Simon Nielsen 1/4/23 Simon Nielsen 1/4/23

Building Community In The Lonely Century

“(…) Loneliness erodes the prophylactic power of community for which no health care professional can substitute. With the pandemic, we saw how people who thought of themselves as members of a community were more likely to care for one another and act responsibly towards one another. Likewise, community can have a major influence on social determinants of health such as the physical environment, housing, education, access to food and mutual support.” Jim Diers, community activator, reads an essential book on loneliness and suggests comprehensive solutions.

By Jim Diers, community activator

The Lonely Century by Noreena Hertz is a must-read for those who care deeply about community, health or democracy. Hertz describes the growing epidemic of loneliness which is another way of talking about the erosion of community. She has compiled vast evidence linking loneliness to a decline in the health of individuals and democracy. Most important, Hertz identifies causes of loneliness and recommends solutions.

With an extensive bibliography and more than 900 detailed footnotes, the book synthesizes much of the research and literature on loneliness and community. Hertz builds on this with her own stories and observations. With this review, I will highlight some of the book’s key findings. I will also expand on Hertz’ work by identifying additional impacts of loneliness and advocating more comprehensive solutions.

The book begins by citing research showing how pervasive loneliness has become in our society. Even in a pre-Covid survey of the United States, three in five adults considered themselves lonely. More than one in five millennials say that they have no friends at all. Hertz is based in England, but she shows similar findings for countries all over the world.

The health impacts of loneliness are devastating. Hertz cites studies showing that lonely individuals…

have a 29% higher risk of coronary heart disease
have a 32% higher risk of stroke
have a 64% higher risk of dementia
are ten times more likely to be depressed
have a 30% higher risk of premature death

According to Hertz, “The research shows that loneliness is worse for our health than not exercising, as harmful as being an alcoholic and twice as harmful as being obese. Statistically, loneliness is equivalent to smoking fifteen cigarettes a day.”

Hertz doesn’t mention it, but loneliness erodes the prophylactic power of community for which no health care professional can substitute. With the pandemic, we saw how people who thought of themselves as members of a community were more likely to care for one another and act responsibly towards one another. Likewise, community can have a major influence on social determinants of health such as the physical environment, housing, education, access to food and mutual support.

Hertz also fails to note the key role that community plays in caring for the environment, preventing crime, and responding to emergencies. Thus, it isn’t just individuals who suffer from loneliness. The corresponding breakdown of community has dire consequences for society as a whole.

One societal impact that Hertz does focus on is the threat to our democracy. She describes how lonely individuals often display anger, hostility, a lack of empathy, and a belief that others don’t care about them or their opinions. Yet, like everyone else, they crave belonging. Such individuals can be fodder for aspiring dictators as Hannah Arendt learned from her experience as a Jew in Nazi Germany. Hertz quotes from Arendt’s The Origins of Totalitarianism: “(Totalitarianism) bases itself on loneliness . . . The chief characteristic (of its adherents) is not brutality and backwardness, but their isolation and lack of normal social relationships . . . It is through surrendering their individual selves to ideology that the lonely rediscover their purpose and self-respect.”

Hertz identifies numerous causes of loneliness. These include the usual suspects such as smartphones, social media, contactless shopping, urbanization, racism and the loss and degradation of public spaces. She describes at length how changes to the workplace resulted in a global survey showing that 40% of office workers feel lonely at their jobs. Contributing factors include the move away from shared meals and a greater reliance on technology. Hertz claims that open-plan offices have counter-intuitively caused workers to withdraw socially from their colleagues. Now the pandemic-induced trend to work from home has greatly exacerbated loneliness in the workforce.

The ideology of neoliberal capitalism as championed by politicians ranging from Reagan to Clinton receives much of the blame for the current epidemic of loneliness. Hertz contends that the policies and practices of government and business alike have incentivized the pursuit of self-interest rather than the common good and fostered an enormous and growing gap in incomes and wealth. “Neoliberalism has made us see ourselves as competitors not collaborators, hoarders not sharers, takers not givers, hustlers not helpers . . . (and created) an all about me selfish society in which people feel that they have to look after themselves because no one else will.”

I would add that government, business and other institutions foster loneliness when they focus on people solely as clients and customers with needs rather than as citizens with gifts. Recognizing that everyone has something to share and encouraging gift giving is basic to community. As more and more professionals do to and for rather than with community, there is less of a role for community itself. People come to think of themselves as individual taxpayers, clients or customers rather than as fellow community members. That’s a recipe for loneliness.

A related problem is the way in which institutions and their professionals are so specialized. The community has been disassembled and organized the way in which the institutions, professionals and their programs are organized. There are separate silos for youth, elders, immigrants, individuals with disabilities, those who are housing insecure, etc. You can’t build community in institutional silos. Ironically, I’ve found that the strongest communities tend to be in those places where there are the fewest professionals trying to help the community.

Nevertheless, we are social creatures and long to belong. Hertz shares incredible stories of the desperate measures people take to feel some connection whether that is renting a friend, developing a relationship with a robot, or as some lonely older women are doing in Japan, committing petty crimes in the hope of finding social connections in jail. There must be better solutions!

While government may have inadvertently eroded community, it can also help to strengthen it. Hertz suggests the following measures:

Move from neoliberalism to a more cooperative form of capitalism that works for society as well as the economy. Ensure full employment, workers’ rights, economic security and greater equity.
Regulate social media so that it is less addictive and so that its algorithms reward kindness over anger.
Give citizens a meaningful voice in government and the workplace.
Provide more funding for shared public spaces.
Initiate programs that bring diverse people together for conversation and/or community service.

I would add the following:

Focus government on those things that it is uniquely suited to do, support the community to do what it does best, and collaborate on those things best done together.
Focus municipal government on whole neighborhoods and communities and not simply on its separate silos.
Remove the red tape that makes it difficult to hold street parties, plant street trees, build playgrounds and take other community action.
Offer leadership training for citizens to help them be effective community builders.
Replicate Edmonton’s program of volunteer block connectors.
Support neighborhood-led planning as Hoogeveen and Peel en Maas have done so successfully in the Netherlands.
Engage neighborhood activists in working with the municipality to develop neighborhood strengthening strategies as Hamilton, Kitchener and London have done in Ontario.
Join hundreds of other cities around the world in replicating Seattle’s Neighborhood Matching Fund which provides a cash match for the neighbors’ volunteer time in support of community-initiated projects.

Hertz recognizes that community building can’t simply be a top-down initiative. She offers numerous suggestions of things that individuals can do to counter loneliness:

Devote more time to personal interactions and less to social media
Participate in local associations and events
Buy locally
Get to know your neighbors
Listen to others and practice empathy
Reach out to those who are lonely
Demand social justice

I would also urge individuals to focus on the principles of asset-based community development as popularized by John McKnight and John Kretzmann:

Start where you are – connect with your neighbors to act on shared interests by utilizing the unique skills, knowledge and other resources that everyone possesses.
Focus on the gifts of those we have labelled by their needs. People with labels such as homeless, disabled, at-risk, old, poor, etc. tend to be lonely. Yet, everyone has both gifts and needs. Community is about sharing one another’s gifts to meet one another’s needs.

We certainly can’t afford a century of loneliness. Let’s get busy building inclusive community.

Simon Nielsen 9/13/22 Simon Nielsen 9/13/22

Neighborhood Revitalization Without Gentrification

“Most communities don't think about gentrification until it is too late. The best time to counter gentrification is when it is still unimaginable, and the real estate is still affordable. So, in addition to working on immediate projects and issues to make their neighborhood more livable, the residents need to create a plan for keeping it affordable. Here are some thoughts on what might be included in such a plan taking an ABCD approach.” Community activator, Jim Diers, explores the collective power of neighborhoods.

By Jim Diers, community activator

Where we once dreamed of livable cities and revitalized neighborhoods, we now bemoan gentrification and displacement. As neighborhood conditions have improved, the small businesses and low-income residents, typically people of color, have been driven out. The neighborhood is only livable for those who can afford it.

The blame for gentrification is justifiably placed on institutional racism, young middle-class whites seeking starter homes, corporations attracting highly paid employees from elsewhere, speculative developers, and government programs such as urban renewal and policies promoting growth. But we fail to recognize that well-meaning neighborhood activists are often unwitting partners in gentrification.

Gentrification is the last thing on their mind as activists work to make their neglected neighborhood a better place. They focus on the immediate challenges of blight and crime. They work hard to paint out graffiti and create public art, clean vacant lots and build community gardens, renovate substandard housing and revitalize the business district, and lobby the government for new and enhanced parks, better transportation, good schools and other public infrastructure that more affluent neighborhoods take for granted. As conditions improve, however, the value of the real estate increases and some of the very people who worked so hard on behalf of their neighborhood can no longer afford to live there. Such is the nature of our market-driven economy.

I believe in taking an Asset-Based Community Development approach to neighborhood revitalization. That involves building on the neighborhood’s strengths and doing so in a way that is community-driven. Every community has abundant resources that it can mobilize to strengthen social capital and improve the neighborhood. These assets include the gifts that every individual has to offer, the collective power of the neighborhood’s many formal and informal associations, and the positive identity that comes with the local history, culture and stories. However, it is important to acknowledge that many communities lack sufficient ownership or control over two assets that are key to preventing displacement – the neighborhood’s real estate and its economy.

Confronting economic challenges in the Canadian Maritime Provinces in the 1930s, Father Moses Coady pronounced: “They will use what they have to secure what they have not.” He helped lead the Antigonish Movement that resulted in producer cooperatives and credit unions. Coady’s dictum still makes good sense for community development work today, especially as we seek to revitalize neighborhoods without gentrifying them.

Neighborhood planning can be a great way to coalesce local associations and tap the knowledge, skills and passions of their members in developing a strategy for gaining greater control over the neighborhood’s real estate and economy. To the extent that there is broad-based participation in the development of the plan and ownership of its vision and recommendations, the neighbors will likely take action to implement their plan and push city hall to do the same.

It’s essential that neighborhoods plan ahead, way ahead. Unfortunately, most communities don’t think about gentrification until it’s too late. The best time to counter gentrification is when it is unimaginable and the real estate is still affordable. So, in addition to working on immediate projects and issues to make their neighborhood more livable, the residents and local businesspeople need to create a plan for keeping it affordable.

A good example is Boston’s Dudley Street neighborhood. The neighbors organized to address the immediate issues of poverty, illegal garbage dumps, and arson for hire. But, even then, when conditions seemed desperate, they were planning for the future. Their goal was to develop a strategy for revitalization without gentrification. That planning effort generated widespread participation and when the document was completed in 1987, a united community was able to convince the mayor to help them implement it. The plan called for the community to be given the power of eminent domain. Normally, eminent domain is a power exercised by government to take control of private land so that it can be redeveloped, typically at the expense of a low-income neighborhood. But the Dudley Street residents were able to use eminent domain to gain control of vacant lots owned by absentee landlords. Then, they secured City funding to redevelop the property through a community land trust, enabling them to provide permanently affordable opportunities for home ownership.

Eminent domain, community land trusts, and land banks are good examples of tools that neighbors can utilize to secure property while it is still affordable. The neighborhood plan might also recommend home sharing, accessory dwelling units, rent control, and property tax reductions or deferrals to keep the existing housing stock affordable and virtual retirement villages enabling elders to stay in their homes. In addition, the plan might urge the city to adopt inclusionary zoning that requires developers to make a percentage of their new housing units affordable.

Ideally, the goal should be more ambitious than keeping low income people in the neighborhood. The plan should also look at ways in which the neighbors can benefit from a more robust local economy by pursuing community-based economic development. The objective is to build a local economy on the strengths of the residents and their neighborhood in a way that contributes to the ongoing welfare of the community. Tools for community-based economic development could include provisions for credit unions, microlending, business incubators, timebanks, and worker or consumer owned cooperatives, and requirements for living wage jobs and the employment of local residents.

Of course, a plan can’t anticipate all the developer proposals and government policies and programs that might impact the neighborhood. That is why John McKnight, co-founder of the Asset Based Community Development Institute, has proposed that plans include a Neighborhood Impact Statement. While this tool could be used to assess all sorts of impacts, it seems particularly well suited to addressing gentrification. Specific and unanticipated developments could be evaluated by the neighbors against a set of broad values and guidelines included in the plan. Such impact statements could also provide a good basis for negotiating community benefit agreements with developers.

Revitalizing neighborhoods without gentrification will always be a challenge in a capitalist economy. Even in Dudley Street, displacement continues to be a challenge. But, unless neighbors organize, plan and take appropriate action at an early stage, gentrification will continue unabated.

Simon Nielsen 8/29/22 Simon Nielsen 8/29/22

You Can’t Build Community Without Doing The Bump

“My favorite bumping places are the ones that are designed and built by the neighbors. These places are most likely to reflect what is special about the residents and their neighborhood, and they are designed to work for the people who live there. Through creating the place, neighbors feel a sense of ownership. They are more likely to use, maintain and program it.” Community activator, Jim Diers, identifies the threats to public spaces and some of the creative ways people are finding to create inclusive gathering places in neighborhoods, suburbs, and rural areas.

By Jim Diers, community activator

Community is built on relationships and people develop relationships through frequent contact with others. So, if you want to build community, you need places to bump into other people. The closer those places are to where you live, the more likely you are to bump into the same people over and over again.

Most neighborhoods have an abundance of bumping places. There are public places such as community centers, libraries, schools, parks, athletic facilities, sidewalks and trails. Local business districts with their pubs, coffee shops, grocery stores and other bumping places can be equally effective. There are also collectively owned gathering spaces such as clubhouses and places of worship.

Unfortunately, neighborhoods have been losing their traditional bumping places. Benches have been removed and access to parks and other public spaces has been restricted out of a concern that the “wrong people” have been using them. Online shopping, big box retail and gigantic malls have led to a decline in many neighborhood business districts. Regional so-called community centers are replacing those that were neighborhood-based. The large scale of many new recreation and retail facilities leaves people lost in the crowd and anonymous. An increasingly mobile population often shops, works, recreates, worships, and attends school outside of the neighborhood where they live. People have many different communities, and in a sense, they have no community at all. They seldom bump into the same people in more than one place.

Some neighborhoods were never designed for bumping into other people. Bedroom communities are often more friendly to cars than pedestrians. There are no places to shop, eat or drink within walking distance even if there are the rare sidewalks. Residents drive in and out of a garage adjoining their house and have little opportunity to bump into neighbors. Likewise, there is a dearth of bumping places in rural areas, and long distances between houses make it difficult to connect.

People are social creatures, however, so there has been a growing interest in placemaking. Rather than trying to prevent people from using public spaces, the new thinking is that safety is better achieved by attracting more people from all walks of life. Business districts are being revitalized by creating a distinctive experience that malls can’t replicate – small scale gathering places, shops and restaurants with a local flavor, personalized service, and community-based events such as art walks, heritage days and parades. The local food movement is bringing us community gardens, community kitchens, farmers markets and other prime bumping places. At the block level, neighbors are reclaiming their streets by painting murals in the intersections, installing street furniture, and periodically closing the street for parties and play. Apartment buildings and condos sometimes have rooms for common use, but when they don’t, a sofa or a table with a teapot might be placed in the lobby or next to the elevator to spark interaction. Some people are turning their homes into bumping places by installing a little free library, moving their barbeque to the front lawn, staging concerts on their front porch, or hosting welcome dinners for new neighbors.

Creating bumping places in suburban and rural areas can be more challenging, but they also have homes and yards that could be used for gatherings of neighbors. Practically everywhere has a closed or underutilized school, church, grange hall, or other facility that could serve as a venue for community dinners, educational programs, concerts, dances, movies, swap meets, cider making, game nights, holiday parties and all sorts of other events that would attract the neighbors. Portable bumping spaces are another option; some communities operate a wood-fired pizza oven, tea station or espresso cart that can be driven or pedaled to a prominent intersection, popular trail, cul de sac, or other location where people are likely to congregate around it.

Sometimes, though, the only option is to start with virtual bumping. In new suburbs where the housing is being developed more quickly than the public infrastructure, communities have effectively used a Facebook page as their initial bumping place. Contact on the internet can lead to relationships in real life. I’ve heard many stories of Facebook friends helping one another in times of need even though they had not previously met one another physically.

