Long term human survival depends on us replacing the status quo with a fundamentally different set of behaviours and structures. I believe the root of that challenge is essentially cultural, and the best place to grow culture is in small groups.
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Now and then someone comes to visit this planet and, finding it a bit dusty and forlorn, rolls up his sleeves and gets to work. When you meet him on the road, right away you feel yourself becoming kinder and wiser. You see more light around you. And you want to say thank you but you’re not sure how.
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At the top of our minds these days is the question of how to financially sustain Organization Unbound so that it can grow into the community of practice it is yearning to be, with a deeper and wider impact across the globe. We’ve been exploring this question with many people over the past year. Out of these conversations has emerged an exciting vision- to crowd-sustain Organization Unbound so that the financial support it receives is gently […]
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Seeking collaborators! We envision creating an entirely new genre of university course, one that recognizes organisations as organisms that learn and as vital sources of innovation. The course will support organisations in making their learning more conscious, systematic and informed and help them draw on the crisis of sustainability present in human and ecological systems as a creative source.
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One of the many Organization Unbound ideas that I love is the Giving Field, where giving is not a unidirectional transaction but a field in which all participate, where there is no longer a distinction between giver and receiver, where everyone contributes and benefits continuously. I have experienced the […]
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“Cleaning is the process of removing dirt from any space, surface, object or subject, thereby exposing beauty, potential, truth and sacredness.” Ever since I had the above epiphany, I have spoken it countless times in many places. Each time I do, I get washed by it, as the essence of cleaning is invited into the space to do its work. This happened again and again while I was in Cape Town recently for Cleaning workshops and conversations organized by […]
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It is becoming increasingly clear to me that social change, when done well, is an intimate act. For many years, I was taught to ignore my feelings and intuition, and to develop unassailable plans and irrefutable theories to explain and legitimize my work. These days, I don’t […]
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During the month of October, Organization Unbound and The Barefoot Guide Connection will be hosting a TOOC (Tiny Open Online Course) to explore the relationship between organizations and social transformation. This light, month-long learning experience called ‘Seeding Change from Within’ will explore how to increase an organization’s social impact by growing change from the inside out.
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What happens when you get 900 civil society groups in the same room at over 8,500 feet above sea level? Excitement is guaranteed you’d think, along with a bit of oxygen deprivation and a whole lot of partying. That’s what lured me to Bogotá late last month for International Civil Society Week—the annual conference of an NGO called CIVICUS, the ‘World Alliance for Citizen Participation.’
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The recognition – that we are all now so close, our global footprint so large, and all our processes of life so befouled – releases increasing tendencies towards management and control. We appear caught in a vast paradox that exceeds our capacity for irony – we foreground ourselves as the solution to the problems that we have created through foregrounding ourselves.
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