted in abundance, not competition. It’s a place where racial equity capacity builders can align, dream, and move together for greater impact.
We’re grateful to GEO, the Kresge Foundation, and our co-conspirators in this work for lifting up what’s possible and creating the conditions for this collaboration to grow. We invite you to read, reflect, and imagine what it would look like to invest in the whole ecosystem of justice.
“We are the people who help build the capacity, the imagination, who accompany people when they are beating themselves against the wall,” said Vazquez Torres. “The ecology we represent is essential for the liberation project that’s required in this nation.”
Image Description: Cartoon-style illustration of a person with long blond hair, dressed in a blue sweater, white pants, and green sneakers, watering a potted plant that’s sprouting leaves and gold coins. By Ayush Kumar via Unsplash.
“Some live by love thy neighbor as thyself, others by first do no harm or take no more than you need. What if the mightiest word is love? Love beyond marital, filial, national, love that casts a widening pool of light, love with no need to pre-empt grievance. In today’s sharp sparkle, this [season’s] air, any thing can be made, any sentence begun. On the brink, on the brim, on the cusp, praise song for walking forward in that light.”
From “Praise Song for the Day” by Elizabeth Alexander
As we help support the weaving of various kinds and scales of networks with focus on different social and environmental issues, one refrain we continue to hear at IISC from those who are at the core of these efforts is that they need more resources and they want more resource providers to understand the power and importance of investing in networks. So, why invest in networks and network weaving now? Here are five essential reasons:
Because We Are Networks. We literally live and breathe because of the many networks we are a part of. “Nobody but nobody makes it out here alone,” Maya Angelou wrote. Social-ecological connectedness and exchange are a baseline determinant of health and wellbeing of all kinds – from our bodies/minds/spirits to our families/neighborhoods/communities to local/regional economies. Think in terms of the mycelial networks that are essential (and until recently, very much under-appreciated) for their contribution to soil health, which translates into nourishment of various kinds for humans and other species. If we do not tend to this foundation, we will see all of our hopes for anything better blow away like so much dust in the wind.
Because Imagination Thrives Through Connection and Exchange. Our overall consciousness and ability to imagine the better is strengthened through warm relationship and generous sharing. To support this, we must invest in convening, different avenues for ongoing communication and grounding our individual and collective nervous systems in a state of relative regulation. These are the key conditions that allow humans to do what we have done for eons: pool information, share understanding, and iterate our way forward through cooperative learning (do, reflect, redo).
Because Our Economies and Ecologies Are Failing Without Them. We need new patterns of connection and flow to ensure equitable wellbeing for all parts of the collective human body and our more-than-human kin. As Dr. Sally J. Goerner writes, “We should care about [growing] inequality because history shows that … concentration of wealth at the top, and too much stagnation everywhere else indicate an economy nearing collapse.” Furthermore, extractive economics that ignore impacts on ecosystems and other species will continue to harm and ultimately kill the host (our Mother) that sustains us all.
Because Movements Are Calling for Them. From frontline movements for human rights, social/climate justice, and Indigenous sovereignty, we’re hearing that there is an ethical imperative to invest in distributed leadership development and right relationship that counters the cult of hyper-individualism, competition, and “doing for and to.” And there is a recognized need among movement leaders to build broad-based solidarity through these trust-bound connections to confront the common enemy of humanity – sociopathic/ecocidal greed and self-serving power.
Because the Future Depends on It. Resilience is no static goal; it is a dance of evolution, reweaving, and collective learning. There is a need to invest in the evolution and reweaving of – and between – truly inclusive democratic institutions that can serve as the anchors for regenerative development, collective learning, and adaptation going forward. Funding network-weaving positions to support these vital processes isn’t just smart, it’s visionary.
There are other reasons that we might add to this list, but honestly, if these five do not grab the hearts and minds of funders/investors, that would seem to further illustrate the plague of disconnection and dissociation that has infected so many of us. Resistance and protest because of concerns about “return on investment” (ROI) is simply short-sighted and narrow in its understanding of system dynamics and the new science of sustainability. What this “energy system and flow network science” tells us is that:
Long-term prosperity is primarily a function of healthy human and more-than-human webs.
The stories we tell ourselves about how the world works are one of our greatest survival tools – so let’s get that (network) narrative right!
The next phase of human evolution is largely based upon our ability and willingness to both learn and reorganize ourselves with more diversity, intricacy, collaborative coherence, robust sharing, and greater resulting collective intelligence.
If you want to step into this light with us, join our webinar:
“Light Work for Heavy Times: Networks as Fuel for Long-Term Collective Wellbeing” on July 15, 2025 from 1:00-3:00 pm EST. Register here.