If you want to develop an inclusive community, you need to have inclusive bumping spaces. While neighbors typically have all kinds of differences in terms of age, income, culture, religion, politics, interests, etc. they tend to gather with people who are like themselves. To be inclusive, a place should be accessible to those with differing abilities and incomes. To the extent that the place includes signage and art, it should reflect the full range of languages and cultures in the neighborhood.

A key reason why places aren’t sufficiently inclusive is because so many are single purpose. They only attract gardeners, basketball players, seniors or whomever the space was specifically designed for. An inclusive place will be multi-purpose. Project for Public Spaces, the premier placemaking organization, calls this the Power of 10. They assert that every place should accommodate at least ten different kinds of activities. Not only will this make the place more inviting to a wide range of users, but it will make it more likely that the place will be used more extensively, at all times of the day and during all seasons of the year making it safer for everyone.

Having an inclusive space isn’t sufficient, however. We’ve all experienced elevators, bus stops and other public places that are crowded with people doing their best not to make eye contact with anyone else. Sometimes an intervention is needed to get people off of their smartphones and interacting with one another.

Public libraries are a good example. They attract neighbors from all walks of life, but the diverse readers seldom interact except for families during Saturday morning story hours. Increasingly, though, libraries are trying to serve as the neighborhood’s living room. Many libraries have incorporated coffee shops or other spaces where people aren’t shushed. Some have living book programs through which a person can spend time getting to know someone who is different than themself. After hours, libraries have hosted sleepovers, concerts and even miniature golf where people putt their way through the stacks of the Dewey decimal system.

My favorite bumping places are the ones that are designed and built by the neighbors. These places are most likely to reflect what is special about the residents and their neighborhood, and they are designed to work for the people who live there. Through creating the place, neighbors feel a sense of ownership. They are more likely to use, maintain and program it.

Of course, it is critical that the design/build process is inclusive as well. All of the potential users, whether they are young or old, business or homeless people, have a valuable perspective to bring to the design process and everyone has contributions they can make to creating a place that makes it possible to do the bump together.

Simon Nielsen 6/20/22 Simon Nielsen 6/20/22

Social Justice Is Not As Easy As ABCD

“It’s not enough to be community-driven; we need to ensure that those who are less privileged are in the lead. As many community organizers have observed, ‘It is those closest to the problem who are closest to the solution.’ Inclusive engagement won’t happen unless we are intentional. We need to engage people where they are – their networks, gathering places, language, culture and priorities.” Community activator, Jim Diers, calls for a people powered social justice.

By Jim Diers, community activator

As a proud practitioner of Asset-Based Community-driven Development (ABCD), I’m convinced that every person and every neighborhood has abundant and often underutilized strengths that can be mobilized to accomplish what is best done by community – caring for one another and the earth, promoting health, preventing crime, responding to disaster, creating great places, strengthening democracy and advancing social justice. But, I’m also aware that there is nothing inherently progressive about ABCD. In fact, unless an ABCD approach is accompanie by a strong commitment to social justice and an understanding of what that entails, it has the potential to exacerbate current inequities. Following are some actions to take and pitfalls to avoid on the road to social justice.

For starters, we need to stop talking about everyone’s glass being half-full. True, all people have valuable skills, knowledge and other gifts. But, the notion that everyone’s glass is half-full reinforces the myth that we all have the same opportunities. It ignores the fact that privilege based on race, class, gender and other identities gives some people an incredible advantage. The obscene concentration of wealth and mass incarceration of African Americans are two manifestations of the extreme inequity in our society.

It’s not enough to be community-driven; we need to ensure that those who are less privileged are in the lead. As many community organizers have observed, “It is those closest to the problem who are closest to the solution.” Inclusive engagement won’t happen unless we are intentional. We need to engage people where they are – their networks, gathering places, language, culture and priorities.

While emphasizing that there is no substitute for community, we need to acknowledge that there are some things best done by government, not-for-profits and other agencies. Portraying them as the problem aligns us with the right-wing. Similarly, a solely strengths-based approach echoes the conservative notion that people can and should pull themselves up by their own bootstraps. Appropriate professional services are needed, and agencies can be good partners. We must help them work in ways that are more strengths-based, holistic and community-driven.

At the same time, we must embrace the idea that a key role of community is to hold government and corporations accountable. Thus, we shouldn’t be content with organizing for mutual support. We must also organize for social and earth justice. The networks built through an ABCD approach could make a powerful impact on external forces, but typically, we miss that opportunity as we focus on self-help.

As we work to make our communities stronger and our neighborhoods more attractive, we must recognize that our actions are likely to make local real estate more desirable and thus less affordable for existing residents and businesses. That’s hard to imagine when conditions seem desperate, but that is exactly the time when we need to plan for the future. As we’re working on small projects, we should be consciously building the capacity to establish cooperatives, community lands trusts and other forms of community ownership. We must also organize for a living wage and ensure that government and developers act in the interest of the community, especially those at greatest risk for displacement.

Just as it is important for those practicing ABCD to be open to community organizing, my friends who are organizing for social justice would do well to encourage their members to engage in mutual support and other ABCD activities. I’ve found that this is a great way to develop a much stronger base, especially among those people who are averse to meetings and conflict. Then, when it comes time for the fight, the members of the organization don’t have to yell so loudly because they have the whole community with them. Including an asset-based approach also provides opportunities for members to sustain their relationships with one another during those times when they aren’t involved with an issue campaign. ABCD and issue-based organizing are incredibly compatible, but few organizations utilize both approaches.

And, just as communities need to find ways to partner with government and other agencies, it is incumbent on elected officials, civil servants and not-for-profit staff to step back and make room for community. Ironically, many of my progressive friends are some of the biggest obstacles. They seem to think that people’s welfare is tied exclusively to rights and services, and they fail to acknowledge the vital role of community. It is a grave injustice when people are treated only as clients and customers and not as citizens with gifts and capacity. Government officials often have a paternalistic attitude towards the community and don’t sufficiently value its knowledge or trust its judgment. They have a skewed sense of power and guard it selfishly while failing to recognize that power is infinite and grows as you give it away. Social justice has always depended on the power of the people. Now, more than ever, progressives need to act on that truth.

Simon Nielsen 4/25/22 Simon Nielsen 4/25/22

Building 21st Century Community

“Most of our neighborhoods were designed by outside professionals – planners, architects and developers. Increasingly, though, residents are working together to create a unique identity for their neighborhood and to shape places where they can bump into one another on a regular basis.” Community activator, Jim Diers, explores the many ways of building communities fit for the 21st century.

By Jim Diers, community activator

At the turn of this century, Robert Putnam wrote the most depressing book for those of us who believe that there is no substitute for community. Putnam cited all sorts of indicators of the breakdown of social capital over the previous fifty years – closed pubs, fewer voters, less families eating together, and declining membership in Rotary, League of Women Voters, NAACP and other associations. The book was titled Bowling Alone because Putnam documented a dramatic loss in bowling leagues over the years.

I talked about Putnam’s research in a presentation I made to the City Council of Port Phillip, Australia, and they encouraged me to visit the local St. Kilda Bowling Club. Sure enough, when I arrived at the large site next to Luna Park, I saw that the club had closed. In fact, there was a tombstone marking its demise. The inscription read: “Old bowlers never die. They just get composted.” The former bowling club had been converted into a spectacular community garden!

Known as Veg Out, there are dozens of raised beds including one that looks like a pirate ship, another that resembles a ranch, and a garden planted in bathroom fixtures. There’s a food forest, a cactus garden and abundant flowers. But there’s also art everywhere. The old clubhouse is covered in murals and there’s a large yellow submarine on its roof. Inside, artists are working with their neighbors to create more installations for the garden. Already, there are wrought iron gates, mosaic sculptures, a large sundial, a horse built out of garden tools, and a cow whose udders water the plants.

Veg Out is so much more than a garden. There’s a café complete with a wood fired oven and a pub. For the children, there’s a playground with a large sandbox. Children also enjoy the fairy garden with its gigantic toadstools and metal sculptures that move when cranked.

I visited on an especially active Saturday in spring. Children were playing hopscotch, getting their faces painted and visiting a petting zoo. People were eating fresh pizza and salads in the café. Dozens of families were seated on the lawn below a stage featuring local musicians. I’m sure that this was much more activity than the former bowling club had ever seen.

What I have come to realize is that people are finding new ways to build community. Robert Putnam was tracking the old ways. Yes, there may be fewer pubs than there were 50 years ago, but for every pub that has closed, there are many new coffee shops where people connect. Barn raising parties are less needed these days, but neighbors are coming together to build playgrounds. While there may be fewer bowling leagues, there are many more soccer leagues. Following are some of the new forms of community building.

Local Food Movement

Perhaps nowhere illustrates the power of food to build community better than the village of Todmorden, England. Through an initiative called Incredible Edibles, people from all walks of life are working together to raise vegetables everywhere – in the boulevards, the schools, and even the police station. Pamela Wharton who sparked the initiative says: “We are a very inclusive movement. Our motto is, ‘If you eat, you’re in.”

There’s another saying that “Flowers grow in flower gardens, but community grows in community gardens.” Seattle has 95 organic community gardens with 10,000 people participating. Gardeners work together to build and maintain the gardens and to grow and deliver produce to local food banks. Instead of fences to keep people out, every garden has a gathering place to bring neighbors in. These are key bumping places where neighbors can connect on a regular basis and build relationships with one another.

Everywhere in the world I go, I see community gardens. In the small town of Corowa, Australia, retired men were recruited to build the gazebo, frog pond and rain catchment system for the community garden; in the process, they regained a sense of purpose and made good friends. Young people in a Nairobi slum have converted a dump into a garden. Havana has 1700 community gardens and even Singapore, where space is at a premium, boasts more than 1000.

In the Lower Hutt, New Zealand, community members converted an underutilized soccer field at Epuni Primary School into an urban farm. Neighbors worked together to build raised beds, a rain catchment system, a greenhouse from the panels of former slot machines, and even a library designed to look like a hobbit house complete with a green roof. This Common Unity project includes extensive vegetable plots, a food forest, beehives, and chickens. Neighbors assist students in preparing lunches from the farm’s produce so that formerly malnourished children are eating fresh organic meals. A sign at the farm summarizes what community is all about: “We have two hands – one for giving and one for receiving.”

Food forests, urban farms and community kitchens are now common throughout the world. On seven acres of land in the center of Seattle, neighbors are creating the Beacon Food Forest by planting and caring for fruit and nut trees and berry bushes that are available to everyone for picking. Seattle’s Rainier Beach Urban Farm involves East Africans, local high school students, elders with dementia and many more in cultivating ten acres, harvesting 20,000 pounds of produce and preparing 6000 meals in the farm’s community kitchen each year. One of my favorite community kitchens is the Free Cafe in Groningen, Netherlands which serves meals from salvaged food; young people built and operate the facility that includes an artistic kitchen, dining room, living room, library and composting toilets.

Seattle is famous for its historic Pike Place Market where the motto is: “Meet the Producer.” Now, there are farmers markets throughout the city where, in addition to meeting the growers, neighbors can meet and hang out with one another. Similar local markets can be found in cities and villages everywhere. Yes, there may be fewer families eating dinner together than there were 50 years ago, but the local food movement has created so many new opportunities to build social capital.

Environmental Restoration

Ever since the first Earth Day in 1970, communities have organized to safeguard the environment. The water protectors’ courageous actions at Standing Rock are a recent example of the many attempts to hold corporations and government accountable. Increasingly, people are also coming together to undertake their own environmental restoration projects.

In 1994, Ballard was the Seattle neighborhood with the fewest number of street trees and the least park land outside of downtown. Dervilla Gowan responded by organizing her neighbors to plant 1080 street trees in one day. Other neighbors went on to build 20 park projects in as many years – pocket parks, playgrounds, community gardens, ballfields, green streets, a skate park, reforestation of natural areas and restoration of a salmon estuary. Their growing concern with climate change caused them to organize an annual Sustainable Ballardfest and issue undrivers licences which entitle the bearers to ride a foot-powered shufflebus. All of this has sparked a movement. There are now 67 neighborhoods and suburban towns that have joined Ballard to form SCALLOPS - Sustainable Communities All Over Puget Sound.

Taomi, a poor farming community in the mountains of central Taiwan, was at the epicenter of the 1999 earthquake. Amidst all of the devastation, the villagers took stock of their remaining assets and realized that they had abundant birds, butterflies and frogs. They worked together to build ponds and to reforest the land. Fifty famers got trained and certified as eco-tour guides. Young people created art with an environmental theme. For the first time, tourists began to visit. The locals started gardens, restaurants and bed and breakfasts. Now, Taomi is a beautiful eco-village that gets half a million visitors each year and boasts a much healthier economy.

The creeks flowing out of the Waitakere Ranges in west Auckland had become heavily polluted over time and the native bush on the banks had succumbed to all sorts of invasive vegetation. Through Project Twin Streams, neighbors organized to care for their respective sections of the creeks. Thousands of volunteers worked to remove tons of junk from the water. They weeded out the invasives and planted more than 800,000 trees and shrubs since the project began in 2003. Artists worked with children to create murals and sculptures all along the creeks to educate the public and to celebrate the clean water and the return of the native fish, bush and birds.

Such environmental projects usually aren’t one-time affairs. Participants typically meet frequently to maintain and enjoy their contribution to the environment. In the process, they build community.

Community-Created Art

Many cities have long had commissions of experts who select individuals to create public art. There can certainly be value in this top-down approach, but taxpayers often question what the art means and how much it costs. A new approach to public art is on the ascendency. Just as planners, architects, police, public health workers and other professionals are learning how to use their knowledge and skills to empower communities, so are many artists. They are helping neighbors to use art as a way of expressing what is important to them – their history, culture, identity, values, environment or vision for the future. Through working together to conceive and create art, the participants also develop a stronger sense of community. The completed art often is a source of pride for the observers as well and helps them to identify with their community.

There are hundreds of examples of community-created art in Seattle thanks in large part to a Neighborhood Matching Fund that will be described later. One of the early projects was a gigantic troll that resulted from a community vote in the Fremont neighborhood and is now one of Seattle’s most popular landmarks. Residents of Chinatown, Japantown, Manillatown and Little Saigon came together to design 17 dragons climbing utility poles defining a common International District. Gardeners at Bradner Park used mosaic tiles and broken dishes to create spectacular murals on the inside walls of their restroom as a successful strategy to combat vandalism. Neighborhood business districts were revitalized when the West Seattle community developed 15 historical murals for their storefronts and when Columbia City residents painted boarded up doors and windows to depict the businesses that they wanted to attract. Through Urban ArtWorks, artists have mentored over 5000 young people to create more than 1500 murals on walls previously covered with graffiti.

I see similar community creativity everywhere. When I visited an art center in Auckland’s former Corban Estate Winery, young offenders were passionately painting a mural they had designed for a police station and there was a building where homeless Maori were proudly creating art and crafts. In Gosford, Australia, residents handcrafted 40,000 poppies that were installed around Memorial Fountain to commemorate the centenary of the Anzac landing at Gallipoli. Maple Ridge, British Columbia has an Artists in Residency program through which the city makes houses available to artists who work with their neighbors to create installations or stage events such as the River Festival I enjoyed complete with salmon lanterns lighting the way. Nothing good was happening in Tacoma’s Frink Park until someone saw the potential of that concrete-covered space as a canvas; now there is free chalk available every Friday and dozens of people from all walks of life can be seen creating art that visitors enjoy until the next rain.

Placemaking

Most of our neighborhoods were designed by outside professionals – planners, architects and developers. Increasingly, though, residents are working together to create a unique identity for their neighborhood and to shape places where they can bump into one another on a regular basis. Community-created art typically plays a large role in this process of placemaking.

There’s a good example of placemaking in the Newton neighborhood of Surrey, British Columbia. In the center of the business district is a lot covered by very tall trees. Many neighbors complained about the drug dealing, encampments and other public safety concerns hidden in the trees. The police suggested that the sight lines could be improved by clearcutting this mini-forest, but other neighbors had a better idea. They decided to turn the problem space into a community place, and they gave it a name - The Grove. Creative ways were found to use the trees: frames were installed on each tree so that neighbors could display their art; a tightrope was extended between two of the trees; a large stump was painted to serve as a chessboard; word cards were placed on a trunk so that they could be rearranged on what is known as the Poet Tree (three volumes of poetry have now emerged from The Grove). Strings of lights were hung to brighten the environment at night. Neighbors built Encyclopedia House from outdated editions discarded by the library. Local musicians were invited to perform in The Grove. Every major holiday and some minor ones like Groundhog Day are celebrated there. Workshops on everything from poetry writing to seed bombing are accommodated. Welcome signs in every language of that very diverse neighborhood invite people in. And it works! Not only do people feel safe, but The Grove has helped very different people, some of whom had been seen as a problem, to meet one another and build a sense of community.

