Hello to my network weaver peers! Over the last 10 years, I’ve been exploring how to use networked approaches to align the work of many organizations to change systems. Through New Directions Collaborative, Nancy Gabriel and I and some colleagues in this network have worked with initiatives working on food systems, community development, climate action, and more. We learned a lot about how to create successful collaboration, especially refining how to facilitate work with a focus on outcomes, equity, and on building trusting relationships every step of the way. I hope you will find these blogs sharing our experiences and this Resource page useful.
I’m now focused on creating a new initiative called Kinship: A Hub for Amplifying the Power of Community to practice and deepen our skills in how to create a community that can heal, collaborate, learn, and care for the whole.
Remember to imagine and craft the worlds you cannot live without,
just as you dismantle the ones you cannot live within. – Ruha Benjamin
In the spirit of looking for what is missing and growing what is healthy, my vision is to host regular spaces in my community of Seacoast New Hampshire where experienced community builders and social change leaders can connect with peers, get coaching, and learn together. I’m curious to see how hosting and weaving a place-based community over time can root and grow a culture of solidarity, healing, and co-creation. My hope is that people take what they experience in Kinship spaces back into their homes, workplaces, and communities.
As our families and communities face unprecedented changes, we need to move from go-it-alone individualism to create resource-rich environments of care, peer support, and resonance. I see a need for ongoing community-connecting spaces to fortify us so we can respond to change with creativity, care, and courage. Deep bonds of kinship with each other and nature is also a resource for burnout, mental health challenges, and healing trauma and oppression.
Please check out the new Kinship web site and if you’d like to join our newsletter, enter your name at the bottom of the home page or like this Facebook page. I will host small groups and facilitate workshops in person in Seacoast NH and will be producing a podcast (stay tuned.) I’m offering on-line trainings as well, including these in April:
Listening that Enables New Possibilities
Storytelling that Grows Connection and Learning.
I’ll be keeping New Directions Collaborative as my business entity. Nancy and I have revised the service offerings to focus on training, meeting design and serving as thinking partner/coaches. We will be shifting out of on-site facilitation and cross-sector systems change work and will look to give referrals other consultants who do this work.
I look forward to sharing back with this community how Kinship evolves and what we create and learn. Perhaps down the road, what grows here can generate seeds that we can share with others to bring into their communities.