Sounding

The most catalytic organizational practice I’ve encountered lately is humblingly simple. It involves nothing more than pausing in the middle of a meeting or discussion and going around the room to hear from each person how they are actually experiencing the issue at hand – right now, in the moment. It seems like an obvious […]

The promise of the mundane

When I first began doing community development work, I was attracted to the ideas and experiences that were the most creative and radical in my eyes.  I dreamed of worker cooperatives and local currencies. I dreamed of green buildings and urban agriculture. I dreamed of free schools. I dreamed of boundary-shattering dialogues on poverty and […]

Inscaping

Brandon, a teacher’s aide at Southwest Baltimore Charter School once said to me, “The weak link isn’t necessarily the person who doesn’t do the job well. It’s the person who doesn’t do the job from within or truthfully.”

This is why, I think, that the most deeply engaging organizations I’ve encountered seem to be rooted in small, daily acts of personal revelation. […]

“Something like that happened to me recently…”

We are talking to our friend Andrew Woodall, someone we can always count on for a spirited conversation. He has spent the last five years running the Millennium Scholarship Foundation.

After a pleasant, wintry morning tramp up Avenue du Parc in Montreal, we are hanging out in Em Cafe, discussing Organization Unbound over tea and toast. […]

The experiential turn

If expressive change or The Giving Field was the first big ah-ha for us, the second was something we might call “the experiential turn.” If we want to create a social change dynamic rooted in the actual lived experiences of the people who make up our organizations, it makes sense that, no matter what specific […]