With the budget cuts in Rotterdam, a neighborhood association was gearing up to fight the closure of their public library. But someone argued that the library wasn’t all that great and that the association’s energy could be better used to create their own place. Community members got excited about this vision and developed the Reading Room in a vacant storefront. It includes a library, café, pub, children’s play area, boxing rink and stage for regular performances. It attracts many more people than the former library and gets them to interact with one another – something that most libraries aren’t programmed to do. Everything in the space was donated and the staff are all volunteers.

Placemaking ideas are spreading rapidly. The Sellwood Neighborhood in Portland, Oregon painted a mural in their intersection in order to slow traffic and create a local identity. They didn’t ask permission from local government, because they knew they wouldn’t get it. The project was so successful, however, that Portland is now one of many cities around the world that permits such murals.

Activists in San Francisco started feeding the parking meters so that they could create gathering places in parking spaces for a day. Now, International PARKing Day is observed in cities everywhere. And, many of those temporary parklets are now permanent. Palmerston North, New Zealand is one city that has many parklets. The local government gives community activists a Placemaking Toolkit which includes a Get Out of Jail Free card “if you unwittingly contravene a regulation in your effort to make your city a better place.”

Culture of Sharing

There’s a lot of talk about the sharing economy these days with the popularity of businesses like Airbnb, Uber and Zipcar. Less heralded but a much greater force in community building is the growing culture of sharing. Unlike the sharing economy, it is tied to relationships rather than money.

One of the simplest expressions of the culture of sharing is the little free library. The first one was built in a small town in Wisconsin in 2009 when Todd Bol wanted to memorialize his mother who had been a schoolteacher and book lover. He built a library shelf designed to look like a schoolhouse, filled it with paperbacks, erected it in his front yard, and invited his neighbors to take and leave books. It proved to be an effective way not only to share reading materials but to help neighbors engage with one another. There are now tens of thousands of such libraries in at least 70 countries and the concept continues to evolve. Red Deer, Alberta even has little free libraries in its public buses.

Although the concept of formal time exchanges is nearly 200 years old, the modern version has really taken off in recent decades. The name and the process differ somewhat from place to place, but they generally operate as time banks. A time bank is a network of neighbors who share their skills to meet one another’s needs. Everyone’s time is valued the same. So, for every hour of service that someone provides, they are entitled to an hour of service that they need from someone else in the network. Not only is it a great way for people get their needs met outside of the monetary system, but it is an effective tool for connecting neighbors who might otherwise be isolated. Time banks are the most prevalent in the United States and United Kingdom, but variations can be found in at least three dozen countries.

The recent proliferation of co-working spaces has also been a major contributor to community building, especially among young people. While most such spaces do require a fee to join, members typically share their expertise freely with one another. I visited such a space in Sioux Falls, South Dakota that was located in a former bakery. The Bakery has plenty of formal and informal working spaces, but it also hosts food trucks, yoga classes, and free workshops offered by the members. The more than 500 young people who belong have formed such a tight community that housing is now being designed for vacant lots around The Bakery so that members can live, learn, work, play and eat all in the same neighborhood.

Similarly, in Columbus, Ohio’s old industrial neighborhood of Frankenton, young people have renovated a former factory as the Idea Foundry. A membership fee gives them access to shared space and equipment such as pottery kilns, welding supplies, and a 3D printer. A nearby warehouse has been turned into 200 artist studios accompanied by a pub, restaurant and performance spaces. Other former industrial buildings now house a glass studio and a brewery. This young entrepreneurial community comes together each year to host Independents’ Days – three days of independent film, music and art.

Social Media

An argument can be made that electronic screens contribute to the breakdown of social capital as face-to-face relationships give way to virtual friends, but social media can also play a role in building community. I’ve done some work in Wyndham, a quickly growing suburb far outside of Melbourne where the community infrastructure hasn’t kept pace with the housing development. Lacking physical bumping places, neighbors turned to Facebook as a way of connecting. A high percentage of the population now belongs to the various neighborhood pages. I heard several powerful stories of neighbors helping one another in times of need even though they had not previously met one another physically.

A key requirement in my community organizing class at the University of Washington is that the students organize around something they are passionate about. One of my students, Megan, said that she had two passions – eating cookies and losing weight. She proceeded to use the Nextdoor social media platform to offer free cookies to residents in her Leschi neighborhood. Megan walked six miles each Sunday delivering the cookies and meeting her neighbors. It turned out that most of them were more interested in the company than in the cookies, and several offered to help with her project. They quickly outgrew Megan’s tiny kitchen, so she put out another message on Nextdoor seeking commercial kitchens. Three churches offered theirs.

Participatory Democracy

The decline in voter participation that Putnam noted has continued, but government officials are starting to wake up and realize that they share much of the blame. A focus on good business practices and customer service over the years has left many people feeling like taxpayers rather than citizens. Tokenistic citizen engagement techniques such as public hearings and task forces have only appealed to the “usual suspects.” Even voting is viewed by many as an exercise in abdicating power. A true democracy requires much more robust and inclusive engagement. Especially at the local level, public officials are realizing the importance of building community and empowering people to make their own decisions and to initiate their own projects.

One of the first cities that devolved power to the people was Porto Alegre, Brazil which initiated an ambitious process of participatory budgeting in 1989. The process starts at the neighborhood level, involves about 50,000 citizens, and determines which projects and services will be supported with the City’s $200 million budget. Cities throughout Brazil replicated this process and now participatory budgeting has taken hold on every continent. In most cities, however, citizens are given a relatively small portion of the budget within which they can propose and prioritize projects.

Many other local governments are empowering citizens to develop their own neighborhood plans. The City of Seattle even made money available so that neighborhoods could hire a planner accountable to them. Rather than start with the City’s budget, this process starts with diverse interests coming together to develop a shared vision for the future of their neighborhood and developing recommendations for actions that will move in that direction. Unlike traditional planning, these bottom-up plans tend to be more holistic, get many more people involved (30,000 in Seattle) and leverage the community’s resources as well as local government’s.

Another tool for leveraging community participation and other resources is the Neighborhood Matching Fund which was developed by the City of Seattle’s Department of Neighborhoods in 1989. The program supports informal groups of neighbors to undertake one-time projects by providing a cash match in exchange for the community’s match of volunteer labor. Through this program, more than 5000 community self-help projects have resulted – new parks, playgrounds, community gardens, public art, cultural centers, renovated facilities, oral histories, etc. The City’s $70 million investment over the years has leveraged $100 million in community contributions that otherwise never would have been tapped. But, the best benefit is that it has involved tens of thousands of citizens with one another and with their government, often for the first time. Now, there are hundreds of such programs around the world but none on the scale of Seattle’s.

Participatory democracy is catching on in many parts of the world. In the Netherlands, where there are numerous examples of community-driven planning and participatory budgeting, the movement is called Burgerkracht (Citizen Power). Machizukuri is the term for community building in Japan; first codified by Kobe City and utilized in recovering from the 1995 earthquake, a similar approach to citizen engagement in the development process has been adopted in other east Asian countries. In New Zealand, the movement is called Community-Led Development and builds on Maori concepts. Australia’s Municipal Association of Victoria sponsors an annual Power to the People conference; there are now many examples of community-led plans and matching fund projects throughout the State of Victoria. In Iceland, Better Reykjavik involved 40% of the population in submitting and voting on ideas via the internet; that success led to an effort to crowdsource a new constitution for the country.

In Canada, there is a focus on building community at the neighborhood level. The Ontario Cities of Burlington, Hamilton, Kitchener, London and Toronto have engaged in widespread consultation to develop comprehensive Neighborhood Strengthening Strategies. The City of Edmonton and smaller jurisdictions throughout Alberta are training block connectors to bring neighbors together around shared interests and for mutual support. In British Columbia, the Vancouver Foundation is working with local governments to make small matching grants available in 17 communities.

Other

Although I have tried to categorize the new forms of community building, I should note that community ways defy categorization. It’s in community that everything comes together, so the approach is typically holistic. For example, Veg Out community garden could be categorized as a local food, environmental or placemaking project or as an example of community-created art or the culture of sharing. Every case cited above could also be described as a public safety or health promotion project because both benefit from stronger social capital. At the same time, there are many new forms of community building that don’t fit in any of the categories I have listed. Here are a few examples.

The increasing frequency and ferocity of floods, droughts, fires, tornados, hurricanes, earthquakes and other disasters throughout the world is prompting communities to take the initiative in preparing for disaster. Neighbors are meeting one another, sharing their contact information, and making plans to combine their skills, equipment and other resources so that they can be as resilient as possible. Vashon Island, Washington, where I live, has 200 Neighborhood Emergency Response Organizations. Volunteers also created and operate a network of ham radios, a Facebook page, and radio and television stations for emergency communication; in the meantime, these media play a significant role in further building the community connections that are key to resiliency.

Neighbors are finding new ways to support their elders so that they can age in place. In a small village outside of Hoogeveen in the Netherlands, neighbors renovated a former restaurant to serve as an assisted-living facility staffed largely by volunteers. The other elders are supported to stay in their homes by neighbors who serve as “Buddies” – making regular visits, providing rides, and helping to maintain the house and yard. Neighbors are playing a similar role in cities throughout the United States where Virtual Villages have been organized. Started in Boston, this model also helps isolated seniors to connect with community and offers concierge-like referrals for those services that can’t be provided by volunteers.

Collective knitting may seem like a frivolous activity by comparison, but it is also playing a role in rebuilding community. Knitting groups are popping up everywhere whether their purpose is to knit apparel for newborns, pussy hats for the Women’s March, or blankets for homeless encampments or to create street art through yarn bombing. In the Voorstad neighborhood of Deventer in the Netherlands, eight women came together to socialize while they knitted scarves in the yellow and red of their beloved football team, the Go Ahead Eagles. The movement grew and soon there were knitting groups everywhere, even in the football stadium. Several months ago, they sewed the scarves together and completely covered a house to show the warmth they have for the Syrian refugees who live inside. Their current goal is to make a scarf so long that it can surround the entire neighborhood; the 185 men and women participating in this project are three kilometers of the way towards knitting their community together.

I hope that you are as heartened by all of this as I am. Community isn’t an old-fashioned concept. We need it now more than ever. But, if we are going to build stronger communities, we can’t hark back to the old ways. We’re living in a different world, and we need to adapt our approaches accordingly. Fortunately, people are stepping up everywhere and continually finding new ways to connect with others. I can’t imagine a more exciting time than this for building community.

Simon Nielsen 3/25/22 Simon Nielsen 3/25/22

The Pith And Marrow Of A Trip To Italy

Mohamed Magani, author and president of Algerian PEN, wrote a novel and suddenly found himself the center of a tightly knit community of butchers. Magani explores the power of stories and finds a world of wonder and surprises.

“Something surreal, a special and atypical manifestation of the author-readers encounter was beyond reason going to evolve from morning to evening, and my role as a participant observer in the event had clearly some logical relevance that day. The street was closed to traffic, and a row of tables had been set up, heavy with dishes in various sauces and without, bottles of Chianti and large pieces of traditional bread. Among the row of tables, in the middle, one had been set apart for dozens of copies of the novel The Butcher’s Aesthetics translated into Italian.” Mohamed Magani, author and president of Algerian PEN, wrote a novel and suddenly found himself the center of a tightly knit community of butchers. Magani explores the power of stories and finds a world of wonder and surprises.

By Mohamed Magani, author

The 1960’s, Algeria’s sky in the first decade of independence was filled with both bright sunny promises and dark clouds looming large in the country's young history. Lacking interest and motivation for any other subject in the 1980s, I embarked on the writing of the novel Esthétique de boucher, (The Butcher’s aesthetics) with the settled ambition of drawing up the profile and portrait of a generation, my own, carried away by the high winds of freedom, but already confronted with the rules and authoritarianism, the violence and prohibitions of the new authorities. I needed a divergent voice, preferably unfamiliar in literature, in view to convey, from a distance and in perspective, the time, space and mindset of individual emancipation at grips with opposing forces, socially and traditionally dominant, more powerful, while highlighting the uncertainties and anxieties of the present, factors of confusion and disarray.

I did not have to search long. I decided quickly for a butcher who was just out of adolescence, who hardly had time to experience the rebellion crisis of his age, since, as an only child, he was immediately promoted to head of the family and owner of a butcher's shop following his father’s death.

And it was this same young butcher, the narrator in Esthétique de boucher, who dragged me behind him in a unique experience, which no writer will probably ever manage to invent and put down on paper. Although he was the most imaginary of the whole gallery of young characters in the novel.

The translation of Esthétique de boucher into Italian took me one day, in 2002, to the side of Florence, to a charming little town called Panzano, perched on a hill in the Tuscan wine region. In fact, Panzano is located exactly halfway between Florence and Siena in the province of Florence.

From the outset, the welcome in Panzano was nothing like my previous experiences of readings, conferences, book signings and other encounters between authors and readers. Instead of a meeting in a closed place, a conference room or a bookshop, I found myself shaking hands with a host of people at the bottom of a winding street invaded by a tight crowd, brandishing Estetica di macellaio in joy and contagious good mood. Then I realized that we were standing in front of a butcher's shop, under the sign of Antica Macelleria Cecchini. The translator of Estetica di macellaio introduced me to its owner, who dressed me there and then in a white smock with the logo of his butchery on the chest, a smock worn by many more people around.

Something surreal, a special and atypical manifestation of the author-readers encounter was beyond reason going to evolve from morning to evening, and my role as a participant observer in the event had clearly some logical relevance that day. The street was closed to traffic, and a row of tables had been set up, heavy with dishes in various sauces and without, bottles of Chianti and large pieces of traditional bread. Among the row of tables, in the middle, one had been set apart for dozens of copies of the novel Esthétique de boucher translated into Italian. A crowd gathered in front of the improvised literature stand, men and women of the same butchers' guild all wanted their Estetica di macellaio. Naturally, everyone wanted to know if I was a butcher by trade in my country.

In fact, at the same time every year, an international event involving butchers from all over Europe is held in Panzano to celebrate Sant'Antonio Abate, the patron saint of butchers. My invitation to the event was therefore not really a matter of chance. The publisher of the novel and Dario Cecchini, the owner of the Antica Macelleria Cecchini, had agreed that I should attend the gathering, on the grounds that the narrator of the novel regarded butchers with sympathy, and presented a vision and representation far removed from the widespread clichés about them. It is true that the young butcher narrator in the novel is out of the ordinary, he develops a more than a little intellectual inclination, which does not fit in with the practices of the meat trade. The greatest frustration in his life is that he was taken out of school at an early age, at a time when he was nurturing a keen interest in history and literature, and his close friends were constantly bringing him bits of knowledge of the two fields in his very butchery. A butcher who is, moreover, almost a vegetarian, he floats in the absolute dream of living among the Hunzas, a mountain people in Pakistan, adepts of total vegetarianism, assumed since the dawn of time.

Dario Cecchini can’t stop hugging me all the time, and introducing me to the crowd. He disappears one minute, then returns to warmly wrap his arms around my shoulders the next minute, without tiring. Moving through the crowd like a fish in water, time and again he stands still and begins to recite Dante's poems, learned by heart. Crowds of butchers, guests and passers-by listen. An exuberant character, communicative and generous like no other, I soon learn that he is a well-known personality in Italy; he enjoys a great and respectable reputation thanks to his television programs on meat and its countless recipes, and the training he gives, around the world, on the techniques of meat cutting.

With his copy of Estetica di macellaio constantly in his hand, he is more than proud of the book cover, the outcome of his design and collaboration with the publisher. I refrained from telling him that I almost fell in a swoon on the floor the moment I saw it for the very first time, infuriated and speechless. Outrageous, unsightly to the last degree, such was its appearance; in its entirety almost, a photo of a young, athletic man, shirtless, muscles bulging, head bent forward on his chest, so that the face was unrecognizable. The heap of human meat on the cover of the book stood before me in real life, escorted by Dario Cecchini and surrounded by a merry band. Dario told him to take off his shirt, and the young man transformed himself into a butcher's model, embodying his corporation, on the cover of a novel, in the most extreme way; I signed his copy of Estetica di macellaio. Then, invited to follow Dario, we all headed for a wall.

In two rows, a good thirty butchers, dressed in white work smocks bearing the effigy of the Antica Macelleria Cecchini, posed for a group photo session. Somehow, the idea of myself as a writer began to crack and to accommodate a certain sense of belongingness to a professional body foreign to literature a priori. Back in Algeria, I received the group portrait, and for years remained undecided as whether to hang it on the wall or to put it forever out of sight. The writer's permanent expectation of expanding his/her readership branched off without any warning, in my case into a kind of dead end haunted by a party of men whose occupation centered on animal flesh and bones.

At one point, on the threshold of his butcher's shop, Dario began haranguing his colleagues, who gathered in front of him, then followed him inside. He opened his Estetica di macellaio, I opened Esthétique de boucher, on the pages of the first chapter he pointed out to me, in perfect French. Behind the glass meat display, facing an assembly of silent butchers, I read passages in French; Dario took them up in Italian. "This is my life", he said, after reading a couple of minutes. On the verge of tears, he read on, in a moving atmosphere, intensely shared in the butchery.

Once the reading over, Dario took my arm and led me to the first floor of his house, where the butchery takes up the entire ground floor. He opened the door of a room, then the window overlooking the street, and began to recite once more Dante’s poetry. All heads rose, butchers, butchers' wives, guests and passers-by turned their backs on the meat dishes on the tables, on the bottles of Chianti, yielding to the exalted tone of the most famous butcher in Italy.

Back on the street, a surprise awaited us. Journalists from the RAI television came to make a report on the international butchers' meeting in Panzano. I was interviewed, and without thinking I answered a question about the reason of my interest in butchers with a hackneyed cliché. "I wanted to show the man in the butcher, not the other way round!" I said. Applause erupted on the street, mingled with a lot of laughter and joyful assenting commentaries. Soon after, the RAI broadcasted the report, and I had the opportunity to dine, one evening in an Algiers restaurant, with the Italian ambassador. He was so puzzled and burning with curiosity that he sacrificed hours of his precious time to my incredible journey to his country. I showed him a series of photos, supporting the words and images of the RAI report.

Adjacent to the Antica Macelleria Cecchini, a modest room with no animal flesh was full of books and documents shelved against the walls. I was told that this was a meat research center. This is where a distinguished gentleman chose to approach me. He introduced himself as the director of the National Library of Luxembourg, and said: "Two years ago, the Library organized a symposium on bread. Next October, we plan to organize a symposium on meat. Could you come?" I looked at him, bewildered, "Who do you want to invite, me or the butcher in the novel? The director assured me that he would be delighted to welcome both of us!

Before Luxembourg, it was another country that opened its arms to the butcher narrator. Translated into German, Esthétique de boucher (The Butcher's aesthetics) took me to Austria, to Salzburg, where a reading session was arranged in a large hall. I read substantial passages from the novel, alternating with their translation into German. I could tell there were butchers in the audience. At the end of the reading, a woman asked to speak, and became just as if she was their spokesperson. She urged me to go to Chicago where, she added, butchers have serious psychological problems. Reading Die Ästhetik des Metzgers might be the beginning of a therapy for them, in her opinion.

In the course of a short trip to Italy, my vocation as an aspiring writer staggered. From the second novel, Esthétique de boucher, it found itself seriously compromised by taking a constrained direction: I became at best a spokesman for butchers or an analyst of fellow creatures in crisis among them. In Algeria, after a while of frowning and questioning the veracity of the barely believable event in Panzano, the visit of a fictitious Algerian butcher to real Italian butchers turned into a farcical, and pressing request. Newspapers seized on the weird and unique travel case, dismissing all ideas of literature and its world, fiction, formal inventions, writing, reading and reception. Given the high cost of red meat, well-meaning people urged me to intercede with the Italian butchers' guild to import sufficient quantities from their country, and inject them into the commercial circuit at affordable prices.

Upon my return to Algiers, I realized the enormity of the novel reception, the extent to which Esthétique de boucher, now the object of a destiny beyond its author's control, was perceived, due to its intrinsic content, to the Italian butchers, to the book's publisher, to the patron saint of butchers, to their combined effects, or to the confusing mistake of seeing me, resolutely, as a butcher by trade; it was unclear to me. The ambition of Esthétique de boucher was to biographing a generation, of enlightened passion and daring vision of society, aimed at representing a decisive period in the life of the people of a country at the end of colonization. The young men who populate it were all people whom I had close friendly ties with in real life, and for whom I had the greatest admiration. We all belonged to the same circle, bathed in a concrete reality. With the exception of the butcher narrator, who is in his own way an unusual character, the product of a long process of investigation and imagination. To a significant extent, the novel depicts a parallel and oppositional consciousness at odds with the actual world. Right after Panzano, what become central in its content seems to lie in the meeting of two worlds that one could hardly imagine interacting: the world of books and that of the butcher’s shop. The immediate proximity of the library shelves and the meat displays. The intimate association of the passionate reader and the gluttonous meat-eater.

And beyond that, the apprehension of seeing butchers take over bookshops and libraries in droves would not be ruled out. Just as the unwelcome idea of having to deal with a category of readers, stereotypically deemed boorish and uncultured, would diminish the symbolic prestige of reading. A slogan like “Butchers of the world, unite for reading!” would undoubtedly impact, upend the business of book publishing.

The not-so-appealing prospect of seeing my vocation as a writer plummet into the alien universe of the butchery, there was a good reason to be concerned about that fateful turning point, as self-definition and self-representation were at stake. I had begun getting used to the idea of never talking about it again, and of refusing any hint, or discussion of the Panzano event. I managed to hold my tongue, until another meeting provided me the opportunity to talk out of the hard to figure out experience. In 2014, in The Hague, the Netherlands, the Winter Nights Literary Festival was held, an annual meeting that brings together many writers from different countries. This festival has the particular feature of devoting two mornings to debates, behind closed doors, between invited writers on a theme defined in advance by the organizers of the meeting. In 2014, “shame” was the choice. The opportunity then arose to look back in detail at Esthétique de boucher in Italy, as described in these lines, before a score of writers indiscriminately seized with unfathomable amazement, mute questioning and irrepressible hilarity. Yet, as a young man, the butcher narrator in the novel makes it a rule to skip the games and distractions, hobbies and deviances of his age group, and builds a world for himself in honor of school and education, and a future dedicated to history and literature.

Algiers, Marsh 2022

Simon Nielsen 3/22/22 Simon Nielsen 3/22/22

If You Want To Build Community, Start Where The People Are

“Police departments typically fail to understand that the safest blocks are the ones that focus not on safety but on building community. Rather than simply teach people how to be secure in their homes and watch for strangers, residents should be encouraged to get out of their homes and connect with neighbors on a regular basis.” Community activator, Jim Diers, lets us in on a shortcut to healthier, happier, more caring and wiser neighborhoods.

By Jim Diers, community activator

A fundamental principle of community organizing is to start where the people are. The closer you engage people to where they live, the more likely they are to get involved. You should be able to get successively larger turnouts for gatherings at the neighborhood, city, state and national levels, but the percentage of the population engaged will most likely be the highest at the street, block, building or floor level.

Why? Because the farther the action is from where someone lives, the more likely they are to expect others to take responsibility. If it’s on their street, however, who will step up if they don’t? Logistics like transportation and child care are so much easier. And, their participation will generate peer pressure for the rest of the neighbors to join in. Most importantly, neighbors are likely to enjoy immediate and ongoing benefits from their participation due to the small scale and the relationships that are built with people who are so accessible. There’s no need to expend energy on bylaws, minutes, treasurer’s reports, nominating committees, and Roberts Rules of Order; the focus is on community.

The Opzoomeren Movement

I recently witnessed the potential of block organizing in Rotterdam where the Opzoomeren movement has taken hold. It started in 1994 when the residents of Opzoomer Street got fed up waiting for local government to address problems of crime and blight. They came to realize that there was much that the neighbors themselves could do, and they decided to take action.

Today, about 1600 streets are following their example. Neighbors come together to do whatever is most important to them whether that is caring for latchkey children and housebound elders, planting trees and gardens, or organizing street parties. Because half of Rotterdam’s population is immigrants, neighbors are often engaged in teaching one another Dutch.

On many of the streets, neighbors have gathered to discuss how they can best support one another. They develop a code of conduct that is prominently displayed on a large sign. No two signs are the same although there are some frequent themes. A typical sign reads:

1. We say hello and welcome new neighbors.

2. We take part in all kinds of street activities.

3. We help each other with childcare.

4. We keep our neighborhood clean and safe.

Each May, all of the streets celebrate Opzoomeren Day. In order to be recognized as part of the movement, a street must undertake at least four events or projects each year. An Opzoomeren bus is available for neighbors to use as a pop up café, gallery, workshop site, or whatever.

The Limitation of Block/Neighborhood Watch Programs

Of course, street level organizing is not a new idea. Practically everywhere I go, there are long standing crime prevention groups known as block or neighborhood watch.

Seattle has had one of the most successful block watch programs. First organized in 1972, the Police Department now claims that approximately 3000 blocks, or 30% of the city, is participating. In August of each year, about 1400 block parties are held in observance of National Night Out Against Crime.

The shortcoming of the program, however, is its singular focus on crime. Neighbors typically get engaged when it is too late – after there have been house break-ins or other safety issues. They call the Police Department for support and are taught how to install security systems and watch out for strangers. After that initial meeting, the group often becomes dormant until there is another crime wave.

Police departments typically fail to understand that the safest blocks are the ones that focus not on safety but on building community. Rather than simply teach people how to be secure in their homes and watch for strangers, residents should be encouraged to get out of their homes and connect with neighbors on a regular basis. It is much more sustainable for people to engage with one another around their wide range of interests rather than the police department’s narrow public safety agenda. That’s another key aspect of starting where the people are. In recognition of this, New Zealand’s program has morphed from neighborhood watch to Neighborhood Support.

Neighbors Provide Mutual Support

There is so much that neighbors can do to connect with one another and provide mutual support. Emergency planning is one such activity. Christchurch Mayor Lianne Dalziel told me that one of the most important lessons from their devastating earthquakes was the importance of neighbors knowing one another. With limited emergency workers and many impassable roads, most Christchurch residents were totally dependent on the skills, resources, and care of their neighbors in the immediate aftermath of the earthquakes.

I now live on Vashon Island, Washington which is highly susceptible to earthquakes. Over 200 groups of five to fifteen households each have self-organized in this rural community in order to develop and implement emergency plans. Frequent power outages and other winter storm damage provide ample opportunity to practice mutual support. On our street, for example, some neighbors used their chainsaws to remove downed trees while others prepared a kind of stone soup; the ingredients came from everyone’s thawing freezers and the stew was prepared and served in a warm house equipped with a generator. Fortunately, we didn’t need the skills and knowledge of the physician who is also part of our group.

There are so many other ways in which neighbors can support one another on a daily basis. On some streets, elders have buddies who check on them each day and provide the transportation and maintenance that enables them to stay in their homes. And, for young parents, there are babysitting cooperatives. Neighbors share their expertise with one another whether that involves technology, recycling, gardening, auto mechanics, or whatever.

I visited a street in Garland, Texas where many of the neighbors worked in the construction trades – there was at least one carpenter, plumber, electrician, bricklayer, and roofer. They conducted regular work parties to help one another with their house projects. Those who lacked skills to help with construction prepared lunch or supervised the children. A couple of the neighbors had built bars in their back yards so that everyone could socialize after a day of work.

The Value of Bumping Places

Gathering spaces are essential to building community. I like to call them bumping places because the best way to build relationships is to have places where neighbors can bump into one another on a regular basis. The closer those bumping places are to where you live, the more likely it is that you will continually bump into the same people.

There are many opportunities to create bumping places on a street. A vacant lot or underutilized yard can be converted into a community garden or pocket park. A little free library combined with a bench becomes an instant bumping place. In the Taiwan village of Tugo, residents have turned their front yards into small parks with tables that are shared with their neighbors. I met a man in Matsudo, Japan who had given up his valuable private parking place in order to redevelop it as a community gathering place complete with seating, fountain and artwork created by the children of the neighborhood.

In the Sellwood neighborhood of Portland, Oregon, neighbors converted their intersection into what they call Share-It Square, a most unusual bumping place. They painted a large mural in the intersection in order to slow traffic and provide a sense of place. Then, at each corner, they built a cob structure including a bench, a community bulletin board, a children’s playhouse, and a place where people can deposit and retrieve all sorts of free items. There is also a stand for a thermos of hot tea that entices neighbors to sip and talk together.

The Share-It Square neighbors didn’t seek the city’s permission before they painted the intersection, because they knew they wouldn’t get it. The project has been so successful, though, that the City of Portland now permits similar projects in other neighborhoods. And, the idea of painting intersections has spread around the world from the Cathedral neighborhood in Sioux Falls to the Riccarton neighborhood of Christchurch.

Connecting Neighbors through Events

Events are another way to connect neighbors at the street level. On the Fourth of July in Tacoma, Washington, residents are encouraged to barbeque in their front yards as a way of welcoming neighbors to join them. In other places, neighbors are invited to watch movies projected onto the side of someone’s house. Several rural communities in Australia have festivals in which all of the households along the road are encouraged to create unique scarecrows out of straw; neighbors walk the road together enjoying one another’s creativity.

In Kitchener and Waterloo, Ontario, there are several neighborhoods in which the houses have large front porches. They hold annual concerts featuring a band on each porch. Neighbors are invited to sit on the lawn and enjoy the music. I attended one such event that featured 44 bands with very different styles of music playing on 22 porches over the course of an afternoon.

Building Blocks for Larger Civic Action

Street-level organizing can produce the building blocks needed for larger civic action. Some neighborhood associations develop a broad base of participation by having their board members elected from each street. The street representative’s job is to ensure good two-way communication and to mobilize their constituency as needed.

The City of Redmond, Washington used this decentralized approach to maximize public input into policy decisions. Rather than rely solely on the testimony of the “usual suspects” who attend public hearings, they produced videos on key issues under consideration. Those videos were made available for house meetings at the block level and the ensuing discussions engaged people who would never think of speaking in the city council chambers. Feedback from the house meetings helped inform decision making by elected officials.

Oftentimes, the best way to build a campaign is house by house and block by block. For example, on the issue of climate change, neighbors can be given a menu of actions for reducing their family’s carbon footprint. Each action is worth a certain number of points. If the family can demonstrate sufficient points, they are given a yard sign identifying them as a green household. When green signs start spreading up and down the street, everyone is more likely to want to get on board. Similar approaches have been utilized in creating drug free, nuclear free and hate free zones.

One of the best things about block organizing and one of the greatest challenges is that the neighbors often have more differences (e.g. race, culture, age, religion, politics, career) than are likely to be found in other types of community that are organized around a common identity or interest. Some local places celebrate the unity of their diversity through common signage. The residents of the Croft Place apartments in Seattle’s Delridge neighborhood did that as each family painted a placard hung above their door featuring their name and representing their culture. Similarly, on a street in Taiwan’s Taoyuan City, each household has a placard depicting the kind of work that their family does. In Roombeek, a suburb of Enschede in the Netherlands, houses on one street each have a display case showcasing what is special about the family that lives there.

Agencies as Facilitators of Local Connections

Street organizing works best when it starts with the interests of the residents themselves, but there is a role that outside agencies can play in helping to foster connections. In Lawrence, Massachusetts, for example, a community development corporation trained interested residents on how to build a block organization. Upon completion of the training, the participants were given vouchers to acquire the ingredients for three dinners that they hosted for their neighbors. Over dinner, they discussed their dreams, challenges and gifts and developed plans for supporting one another. The resulting block organizations also proved to be a good vehicle for voter registration and turnout.

In Portland, Oregon, a non-profit called City Repair provides a mobile bumping place known as the T-Horse. When the converted van arrives on a street, gigantic wings are installed on either side of the T-Horse to provide protection from sun or rain. Inside the van, they make tea and serve it to the neighbors who sit on cushions under the wings and get to know one another.

Many cities make it very difficult to organize street parties due to the time and expense involved in acquiring the required food handling and street closure permits. But some local governments, like Airdrie and Grande Prairie, Alberta and Burlington, Ontario, realize that they have an interest in building community. They make the regulatory process as simple as possible and even supply block party toolkits that include equipment and/or money to help with the event.

The City of Seattle has a Small Sparks fund which facilitates residents who feel isolated to connect with their neighbors. For example, one mother and her child with disabilities used the money to purchase a wagon that they pulled door to door as a magazine exchange. Another individual noticed that all of the falling apples on her street were attracting rats, so she purchased a press and invited her neighbors to help make cider. A lonely senior in a high rise apartment invited the neighbors in the surrounding houses to the community room on the top floor where they had a great time folding paper airplanes and tossing them out the window.

Many cities throughout the world sponsor a Neighbor Day as a way to encourage and celebrate caring neighbors. Among other things, the City of Seattle organizes a contest for students to depict pictures of caring neighbors. The winning entry gets printed on the cover of a greeting card and the inside message simply says, “Thank you, neighbor!” Thousands of people utilize these cards as an excuse to visit their neighbors and let them know that they are appreciated.

Building community in dense, high-rise housing can be challenging, but again, agencies can play a role in facilitating connections. Over 80 percent of Singapore’s population lives in multi-story buildings constructed and managed by the Housing Development Board (HDB). HDB has made community building a priority. They include community gathering spaces in their developments and make funds available to support community-driven place-making projects. An annual Buildathon trains practitioners on how to work in ways that are community-led, and a Community Week recognizes good neighbors and exemplary community projects.

A promising, relatively new tool for block organizing is the Abundant Community Initiative being implemented by the City of Edmonton and other municipalities. Utilizing a strengths-based approach, Block Connectors are recruited and trained to have conversations that uncover the gifts, needs, passions and dreams of their neighbors. The information and relationships that emerge through this process lead to the formation of interest and activity groups, skills exchanges, and a vision for the neighborhood. The work is done under the auspices of the local community leagues and helps them to be more deeply rooted in each of their neighborhoods.

Thus, neighborhood associations and agencies alike are learning that a top-down approach to citizen engagement doesn’t work. If you really want to get broad and inclusive participation, you need to start where people are – as close to their home and their heart as possible. Of course, starting where people are also entails starting with their language and culture and with their pre-existing networks, but those are topics for future blogs.

Simon Nielsen 3/18/22 Simon Nielsen 3/18/22

An Uncommon Guide On How To Be A Flourishing Individual

Matilde Magro, regenerative and sustainability designer, asked her students to describe a flourishing individual in an idyllic society. The answers were surprising, so she decided to explore what a flourishing society would be like, and what that entails from individuals.

By Matilde Magro, regenerative and sustainability designer

There is a latent idea in all of us of absolute love, compassion and joy in community all over the world. This idea does not stem from nothing, it’s innate wisdom on how life should be - and the knowledge that it is up to humanity to face the obstacles to get there. In this light, I asked my students what it would be to be a flourishing individual in an idyllic society, and they brought me good answers. One of them was how disconnection to the Earth happens, in six spheres of influence, from societal pressures, to work imbalances, to the continuous inequality all over the world. Their solutions involved educating both young children and adults on how to overcome this disconnection. Another hypothesis would be to transform the individual into a spiritual being, with a set of intentions based on how high the individual could acheive both self-realization and enlightenment, and they specified how to do it. I liked both of these approaches and want to expand on it further.

An idyllic society would have no crime, no inequalities and absolutely no harm or evil, so a flourishing individual would need to have certain traits of absolute joy, absolute inner peace and absolute freedom to be the highest expressions of themself, in loving presence and awareness. So this individual would be someone who expresses their point of view to others who will respect their opinion and share their own in commradery, without the need for exhaltation - there are no perils to be scared about. An idyllic society would mean that community rises above all to bring us peace, love, tranquility and creativity. So a creative type of society would have at its center a hub of art and cultural intentions, and a heart of gold in terms of how people could satisfy both their need to create and to generate more creation in their societies. This idyllic society would have a creative-based, community-led economy. It would be a stepping stone to acheiving a world wide sense of accomplishment. So the flourishing individual would have a choice in participating in worldwide creation or community creation, or not. The flourishing individual would need to have a basis of emotional handling and pure joyful behaviour. A flourishing society would be ecocentered, not antropocentered, and there would be community gardens, trees and forests everywhere. A flourishing society made of flourishing individuals is possible.

This seems like too far-fetched, but that is the actual goal when we mean peace on Earth, the sustainable development goals and the idea of a flourishing society and flourishing individuals. Can we dream it now? Can we start working on it on an individual level? Can we start working on ourselves and in our communities towards this goal? How could we start? What are the first foundations? Important questions for this new age we are going through.

Simon Nielsen 3/17/22 Simon Nielsen 3/17/22

Make Serious Change Having Fun

“Kalamunda residents have also taken a light-hearted approach to the very serious issue of climate change. How do you draw attention to the melting polar ice caps and rising sea levels when you are in a city built on a hill 600 feet above and several miles away from the ocean? You prepare for the future by organizing a surf club.” Community activator, Jim Diers, puts fun at the front of change. In this article, he explores the work of community builders creating serious change by goofing around.

By Jim Diers, community activator

I was surprised when Cesar Cala, a fellow community organizer, complained that his efforts were often frustrated by “those GD activists.” “GD” I asked, “what are you talking about?” “The grim and determined,” he replied.

Cesar is right. Too many of us take ourselves way too seriously. We give the impression that activism is our cross to bear. If that’s our attitude, who’s going to want to join us? We need to lighten up and have fun if we want to make serious change.

Recently, I was the guest of Peter Kenyon, of the Bank of IDEAS, who lives in the Western Australian city of Kalamunda. Clearly, Peter’s infectious, fun-loving spirit has caught on. Kalamunda’s activists know the power of humor.

When the state government threatened to amalgamate Kalamunda with a neighboring city, the people didn’t spend a lot of time gathering signatures on petitions or testifying at public hearings. They organized a funeral procession mourning the death of democracy. Dressed in black and bearing a coffin, they paraded through the streets. The action generated media coverage like nothing else and contributed to the premier’s decision to back down. After all, who wants to be held responsible for the death of democracy?

Kalamunda residents have also taken a light-hearted approach to the very serious issue of climate change. How do you draw attention to the melting polar ice caps and rising sea levels when you are in a city built on a hill 600 feet above and several miles away from the ocean? You prepare for the future by organizing a surf club. Jim Smith founded the surf club as a way to “raise awareness of the need for more sustainable living and to have some fun.” Now the surf club boasts membership from all over the world including the mayor of Miami Beach, Florida.

Residents of Seattle’s Ballard neighborhood were equally creative in raising the issue of environmental sustainability. Working with Sustainable Ballard, Julia Field started issuing official-looking undriver licenses to those who pledged to use alternative transportation. An undriver license entitles the bearer to board the shufflebus, a foot-powered, Fred Flinstone-type vehicle that gets passersby thinking about what they can do to reduce their carbon footprint.

One of the best examples of creative activism is the Backbone Campaign based where I live on Vashon Island, Washington. The organization is named for a 70-foot-long backbone puppet that it took to the Democratic National Convention and President Obama’s inauguration to encourage them to have the backbone to support progressive causes.

When the Supreme Court ruled in favor of corporate personhood, the Backbone Campaign protested by unrolling a gigantic copy of the constitution down the building’s steps; the police didn’t know how to react because they didn’t want to mess with the constitution. Later, the activists used a theater light to project dollar signs all over the side of the Supreme Court; again, there was nothing the police could do because no trespassing or vandalism had been involved.

Every summer, the Backbone Campaign sponsors an artful action camp which includes training activists how to use kayaks for protests. Kayaktivists successfully shut down construction of a dock to be used for a gravel mine on Vashon Island and that property has now been converted into a large park. Kayakers trained by the Backbone Campaign are also playing a major role in disrupting Shell’s plans to drill for oil in the Arctic.

In Surrey, British Columbia, residents faced the problem confronting communities everywhere – the loss of access to public space due to a misguided crime prevention strategy. The bench beneath the SkyTrain station had been fenced off in order to keep the "wrong people" from using it. Of course, the fence meant that nobody had access. “How can you build community without bumping places?” the citizens wondered.

The community responded with a Free the Bench campaign. During the street fair in the adjacent business district, they used the performance stage to put the bench on trial. A local member of parliament served as the magistrate and one witness after another testified to the good character of the bench. The audience voted unanimously as the jury to free the bench.

When the local officials refused to honor the jury’s verdict, community members used humor to demonstrate the absurdity of imprisoning a bench. They brought dozens of chairs inside the fence to keep the bench company. When city workers removed the chairs, activists created a park scene complete with a birdhouse and mannequins sitting on the bench playing chess. Later, the scene was changed so that the bench resembled a sofa facing a coffee table and television set.

More and more people visited the bench to see the ever-changing scene and to have laughs at the City’s expense. One time, artists converted the bench into a dinosaur (benchosaurus). Later, they decorated the space with hundreds of origami cranes and invited visitors to add their own. When it became Christmastime and the bench was still imprisoned, they installed a Christmas tree and a fireplace hung with stockings.

Finally, the City relented and announced that the bench would be set free. Residents were invited to a celebration where they could paint love messages on the bench. There are now many benches on the plaza next to Surrey’s new city hall.

When neighbors became increasingly concerned about the crime that had overtaken the 118th Avenue business district in Edmonton, they didn't spend their time in meetings complaining to the police. Instead, they renovated one of the many boarded up storefronts as the Carrot, a coffee shop operated by the community. Local musicians started playing in the Carrot and artists displayed their works. It wasn't long before the art spilled out of the coffee shop and into the street, and the annual Kaleido Festival was born. A winter festival soon followed and then a farmers market. Now, instead of avoiding 118th Avenue, people from throughout the region are attracted to this vibrant district of multi-ethnic restaurants and unique shops including a beautiful new center for artists with disabilities.

In downtown Tacoma, residents were concerned about the increasing number of pedestrian accidents. They organized Citizens for a Safe Tacoma but, rather than holding any meetings, they used their time to paint crosswalks in the middle of the night. The City responded by using grinders to remove the rogue crosswalks. Several days later, however, the crosswalks had been repainted. This time, not only did the City remove the crosswalks but they threatened to prosecute anyone caught painting them. So, the protesters painted polka dots instead of crosswalks. The City Manager finally gave up, organized a forum on what to do about pedestrian safety, and announced that one million dollars would be budgeted for safety improvements downtown.

All of these stories illustrate how creative activism can result in greater participation and better outcomes. But, even if the action isn’t successful, at least everyone will have fun in the process. As Emma Goldman said: “If I can’t dance, I don’t want to be part of your revolution.”

Simon Nielsen 3/16/22 Simon Nielsen 3/16/22

Building Community Food Resilience

“Giving food without considering the structural reasons ‘why’ food is needed is a never-ending battle. Building community resilience using food is a critical part of the puzzle to end hunger in communities and eradicate poverty. Food is a powerful tool for social change.” Food Ethics Council has written a guide to unpick and understand what a path to building community resilience in the UK could look like, focusing on the role of community food organisations.

“Giving food without considering the structural reasons ‘why’ food is needed is a never-ending battle. Building community resilience using food is a critical part of the puzzle to end hunger in communities and eradicate poverty. Food is a powerful tool for social change.” Food Ethics Council has written a guide to unpick and understand what a path to building
community resilience in the UK could look like, focusing on the role of community food organisations.

By Food Ethics Council

We want to facilitate a shift away from current emergency food aid models reliant on food charity towards approaches that build long-term community food resilience. We have written this guide to unpick and understand what a path to building community resilience in the UK could look like, focusing on the role of community food organisations. It is the result of a 2-year programme hosted by the Food Ethics Council to co-develop long-term strategies to address household food insecurity in the UK, using the food citizenship framework as a guide.

During 2020 and 2021, we at the Food Ethics Council hosted workshops and discussions with organisations working in the context of emergency food aid in Sheffield. We also conducted interviews with experts in poverty, social justice and charitable food aid. Building on our own knowledge and experience in complexity-led design, systems change, and food citizenship, we explored the challenges faced by organisations tackling hunger, hardship and injustice, and the innovative approaches which have helped them.

The guide has insights, tools, case studies and more. It does not claim to have all the answers, but we hope itwill stimulate different ways of thinking about addressing food and poverty and provoke people to try out different approaches.

DOWNLOAD GUIDE AS PDF

Simon Nielsen 2/22/22 Simon Nielsen 2/22/22

Kaun Hai MASTER? Kya Hai PLAN?

How do we design our towns and cities? Who gets a seat a the table in the planning process? Who is the master behind the master plan? Social Design Collaborative has designed a toolkit reaching out to underrepresented groups to break down what Delhi's Master Plan 2041 has in store for them, and what they can do to get their concerns heard. “Kaun Hai MASTER? Kya Hai PLAN?” (Who is the MASTER? What is the PLAN?) is an interactive tool that spreads awareness on Delhi's master planning process and share people's perspectives.

By Social Design Collaborative

'Kaun Hai MASTER? Kya Hai PLAN?' is a participatory toolkit designed by our team and supported by SEWA - for workshops by the Main Bhi Dilli campaign to help spread awareness within communities typically left out of planning processes on Delhi's upcoming Master Plan 2041 and how they could engage with it. Activities cover the different chapters of the Master Plan from Housing, Physical infrastructure & Transport to Public Space, Heritage, Environment & Livelihoods using maps, mascots, ballot charts and bindis.

Cities across the world are using more and more participatory processes to raise awareness on their city development plans and to get feedback from their residents. As Delhi prepares its 4th Masterplan for the next 20 years, DDA and NIUA have been holding online consultations in a bid to reach out to the residents. How can we increase the reach of this civic participation? How can we ensure that more vulnerable communities that are typically left out of masterplanning process can be heard this time? What role can we play in this?

These are the questions we've been trying to raise. And create some solutions too!

The toolkit has been finalised based on user feedback from pilots supported by SEWA, Basti Suraksha Manch and IGSSS. The trainings of the workshop hosts have been completed recently and the workshops are currently ongoing. If you'd like to contribute to the process, please write to us.

Looking for more? Here’s an article on the project published by Social Design Collaborative in Radical Housing Journal.

Simon Nielsen 2/21/22 Simon Nielsen 2/21/22

Environmental Impacts Of Death

A person’s final resting place can be the foundation of flowerbeds or feed the roots of the tree, or it can pose major environmental hazards through the continuation of a person’s carbon footprint even after the death. Peacemakers Pakistani explore the final footprint.

By Peacemakers Pakistani

Death is a part of life and it has its environmental effects as well. The ritual of different types of burying or cremating a dead body is so deeply ingrained in religious and cultural history that there is no question on it, but they are far from environment friendly practices.

The environmental impacts of death is largely determined by the type of funeral and burial opted by the person or community. Apart from the Islamic burials, the process of preserving and sealing corpses into caskets and then plunging them into the ground is extremely unfriendly environmentally. Toxic chemicals from the embalming (It is the process of preserving a body to delay the natural break down of cells, which begins with death), burial, and cremation process leach into the air and soil, and expose the livings to potential hazards.

"The best way is to allow your body to feed the earth or ocean in a way that is sustainable for future generations", says Susan Dobscha, a professor and editor of a book about the green-burial industry, called "Death and a Consumer Culture”.

1. Embalming is the process of pumping chemical mixture of formaldehyde, phenol, methanol, and glycerine into the body through an artery to delay the body's rate of decay. This could be used for display purposes during funerals, long-distance transportation, or for use for medical or scientific research. It is also said to give the body a life-like appearance for public viewing.

Formaldehyde is a potential human carcinogen and can be lethal if a person is exposed to high concentrations. Its fumes can also irritate the eyes, nose, and throat. Phenol, similarly, can irritate or burn the flesh, and is toxic if ingested. Methyl alcohol and glycerine can irritate the eyes, skin, nose, and throat. According to an article published in the Berkeley Planning Journal, more than 800,000 gallons of formaldehyde are put into the ground along with dead bodies every year in the US. That is enough to fill one and a quarter Olympic-sized swimming pools each year.

The next reason that why these burial practices are bad for environment is many materials go into the burials. According to the Berkeley Planning Journal, conventional burials only in the US, every year use 30 million board feet of hardwoods, 2,700 tons of copper and bronze, 104,272 tons of steel, and 1,636,000 tons of reinforced concrete. The amount of casket wood alone is equivalent to about 4 million acres of forest.

2. Cremation: Burning the body into ashes to be kept in an urn or scattered into the water is called cremation which is practised by some religious cultures. Cremation is considered as less harmful than pumping a body full of formaldehyde and burying it on top of concrete, but there are still lots of environmental effects to consider. The process requires a lot of energy and creates air pollution by releasing hazardous chemicals into the atmosphere, including carbon monoxide, fine soot, sulphur dioxide, heavy metals, and mercury emissions. In contrast to a natural burial, in which a body is simply left to decompose in nature, cremated ashes are sterile and do not supply nutrients back into the earth.

Eco-friendly options for the burials do exist. For example:

3. Natural Burials: the process of interring a body in earth in a manner that allows it to decompose naturally. The process does not use vaults, traditional coffins, or toxic chemicals. Instead, bodies are wrapped in biodegradable shrouds and laid to rest where they can decompose more naturally. Bodies are buried six feet deep without a coffin, in an ordinary soil to aid the decomposition.

Without the embalming fluids, the body of an adult person normally takes eight to twelve years to decompose which is the minimum time for the body to decompose. However, if placed in a coffin the body can take many years longer, depending on type of wood used. For example, a solid oak coffin will highly slow down the process. There was a case where a body was exhumed in an oak coffin and it was found to still be in a state of decomposition some 50 years later. Along with that, a lot also depends on how deep the coffin is buried, the state of the soil and the local water.

Decomposition begins several minutes after the burial, with a process called autolysis, or self-digestion. According to the laws of thermodynamics, energy cannot be created or destroyed, only converted from one form to another, and the amount of free energy always increases. In other words, things fall apart, converting their mass to energy while doing so. Decomposition is one final morbid reminder that all matter in the universe must follow these fundamental laws. It breaks us down, equilibrating our bodily matter with its surroundings, and recycling it so that other living things can put it to use.

“Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.”

There are several benefits of natural burials which are:

1. Elements that are present in the human body are present in lesser or greater quantity in the soil. It is more scientific to bury a dead body, as it easily gets decomposed and mixed in the soil.

2. There is no pollution unlike cremating the body which produces hazardous chemicals in the atmosphere.

3. When dead bodies are buried, besides the trees being saved, the surrounding land becomes fertile, and it improves the environment as it enriches the soil nutrients.

4. Burying dead bodies is very cheap. It hardly costs any money as compare to cremating or casket burials.

5. The land used for burying a dead body can be re-utilised for burying another body after a few years since the human body gets decomposed and mixed in the soil.

"People [who] choose to be buried in the friendly burial area are the people who want wildflowers blooming on their grave and butterflies fluttering about", says Larkspur Executive Director John Christian Phifer.

There is also a newer trend in natural burials that aims for even bigger ecological benefits. For example:

4. Capsula Mundi, which is an egg-shaped pod through which a buried corpse or ashes can provide nutrients to a tree planted above it. It is an egg-shaped pod, an ancient and perfect form, made of biodegradable material, where our departed loved ones are placed for burial. The bodies will be laid down in a fetal position in larger pods and the Capsula will then be buried as a seed in the earth. A tree, chosen in life by the deceased, will be planted on top of it and serve as a memorial for the departed and as a legacy for posterity and the future of our planet. Family and friends will continue to care for the tree as it grows. Cemeteries will acquire a new look and instead of the cold grey landscape, they will grow into vibrant woodlands.

5. The Burial Suit is made of organic cotton and lined with specialist mushroom spores, so a person buried in it will soon be covered in growing mushrooms. Their remains will feed the mushrooms, which quickly break down organic material and remove toxins from the environment, in turn delivering nutrients to the soil and surrounding plants.

We know that in the throes of grief, the environment might often be the furthest thing in families’ minds. But during a person’s life, if he/she tries to live Eco-friendly life then why the process of death should be any different. Its not likely for a person to discuss their body disposal method but, now, we have to when it poses major environmental hazards! I hope we take things serious in a light manner.... I hope we do....

Simon Nielsen 2/17/22 Simon Nielsen 2/17/22

RISE Lahore (Food For Thought)

“The point here is to open the door for all & make space for all & attend those who show up themselves or send someone else in their place as their advocates. I hope you get what I mean. You see how it relates to the flexibility that we just talked about in the 'resilient' Lahore? WE ACCEPT ALL THOSE WHO JOIN IN - THEMSELVES OR SEND OTHERS IN THEIR PLACE. It's about 'us'... about 'we'....“ Peacemakers Pakistani shake up Lahore and envision a future city resting on strong communities. Let the shaking begin!

By Peacemakers Pakistani

The latest event theme for Conscious Lahore 2021 i.e RISE Lahore got me thinking about these terminologies and my vision on the topic..... This is what I came up with.

What does Resilient Lahore means to me?

Resilient (literally) means having the capacity to recover quickly from difficulties or situations....

It means we don't remain stuck in a place or situation.... It means we are flexible enough to make room for changes - expected or unexpected.... It means we have both a growth mindset and not a fixed mindset.... It means we are not easy to break because of our elasticity which is ultimate strength after all....

WE GET BACK UP EASILY EVEN IF WE FALL! WE DON'T REMAIN THERE!

We as citizens.... We as community....

We who build systems....

What does Inclusive Lahore mean to me? Inclusive (literal) means not excluding any of the parties or groups involved in something. Let's suppose 'something' as Lahore...... So the question arises: who are the groups or parties? The first step for me is the identification and naming all of them from A-Z, from different dimensions, each and every one of them and then asking this question: are they part of the process and our consideration or not? Let me mention here... When we start the work, it is indeed overwhelming to think about how to involve all? Well, start with some method at least, maximum groups at least if not all at start & as you start the process, expansion happens naturally if you have the intention for it. People join in themselves. The point here is to open the door for all & make space for all & attend those who show up themselves or send someone else in their place as their advocates. I hope you get what I mean. You see how it relates to the flexibility that we just talked about in the 'resilient' Lahore? WE ACCEPT ALL THOSE WHO JOIN IN - THEMSELVES OR SEND OTHERS IN THEIR PLACE. It's about 'us'... about 'we'....

What does Sustainable Lahore mean to me?

Sustainable (literally) means having the ability to be maintained at a certain rate or level... Also, conserving ecological balance by avoiding depletion of natural resources.

So..... It means making choices that can be maintained and be beneficial in longterm.

Let me ask few questions here that are directly related to problems that we are facing currently or the choices being made that bother us. (Just to get you started to just think)

1. Do we really need more high rises? Have the existing ones been used to its full potential and are they bringing in more benefit & revenue to the city as compared to what it has taken from Lahore and its resources?

2. Do we really need more automobiles? Do we have petrol? Can we afford it today? Why are we crying then?

3. Do we need more trees? Are we conscious & grateful towards the existing ones? Are we taking the benefit from it? Are we giving back to it?

4. Are we making right choices as professionals or are we just making money by adding toxicity to our Lahore/ our homeland?

What does Equitable Lahore means to me?

Equitable (literally) means what exhibit the quality of being fair and impartial - being fair to all parties... Justice and fair judgement and decision starts with listening to all parties attentively & without any prerequisite or plan.... The freedom of speech, act, behaviour, this all comes when a person knows that there is equality and there will be justice now and always. There is this feeling of trust among people, within community and in systems... This results in responsibility, ownership, pride, discipline, faith & unity. This is the root of setting moral systems right. This is the moral obligation in itself. So where do we stand? Are we bias in any area of our life? Do we breach the rights of anyone? Are we fair in our dealings? We need to figure things out on our own and then go out ask others for it.... Firstly, we are accountable for our acts to self & our lord & then we can go out demanding for things.... Government comes later... Maybe we are part of some game that makes the government systems. Like a puzzle piece. Just think about it! Make that part, which is your responsibility, right.... This might lead to making the entire structure right. Even though a little shift will shake the structure, but this will make other parts to shift too & the chaos will lead to balance soon. InshaAllah. Let that shaking begin! Also, a psychological fact here: shaking/ sobbing/ movement is one way of releasing the stuck and traumatic energies from body and we have been through lot of stress since partition that runs in our systems as humans and as communities and ultimately in systems. We are in dire need of shaking. Let's just do it!

The goal or mission we can have as a conclusion of it:

WE GET BACK UP WHEN WE FALL OR EVEN IF WE JUST BEND FOR A WHILE BECAUSE WE ARE INTO THIS TOGETHER, ACCEPTING EACH OTHER UNCONDITIONALLY & SUPPORTING EACH OTHER NO MATTER WHAT. WE ARE JUST TOWARDS ALL PARTIES. AND WE MAKE CHOICES FOR OUR COMMUNITIES & OUR CITIES THAT ARE BENEFICIAL FOR ALL & CAN BE MAINTAINED IN LONG-TERM.

Here's the link to the recording of complete session on RISE Lahore:

(You can listen to my presentation at the timing 1:57:00)

Simon Nielsen 2/16/22 Simon Nielsen 2/16/22

Hippocratic Oath For Community Workers

“First, do no harm.” This dictum is frequently but mistakenly associated with the Hippocratic Oath. Although community activator, Jim Diers, was disconcerted to learn that physicians are not guided by this rule, he’s suggesting that it be adopted by community workers as the basis for a code of conduct. Diers finds that we need to acknowledge the ways in which we often inadvertently harm the very communities we are trying to help and pledge to work in ways that contribute to their health. Here is an outline of principles Diers would like to see included in a Hippocratic Oath for community workers whether they are social workers, recreation coordinators, clergy, community police, public health workers, planners, educators, service learning students, outreach staff, organizers or other community-based professionals.

By Jim Diers, community activator

Do No Harm

Don’t usurp the community’s power

“Never do for people what they can do for themselves.” That’s the iron rule of community organizing. It was drilled into me by my mentor, Tom Gaudette, who received his training from Saul Alinsky.

After my first week of work as a community organizer, I met with Gaudette. “Tell me what you did not do this week,” he began. I was highly offended because I had put in long hours and felt that I hadn’t neglected anything. “I knocked on hundreds of doors, researched the issues, designed a flier, and even wrote a press release. I did everything,” I concluded. “You’ve got it all wrong,” Gaudette responded. “Your job isn’t to speak or do for the community. Your job is to develop the capacity of community to do and speak for itself. So every week, I want you to tell me one more thing you are not doing.”

The iron rule is especially difficult for community workers to obey. We do this work because we care deeply about the community. But, in our rush to help the community, we often deny them their own agency. We usurp the power of the people.

Don’t make the community dependent

A related principle is to refrain from making the community dependent on you, funding or other external resources. After all, none of us will be around forever and neither will our organizations, programs or services. We must always ask ourselves: Will the community be better or worse off because I was here? Have I built more capacity or created more dependence?

Don’t define people by their needs

We make people dependent when we focus exclusively on their needs. We emphasize people’s deficiencies when we label them as disabled, at-risk, non-English speaking, poor, homeless, etc. While there is truth to every one of these labels, it is only part of the truth. Everyone has needs, but everyone also has gifts. When we focus on people’s needs, they are clients in a service system. When we focus on people’s gifts, they are citizens in a community.

Don’t fragment the community

The main reason I love neighborhoods is because they provide the context for building inclusive community. It’s in our neighborhoods that people with diverse identities and interests reside. Unfortunately, many so-called community workers contribute to keeping people divided.

Most community workers aren’t focused on the whole community. Instead, they work with the narrow segment of the population that relates to the mission of their agency or association. That mission is typically limited to a specific topic or category of people.

There are community workers who focus on a particular segment of the population. Separate organizations, programs and services segregate people who are old, young, disabled, refugee, etc. The people are organized the way that community workers are organized rather than by the neighborhood where they live. This raises the question: Who is serving whom? Confining people to separate silos makes inclusive community impossible.

Other community workers are in agencies organized around a special interest whether that is public safety, health, the environment, emergency preparedness, affordable housing, transportation, recreation, etc. Dozens if not hundreds of agencies are reaching out to the same neighborhood. Their community workers are trying to recruit individuals to their separate causes. Not only does this divide the community, but it fails to recognize the unique opportunity for a holistic approach that place-based work makes possible.

Don’t distract the community from its own priorities

In addition to dividing neighbors, community workers who push particular agendas provide little opportunity for the community to address its own priorities. The community is always being engaged around what the community workers think is most important or what their agency or grant requires of them. When people fail to engage, we call them apathetic. No one is apathetic. Everyone cares deeply about something. If the true objective is to engage and empower the community, it would be much better to start not with answers, but with questions: What are you most passionate about? What are your fears? What are your dreams?

Don’t take people’s time without showing results

While most community workers I know take their jobs seriously and try to be as productive as possible, we often take the community’s time for granted. We may think of it as free time, because there is no cost to our organization. We fail to recognize that time is precious to the people with whom we work. Time they spend with us is time when they could be earning an income, interacting with family and friends, or simply relaxing and having fun. If people don’t see some value to their participation, they’ll soon learn that it doesn’t pay to be involved. Yet, community workers often invite people to meetings or subject them to surveys or interviews that produce no visible outcome to those involved.

Don’t treat non-profit organizations as the surrogate for community

Oftentimes, it is the staff of non-profit organizations who are called on the represent the community. After all, they work the same hours, speak the same professionalized language, and get paid for their time so they are more likely to participate. Non-profit organizations can play a valuable role, but their role is not to be the surrogate for the community. Most are less accountable to the community than are the local elected officials. The role of the community worker is to reach beyond the people who are being paid.

Do Some Good

I’ve used the word “we” in this article because my entire career has been as a community worker. I’ve been employed by large agencies as well as by small, grassroots associations. I know how difficult it is to follow the principles I’ve outlined and I haven’t consistently done so. Our training, funding, organizations and other systems often push us in the opposite direction. But I’ve also learned some principles that will enable us to do good in the community.

Get out of your cubicle and into the community

When I started organizing 43 years ago, I was nervous about approaching strangers. I walked around my assigned neighborhood for a long time trying to identify the most welcoming house and work up my nerve to knock on the door. I was less embarrassed to admit this shortcoming when I read that Cesar Chavez experienced a similar discomfort when he facilitated his first house meeting.

Today, community workers have an alternative. They can use a computer. It feels so much safer and much more comfortable to work out of a secure, climate-controlled office.

But, you can’t be effective if you aren’t in the neighborhood. You need to see the neighborhood, its opportunities and challenges, with your own eyes. You need to make personal contact with people. There are so many individuals who will never access your website or respond to your e-mail blasts. You need to go where the people are, listen to them and build relationships. Only then, a computer might be helpful for staying in touch.

Listen and learn from the community

A good community worker brings new knowledge and perspectives to the community, but the best community worker values the knowledge and perspectives of the residents. They are the experts on their neighborhood – its history, strengths and challenges. The neighbors already have relationships with one another and know the local formal and informal associations. They also know what their perspectives and priorities are. Community workers would be well advised to listen to the community before sharing their own insights. Listening will generate trust and give the community worker access to the information that will make their work effective.

Help the community to discover its resources and power

While every place and everyone has abundant resources, they often go unrecognized. Needs assessments and media coverage cause whole neighborhoods to be known as nothing more than low-income, high-crime, distressed, blighted or some other negative description. In these same neighborhoods, professionals have labelled most of the individuals by their deficiencies. The residents typically internalize this characterization of their neighborhood and themselves. Lacking a sense of their own capacity, they feel powerless and dependent on external resources. The most valuable perspective that the community worker can bring is to shine light on the strengths of the people and their neighborhood. That’s the basis for community empowerment.

Help the community to identify common interests and root causes

Another valuable perspective that the community worker can bring is to help the community see the big picture. Too often, individuals are overwhelmed and paralyzed by what they think are their personal problems. The role of the community worker in this case is to make private pain public. The idea is to bring individuals with similar concerns together so that they can realize they aren’t alone, identify their common societal issue, and work collectively to address it. A similar approach is needed to act on people’s dreams. As New Zealand artist Friedensreich Hundertwasser noted: “When we dream alone it is only a dream, but when many dream together it is the beginning of a new reality.”

Seeing the big picture also involves digging below the symptoms to discover the root causes. For example, rather than complain about at-risk youth, it would be more useful to identify and act on the unjust systems that put young people at risk. The best way to educate people about the systemic issues isn’t by lecturing them but by taking a Freirian approach of asking questions (often whys) that cause the community to reflect deeply on its own experience.

Share tools that enable the community to take the lead and share their gifts with one another

The community worker, like any other tradesperson, should have a full toolbox. Some of my favorite tools are learning conversations, storytelling, appreciative inquiry, asset mapping, block connectors, placemaking, matching grants, microlending, time banks, visioning, open space, and accountability sessions. There are different tools for different situations, and the community worker must know how best to use them. They should share their tools with community leaders and train them to be proficient in their application. There are no trade secrets for community workers.

Assist associations and agencies to network with one another

Through listening, the community worker will quickly discover that the neighborhood is already organized. There are dozens if not hundreds of formal and informal associations in every neighborhood. There is no one association that can adequately represent the community. Most associations consist primarily of one type of people whether they are homeowners, businesspeople, or residents with a particular culture, religion, politics, age, gender, school, address or interest. An inclusive community voice can be created by bringing these many networks together for regular forums, social events, visioning, planning, etc. but few neighbors can afford the time to organize such gatherings on top of their other community commitments. More problematic, there are often tensions between associations and it would be difficult to find any active neighbor who is trusted by all of them. The more neutral community worker could play a valuable role in facilitating the associations to network with one another.

As described earlier, the community’s fragmentation mirrors the siloed nature of the agencies that work in the neighborhood. Another way that community workers could help unify the community would be to assist the staff of local agencies to network with one another. If they can work together as one set of agencies with a focus on place, outreach would be more efficient, community-friendly and effective.

This was the approach we took with the Department of Neighborhoods in the City of Seattle. Thirteen Neighborhood Coordinators helped associations network with one another through representation on District Councils and participation in neighborhood planning. The Coordinators also facilitated communication between the community and other City departments as well as non-profit organizations. They thought of themselves as “overt double agents.”

Pay attention to segments of the community that are being excluded and find ways to engage them

Most community associations claim that they would like to be more inclusive, but they aren’t very good at it. The leadership, agenda, language and relationships have already been established, so newcomers and especially those who are different don’t feel very welcome. The community worker should constantly assess who is underrepresented in community life and find ways to engage them. The best place to start might be in assisting marginalized individuals with a shared identity to establish their own association, so that they can support one another, build power, and interact with other associations and agencies on their own terms.

Develop new leaders

Community leadership tends to become entrenched, stale and out of touch over time. That’s because some leaders won’t step aside, but it’s also because people are reluctant to step up to this role that can be overwhelming for a volunteer. The community worker should constantly be on the lookout for potential new leaders especially from those segments of the population that are underrepresented. The availability of leadership training will give more people the confidence to step up. The training should emphasize collective leadership that makes an association more sustainable, utilizes the different skills of many people, and doesn’t place a burden on any one individual.

Raise objections when you encounter discrimination

While it is essential that the community worker listen to the community and follow its lead, the community worker shouldn’t be a blank slate. The community doesn’t always get it right especially if its membership isn’t inclusive. When the community acts in ways that are discriminatory, the community worker has a responsibility to object. This could be done directly, by raising pointed questions and/or by redirecting their support to those who are being discriminated against.

Practice what you preach by being active in your own community

Too often, when we refer to community, we’re talking about the communities of others – the ones we are helping as an outsider. We fail to recognize that we need to have our own community. Sometimes our excuse is that we are too busy to be involved in our community. But, isn’t that the excuse that we hear and dismiss so often in our work? How can we argue that everyone else needs community but not us? We can’t be credible and effective community workers unless we are active in community outside of work. That’s the only way we can fully understand the joys and challenges of living in community. Moreover, it is our community that will sustain us in this rewarding but sometimes difficult work.

Simon Nielsen 2/10/22 Simon Nielsen 2/10/22

Bumping Places

“My favorite bumping places are the ones that are designed and built by the neighbors. These places are most likely to reflect what is special about the residents and their neighborhood, and they are designed to work for the people who live there. Through creating the place, neighbors feel a sense of ownership. They are more likely to use, maintain and program it.” Jim Diers, community activator, explores the art of creating bumping places.

By Jim Diers, community activator

You Can’t Build Community Without Doing the Bump

Simon Nielsen 11/16/21 Simon Nielsen 11/16/21

Structuring For Impact

“The world is changing. Businesses that exist for profit and purpose are now commonplace. Social enterprises prioritise people and the environment, ensuring they are looked after through business – rather than as collateral of profit-making.” The authors examine the potential for unlocking innovation and entrepreneurship while creating greater wellbeing.

By Steven Moe, Dr Jane Horan, Amber Hosking, Jackson Rowland, and Phillippa Wilkie

The Introduction

Social enterprise is about prioritising impact as well as profit. While New Zealand has legal structures which enable organisations who prioritise one or the other (i.e. charity or traditional business), Social enterprise does not fit neatly within these models, and often has only a passing resemblance to them. Instead, social enterprises operate with a different logic. The social entrepreneurs behind social enterprise pursue a different set of values from traditional business, with profit being only one factor in the mix, and often only as a means to achieving more impact. Based on the growth and contributions of social enterprise to New Zealand to date, it is clear that organisations who prioritise more than profit have significant potential to positively grow New Zealand’s economy in a broad sense, solving significant societal challenges along the way. Because of this, New Zealand needs a legal and policy environment that enables and encourages businesses that are trading for impact.

For the most part, however, operating a social enterprise in this country is more challenging than running a purely profit driven business. This report finds that the legal structures currently available in New Zealand are acting as barriers for, and disadvantage to, social enterprises. The array of issues and challenges social enterprises face using limited liabilitycompany structures, or any other legal structure in New Zealand, stems from the reality that these structures developed from a perspective that ‘doing good’ is separate from ‘doing business’. The distinction between doing good as charity on the one hand and doing business on the other is cemented in the prevailing attitudes of what charity as a way of doing good is allowed to be, and what doing business is required to be. This context makes doing business with impact far more difficult than standard for-profit business.

This report sets out evidence from social enterprises about the perceived challenges associated with the current legal structures and argues that evolving legal structures to remove some of those challenges will unlock the potential of business to generate social and environmental impact at scale that grows the wellbeing of New Zealand. Doing so would also support organisations underpinned by Te Ao Māori in a way that really honours Te Tiriti o Waitangi.

All but one of the social enterprises we spoke with in this research found that their legal structure created hurdles for their organisation. These hurdles appear to be most commonly centred around the enterprises’ inability to convey and protect their mission, and the consequential challenges that any workarounds to this create. Funding was the other key disadvantage, with many social enterprises finding accessing funding very difficult because of their structures, a hurdle which is having significant implications on the ability of these organisations, and their impact, to scale.

The world is changing. Businesses that exist for profit and purpose are now commonplace. Social enterprises prioritise people and the environment, ensuring they are looked after through business – rather than as collateral of profit-making.

The way social enterprises operate has the potential to generate significant value for New Zealand and to deliver the Government’s social and environmental outcomes, and embodies the ethos of the Living Standards Framework. By making minor amendments to the Companies Act 1993, this report argues that New Zealand has the capacity to create a world first model for business that enables organisations to trade for impact. And in doing so catalyse the extraordinary entrepreneurship that is happening in the social enterprise sector in New Zealand to unlock innovation that will create greater wellbeing for generations of New Zealanders to come.

From the Conclusion

If New Zealand really does want to be “on the right side of history” (Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, Davos, Feb, 2019), evolving the legal structures in this country to help foster and support social enterprise is imperative. The social enterprise sector has the potential to lead the way for all businesses in this country to increase financial capital and to provide for the wellbeing of the people and the environment of New Zealand for generations to come.

The current array of legal structures available to social enterprises in New Zealand are not helping the sector thrive. At best, these structures are neutral for social enterprises, but for most social enterprises, the legal structures available create an array of barriers, or reflect broader structural forces that deny the different ways that social enterprises operate in the business space, despite that way being for the greater good of New Zealand.

In line with the Living Standards Framework being developed by Treasury and the Government as a whole, Michelle Sharp of Kilmarnock said, “the tools of business are critical to solving some of our most challenging social and environmental issues.”

This is about combining financial, social, cultural, and environmental capital in a way that is sustainable and viable. In a way that enables the entrepreneurial spirit that is so strong in New Zealand to combine with the efficiencies of business to tackle some of our most pressing challenges. Social enterprise has created a model that demonstrates that this is possible, despite the challenges the current structures pose. The potential for New Zealand if a more enabling environment is created for organisations to pursue impact through business cannot be underestimated.

This is the introduction and conclusion of the paper: “Structuring for Impact: Evolving legal structures for business in New Zealand”. It was released in April 2019 and was co-written with some amazing people: Dr Jane Horan, Amber Hosking, Jackson Rowland and Phillippa Wilkie.

Simon Nielsen 11/16/21 Simon Nielsen 11/16/21

The Hard Questions We Need To Be Asking

“When asked to look at any organisation from an independent consultant perspective we often use the phrase of “flying in from Mars”. In other words, if I were flying in from Mars today and wanted to set up an organisation to address your particular cause with the most impact, would I set up your organisation? The authors ask hard questions and challenge us all to reconsider our impact.

“When asked to look at any organisation from an independent consultant perspective we often use the phrase of “flying in from Mars”. This helps to explain the approach that a good consulting professional will usually take and their absolute level of objectivity in looking at all aspects of an organisation. In other words, if I were flying in from Mars today and wanted to set up an organisation to address your particular cause with the most impact, would I set up your organisation? And would I set it up like you currently operate and are currently structured and organised?” The authors ask hard questions and challenge us all to reconsider our impact.

By Steven Moe and Craig Fisher

The legacy of the past and our investment in the current can hold us back from achieving the future. When one is in the trenches consumed by how much needs to be done and the busyness of today we don’t always stop and reflect objectively on our organisation as we perhaps should.

When asked to look at any organisation from an independent consultant perspective we often use the phrase of “flying in from Mars”. This helps to explain the approach that a good consulting professional will usually take and their absolute level of objectivity in looking at all aspects of an organisation. In other words, if I were flying in from Mars today and wanted to set up an organisation to address your particular cause with the most impact, would I set up your organisation? And would I set it up like you currently operate and are currently structured and organised?

Unsurprisingly the answer is usually no. And this is understandable and explainable as new innovations continue to occur. Sometimes this can be a result of sunk costs or legacy ways of operating or thinking that came from a different paradigm when the situation was different.

Take cloud computing versus an organisation set up in the past that had to buy expensive computer servers and software to run on these in-house machines. Yet for the organisation that already has deeply invested in the legacy system it can then be harder to justify writing off that past investment to change to something new and possibly more efficient.

Likewise, the national federation of separate incorporated society branches of the same organisation. This structure probably made sense when transport and communications were not as easy as they are today, and more people had more time to take on board and committee roles in their spare time. However today that structure can curse a national organisation with duplicated costs, organisational sustainability issues, and unnecessary petty politics – all things which detract from whatever the good cause the organisation exists to address. We know of other organisations which have structure charts that stretch like an octopus across the full range of legal forms: companies, charitable trusts, incorporated societies. There are often valid historical reasons for why they exist that way: But is it the best way?

And if we were designing the most effective, efficient and impactful organisation today; would we design it like that?

So, here are some hard questions that we think all boards and senior management need to be asking. We appreciate that some of these questions may result in an instant reaction in many people in the sector that is likely to border on outrage.

1. What is our purpose?

Some organisations have forgotten what the original purpose was that they were set up to try and solve. Not perpetuate the provision of ambulances at the bottom of the cliff, but actually solve the issues with fences at the top. We often see organisations who are surprised when reading the actual purpose to realise how far mission drift has led them. The current leaders need to be clear on what the purpose actually is before anything else.

Organisations with laser like clarity on their purpose are those that generally tend to achieve it.

2. Do we have a right to exist?

Quite simply; does the positive impact of our organisation justify the cost and effort of all the things necessary to operate the organisation? i.e. are we delivering enough positive impact? Or are we just taking up sector oxygen?

While we have impressively low barriers to entry for NFPs and charities and community organisations in Aotearoa that doesn’t mean that all have an automatic right to exist.

The pass mark should not be simply an intention to do good – we need to ask these questions in order to work out if this organisation is actually being effective. In our view, a sufficient level of positive impact must be the lens through which this hard question needs to be answered.

3. Do we still need to exist?

Many organisations have morphed over time in terms of what they do. Often to follow the available funding. Sometimes this has led organisations away from what they were really unique at and expert at, and into other areas where they may be competing with other better, more specialist organisations. And competing for the same limited funding and other resources pool.

Would the wider society be better served if resources were focused on those organisations that were really unique and expert in an area? Would a governing body and management be able to admit that? If it is a new organisation then is it trying to replicate what someone else already does – entrepreneurship is lifted up as a high value in our society, but even more admirable might be sacrificing your ego to get in behind and really support someone else’s dream which happens to match yours. And in doing this eliminate unnecessary administration duplication and resources being diverted from creating more impact.

4. Should we have an end date?

While this may not work for all charities – if you consider it deeply it should for many - if they are being truly honest and committed to their cause.

Arguably one of the most noble measures of success of any charity that exists to address a social or environmental need is that they should no longer be needed.

Because the job is done. We have a feeling there will always be other issues that need addressing – hopefully they can be solved as well but not continued and perpetuated with an eye on continuing a legacy of having existed in the past.

For example, if your charity were set up to eliminate avoidable blindness, or to eliminate all pests in Aotearoa’s forests, when could this be achieved by? Set that challenging and motivating date.

Having an end date target in your strategic plan can be a very powerful motivating force to focus attention on the most efficient means of achieving the aim. Interestingly, having such a target and a goal of society no longer needing your organisation can also make those involved much less precious about how they achieve the target. The alternative is the building of a strong NFP/charity brand. Without clear focus on getting the job done, this can unfortunately (and often almost unconsciously) lead to more focus on the brand and protecting the ongoing nature of it - rather than why the brand actually exists in the first place. This is just human nature to protect what we have built. To be proud of our organisation doing good and our legacy. But are we being truly objectively honest towards our cause?

5. Should we continue to try and go it alone?

By any relative measure compared to many other countries we have a large number of charities and NFP’s in Aotearoa.

However, we are a small country with a small population and as a result by having a large number it means that the vast majority of these charities and NFP’s are also very small.

We are not saying that big is beautiful. However, we cannot ignore the fact that the existence of many very small entities results in a lot of duplication and administration that detracts from the amount of impact that can be achieved. As one example, think about governance boards and how many volunteers are needed to help operate so many entities. In any organisation there are critical size points below which even basic administration can seriously detract from the positive impact that can be created.

Do a search of the Charities Register or have a look on the internet and you will also quickly find that there are many NFP’s and charities existing to address the same or a similar issue and often even in a similar geographic area. As such they are usually competing for the limited resources available.

Again, if we are truly seeking to create the most positive impact for society at large, is this a sensible approach? Merging like organisations is at the extreme end of the spectrum to addressing this issue. We are not advocating that it always represents an appropriate solution because it has its own complexities. That can also be a bridge too far for many to contemplate, unless they are forced to by funders or legislation.

However, we are starting to see, and expect to see more of, an increasing pressure from funders wanting groups to work better together and for there to be better collaboration to achieve greater positive impact with the limited available resources. Hence even if a merger may be just too hard, there is still significant positive potential to be gained by closer collaborations. One example of this could be creating hubs where many entities can access and share common resources rather than needing to duplicate all – that can be a very effective option.

6. Are we thinking broadly enough about who we can collaborate with?

We believe we are headed into a much more global and interconnected future. It will be one where more and more businesses are waking up to for-purpose and social licence, and more enlightened Governments are waking up to holistically measuring wellbeing rather than just economic busy-ness. For your charity or NFP to remain relevant and impactful in such an environment are you thinking widely enough about who you could partner and collaborate with to create more impact?

Sometimes 1+1 can equal 3 if you get the mix right. But this takes inspired leadership skills to leave ego behind, to truly think openly and creatively, to expand your networks into perhaps surprising areas, to put yourselves in someone else’s shoes to understand how it can help them as well as wider society, to explore the unusual and untested.

7. Can we reimagine the future?

In the midst of uncertainty, people are re-evaluating what they support, so we suggest it may be time to look at our messaging and how we convey why our organisations exist. This is a time to have stronger communication to our stakeholders and the general public around what we do, and why.

Is this an opportunity to reimagine how we fulfil our purpose in order to be successful and as impactful as possible?

Those that can imagine the future can create it.

Extract from the white paper “Charting the Future: A Framework for thinking about Change” co-written with Craig Fisher in July 2020. While written with charities and NFPs in mind the principles apply to all. Thank you Craig for the chance to collaborate on this.

Simon Nielsen 11/15/21 Simon Nielsen 11/15/21

What Social Enterprises in Aotearoa Can Learn From Māoritanga

“While the term ‘social enterprise’ itself is relatively new, the fundamental concepts behind it are not. We are still at the early stages of the growth of the social enterprise sector here in Aotearoa. What better time to think about how Māoritanga – Māori culture, practices and beliefs and way of life – can help flavour our particular recipe?” The authors dive into a country’s past to find a way forward.

By Steven Moe and Wayne Tukiri

Until recently, not many people knew what a social enterprise even was. But in the last few years there’s been a growing awareness of companies that pursue “for purpose” objectives beyond the traditional profit motive. Often, these companies are able to reinforce and grow the communities they operate in, often meeting social needs which might otherwise have resulted in state-sponsored intervention or social programmes. Simply put, they do good.

While the term ‘social enterprise’ itself is relatively new, the fundamental concepts behind it are not. We are still at the early stages of the growth of the social enterprise sector here in Aotearoa. What better time to think about how Māoritanga – Māori culture, practices and beliefs and way of life – can help flavour our particular recipe?

By examining some of the key principles of Māoritanga, we can better understand what social enterprises are – and what they could be. Here are some examples:

Kaitiakitanga

Kaitiakitanga is the guarding of treasures and the concept of reciprocity and giving back. When creating a social enterprise it is vital that the purpose is well defined, understood and articulated for others. That purpose then needs to be closely guarded so that there is not a slow creep away from the core values in the midst of either success or failure – either extreme lends itself to a reframing of what the entity stands for. Keeping a sharp focus on the purpose of a social enterprise is a discipline: guarding the treasure.

Mōhiotanga

Mōhiotanga is the sharing of information, the building up of knowledge, and the provision of new information and strategies. In order for a business to succeed there is a lot of information which needs to be absorbed – and this is particularly true of social enterprise, which challenges the traditional way of doing things. The early days of a social enterprise are critical as the right structures are chosen, the team is assembled and the vision cast.

Tuakana/Teina

Tuakana/teina refers to relationships between older and younger people, and in particular the experienced helping those who are less experienced. This is reflected in many social enterprises with community elements where more experienced people work alongside – and support the career growth of – those who have less experience.

Manaakitanga

Hospitality, kindness, generosity and support. The process of showing respect and care for others directly relates to the altruistic and community focus of social enterprises. Often these social enterprises exist to meet some need in society through the business operation itself – for example, the type of person who is employed or the kind of product made.

Wairua

Wairua is spiritual well-being that involves a connection to our whenua (land), ngahere (forests), moana (sea), maunga (mountains) and awa (rivers). Many social enterprises consider natural resources and how they use them (or don’t). From the first, they focus on their impact on the environment and how they can operate in a sustainable way.

Mātātoa

Mātātoa is the Māori concept of being fearless, courageous and energetic. In a similar way, social enterprises need to be open to embracing new and innovative ideas that generally go against an established way of doing things. They often challenge the inbuilt assumption that a business is all about making a profit as they strive to also fulfil their purpose, which is usually the real driver.

Social enterprises have a unique opportunity to do something different here in Aotearoa; embracing the perspectives of Māoritanga and understanding their full breadth and impact could help us achieve just that. Instead of doing things the same way as every other country, we should try a new way of operating. The result could be a truly homegrown version of social enterprise which acknowledges and learns from our own rich cultural heritage and embraces it fully as a means to explain what we do and why we do it.

Tihei mauri ora!

Published as Opinion piece in Spinoff on 21 August 2018 co-written with Wayne Tukiri of RSM. Thank you Wayne for collaborating on this piece with me.

Simon Nielsen 11/15/21 Simon Nielsen 11/15/21

What Makes a Place Lively And Secure?

A place appears to be lively and secure due to human presence. If we see people around us projecting good energy and vibes, finding comfort in a place, we, too, reflect that energy and find comfort. That’s basic human nature. But the point to ponder is what brings people out in place? What attracts them to a place? Azbah Ansari and Peacemakers Pakistani answer an essential question.

By Peacemakers Pakistani

*Photo: LumenSoft Technologies/Unsplash*

A place appears to be lively and secure due to human presence. If we see people around us projecting good energy and vibes, finding comfort in a place, we, too, reflect that energy and find comfort. That’s basic human nature. But the point to ponder is what brings people out in place? What attracts them to a place? Peacemakers Pakistani answer this essential question.

William H. Whyte already gave an answer:

“What attracts people most, it would appear, is other people."

But the first question that might arise regarding people in a place, would be, what are they doing in the place? Undoubtedly, people presence makes a place lively but a meaningful presence and activity makes it secure and worthy of being in. So, what do we expect from a place where people are present and doing their activities freely? Ever wondered that? What activities and people generally come to your mind about any place in your mind?

If people are free to do what they want to do, we can see different people in a place, beyond gender roles and racism. We can see them as beings – a human more than just an appearance but a being, fulfilling a purpose and living a life. It might be different from your trials and aspirations but when all people with differences comes together that’s how a picture gets completed. Whole is always greater than the sum of its parts. But to get to the whole, we need to pay attention to the parts and bring them whole together in a rightful manner.

I am going to share a list of people doing/offering different activities as per their needs (fulfilled we assume, as we picture an ideal place) and abilities. So, let’s see how many different people and activities we can come up with regarding any public place and how these small parts can complete a whole picture and make it vibrant and lively. Feel free to share and add any type to this list. For the picture, allow your imagination to run wild and feel the human presence around you. Imagine yourself in any place you want and keep on adding these people if their activities suit the place in your mind.

A vendor with a convenient space selling his goods, having some seating space to entertain customers as well if he is a food vendor. A busker playing music and entertaining others in a space where there are people who will pay for it. A local artist making & selling sculpture or artwork. A market goer or customer making his way to exchange or buy goods. A commuter or food van parked in a secure place during the day, performing duties to provide others with services.

An office worker who came to eat outside with fresh air away from the computer screen. Maintenance workers relaxing & stretching to get started with work again, also they have some space to store equipments in the meantime. A book reader sitting in a quite secluded space totally absorbed by his book. A runner or walker out in space with fresh air and doing exercise for healthy life. A local resident enjoying a quiet space in which to appreciate nature as he has no garden. An old man sitting under a tree watching kids play. Few couples (of all ages) sitting at different spots talking about things that matter to them, unaware of people around them. Few of them are just walking as well, one of them has a baby stroller and they are walking in the place in front of you.

A human being simply connecting with nature & its creations. A tourist or 1st generation migrant exploring, learning more about the culture of city & collecting memento from the visit, subjects & objects to photograph, activities to participate in and much more, doing it all freely without bothering or feeling any eyes on him/her. A differently able person having a convenient access zones towards public spaces, toilets & amenities. An emergency aid provider rapidly accessing to patient in a space to give first aid without barriers.

Have you pictured it all, or most of it? How did it feel? Do you want to go there, where people are? Indeed, people go where people are. People generally go out for needs and entertainment, activities like shopping, work, play, leisure time, something new, rest and to distress. That’s a basic human need as well. Therefore, the foremost objective for any public space project should be to provide activities & entertainment for all kinds of users considering their needs & demands. Only that will make a place livelier and secure, even though it is not the only way to do it, but it is the first step to start from. Equity and Inclusion strategy as we call it in placemaking.

And as you enjoyed it all, just for a moment think about it from the ‘eyes of the child’. Oh the wonderful eye that registers everything in his mind and stores everything in his pure heart. What great messages would he be learning if he was in such environment? How happy and secure he must be feeling! How much liveliness his presence and sense of being would be adding to the place! What else can be a true indicator of a liveable city if not that of the presence of happy children in streets and public spaces? Think about that too, because it is important.

Simon Nielsen 11/12/21 Simon Nielsen 11/12/21

Purpose-Driven Structures For Impact Entrepreneurs In Aotearoa New Zealand: Considering Kaitiakitanga And Steward Ownership

“Put simply: business of the past has often had a focus on being extractive rather than being regenerative. In response, a growing movement of impact entrepreneurs and investors are taking up the challenge of rethinking, redesigning and reorienting available legal structures of ownership and finance to ensure ‘purpose primacy’.” The authors propose an intergenerational and sustainable approach to business ownership.

By Steven Moe, Susan Gary, Jan Hania, Natalie Reitman-White, Murray Whyte, and Phillippa Wilkie

There is a paradigm shift occurring in how we think about the role of business. Impact-driven entrepreneurs launch businesses for a purpose and generate profits so they are sustainable while they also deliver products or services that add value to society.

These entrepreneurs often have an intergenerational perspective on the role that their ventures will play in solving social or environmental issues. They may frame their purpose by looking through the lens of the impact on some combination of the environment, society, their employees, customers, suppliers and other stakeholders over the long term.

While they embrace the private enterprise as a powerful vehicle to deliver and scale impact, they measure success not in maximising profits, but in maximising the advance towards the purpose. At the same time, they recognise that financial sustainability is a necessity to ensure long term viability of a private enterprise.

But what is the best structure for these future-looking entrepreneurs to adopt? The challenge faced by impact entrepreneurs is that conventional corporate vehicles, governance systems, shareholder agreements, term sheets, liquidity horizons and return expectations are framed around the presupposition of shareholder primacy. This focus means they can be misaligned with the entrepreneurs’ operating models and value systems. As a result, these structures can pull the business in directions that are more suited to the needs of the investors rather than a focus on delivering maximum value and impact to the purpose.

Put simply: business of the past has often had a focus on being extractive rather than being regenerative. In response, a growing movement of impact entrepreneurs and investors are taking up the challenge of rethinking, redesigning and reorienting available legal structures of ownership and finance to ensure “purpose primacy”. Some have referred to these new ideas as the “fourth sector” or “steward ownership”.

Emerging models are innovating in the areas of:

• impact investor terms that focus on sustainable versus extractive returns, and creation of broader stakeholder benefit;

• multi-stakeholder inclusion in governance and/or economic rewards; and

• governance mechanisms that ensure economic viability, along with results towards, and protection of, the business purpose.

Impact-driven entrepreneurs wanting to set up business in Aotearoa New Zealand have a range of legal structures to choose from, albeit a more narrow range than in other jurisdictions. In this short White Paper we will focus on the available legal structures in New Zealand as well as indigenous concepts of Te Ao Māori (the Māori worldview) and approaches. We will also chart some developments in thinking and legislation overseas on “steward ownership”. Our kaupapa (purpose) is that by explaining the options available in New Zealand in the context of the indigenous and stewardship models, entrepreneurs will be empowered to be creative and experiment in their choice of structure and surpass the for-purpose vs for-profit dichotomy.

We welcome your comments and feedback on this White Paper and look forward to an ongoing dialogue about the concepts and options. We also welcome your engagement around advocating for possible changes to New Zealand law that could incentivise and further catalyse the addition of more purpose primacy models. We are excited and enthusiastic about what the future could hold.

Part I: Ways of thinking

Before we dive into the detail of structuring options, in this part we want to set the scene by talking about foundations – we will do that by looking at different ways of thinking. This is important because the structure options that can be chosen are best understood in the light of these ways of thinking about business, wealth generation and generational thinking.

So much can be learned from the wisdom of Te Ao Māori (the Māori worldview) in approaching stewardship of land and the environment for future generations. Systemic long-term thinking is fundamental in Te Ao Māori, offering an intergenerational, sustainable and enduring approach to life, business and investment. For Māori and many other indigenous peoples, the cosmology and knowledge systems (matauranga) do not separate people from land, water and the environment (Te Taiao). A fundamental element of the Māori worldview is whakapapa; whakapapa in one sense is your genealogy, but the extension for Māori is that whakapapa includes lineage to your relevant mountain (maunga), river (awa), lake (moana) and land (whenua). This means that the land, water, mountains and creatures within your place are your direct relations or kin (whanaunga). And Māori have a teina/tuakana relationship with Te Taiao: we as people are the younger or junior sibling (teina) to the older or senior status of our tuakana, Te Taiao. The respect and value set of custodian or stewardship for land and water is one of caring for and nurturing our revered whānau as one of us – family, our elder, our ancient relative. This knowledge system is intergenerational, with ultimate respect for our ancestors – land and people – and for the future of those to come.

The concept of nature as an ancestor has been honoured and reflected in New Zealand law by according legal personality to nature. In 2014 the Tūhoe-Crown settlement legislation made Te Urewera, a former National Park of immeasurable value to Tūhoe, a legal person with its own identity. This personification was repeated for Te Awa Tupua (the Whanganui river) and most recently Taranaki Mounga (Mount Taranaki). In the cases of Te Urewera and Te Awa Tupua boards of persons are appointed to exercise kaitiakitanga (guardianship) over the land and water. They do not “own” it but actively act on its behalf and are responsible for promoting and protecting its health and wellbeing.

The notion of exercising guardianship of the environment and ensuring its wellbeing and regeneration for itself and future generations can (and we would say should) be broadly applied in today’s world. When constructing a board of guardians (kaitiaki) of purpose it would suggest having appointees whose role is to actively represent the environment (Te Taiao) and future generations (mokopuna). These representatives would be necessarily forward-thinking and proactive, assuring regenerative outcomes are achieved for both.

Te Ao Māori is directly relevant to the idea of “Steward ownership” which is an emerging term being used in the United States and Europe that refers to a different way (both old and new) of thinking about “ownership”. The foundational thinking is that ownership is not a commodity to simply be bought and sold, but as a responsibility to carry forward an enterprise that exists for a purpose. It derives from a constellation of principles and beliefs including shared prosperity, service and contribution, ecological regeneration, and responsibility for guardianship for the future. It can perhaps be summed up by this way of thinking: we are not inheritors of past wealth from our parents – instead, we are guardians of the future for our children.

In some respects this is a translation of the Māori spiritual concept of kaitiakitanga into a Western legal structure in that its stewards use the tangible rights attached to share ownership as the tools to vote and protect purpose. The specific legal structures can vary across organisations and countries. At their core, they embed the premise that corporations should contribute to some purpose beyond generating profits for shareholders and should consider holistic long-term impacts. Since conventional corporate and investment structures are more geared towards shorter term profit maximisation and shareholder primacy, it often involves thoughtful redesign of existing legal structures.

The “Structuring for Impact” report is worth reading for more details and depth on this area. See Horan, Rowland, Wilkie, Hosking and Moe, “Structuring for Impact: Evolving Legal Structures for Business in New Zealand”

To reset the goals and incentives that drive decision making in companies to guide them towards the inherent value of two key principles:

1. Profits Serve Purpose: Profits are used primarily as an engine to support a company’s purpose/mission. In other words, profits are not an end in themselves, but a means by which the purpose is furthered. Profits are needed to make the organisation sustainable but that is just one factor to be aware of. Practically, this means the profits are reinvested in the business, shared with stakeholders who are contributing to the purpose (e.g. employees, suppliers, community, customers), and/or donated to purpose-aligned charities. Both founders and investors are fairly compensated with capped or non-extractive returns/dividends.

2. Self-Governance: While investment can come and go over the company lifecycle, control of the company is not sold, it is kept with “stewards” – people who are actively engaged in, or connected to, the business and are responsible for ensuring it delivers impact to benefit and further the purpose. This typically begins with Founders and is then passed on through natural growth of the company culture and through formal governance structures that over time enhance the stewardship ethos. As such, the business is not seen as a manager for short-term private wealth generation, but as a living system of people working towards a shared purpose.

Social Enterprise: This is a label which has been helpful to distinguish purpose driven initiatives from traditional business. Ākina have been helping empower this ecosystem of purpose driven initiatives for many years and have many resources available. Back in February 2014 the Government statement still is accurate in summarising some of the key elements, where they said: “Social enterprises use commercial methods to support social or environmental goals. They principally reinvest surpluses in the social/ environmental purpose rather than maximising profit for shareholders and owners. Potential benefits of social enterprise include innovative responses to societal issues, new employment opportunities, and sustainable income generation.”

In our view, and the view of Ākina, the terminology is evolving very quickly and shifting towards the word “Impact” to best describe the concepts we are dealing with. We prefer the term ‘Impact Enterprise’ because that covers more than just the ‘social’ impact implied by the term social enterprise. For that reason we will mainly be talking about impact enterprises rather than social enterprises.

Introduction and the first part of a report published at the end of 2020 and this was co-written with some amazing people: Susan Gary, Jan Hania, Natalie Reitman-White, Murray Whyte, and Phillippa Wilkie. Thank you all for your insights and chance to collaborate together on this report and to Reggie Luedtke for your connecting pieces of the puzzle together too.

The Empty Square