At the start of 2019, I shared a mirrored image about the best way to transfer off the seesaw of shock and numbness that many people discover ourselves on nowadays. To my shock, so lots of you resonated with the picture and guiding questions in that reflection, and used it in your individual work and at your organizations. I’ve edited the picture and guiding questions in mild of conversations I’ve had and the useful suggestions I’ve obtained. I hope that this framework continues to be helpful in your mid-year particular person and organizational check-ins. (November 2022 Replace: For the latest updates to the framework, please learn this article and go to www.socialchangemap.com).
In our lives and as a part of actions and organizations, many people play completely different roles in pursuit of fairness, liberation, inclusion, and justice.
A few of us are frontline responders who shortly and ably transition into rapid-response mode instinctively and set up sources, networks, and messages.
A few of us are healers who are inclined to the person and intergenerational traumas of white supremacy, racism, colonialism, capitalism, patriarchy, and nativism.
A few of us are group storytellers and artists, binding the previous and the current, channeling the histories and experiences of our ancestors to make clear what is feasible immediately.
A few of us are pure bridge builders who can work throughout divisions with persistence and compassion.
A few of us are proud disruptors who communicate up and take motion — particularly when it’s uncomfortable and dangerous.
A few of us are caregivers who present nourishment to organizers, exude concern and love, and create a group of care.
A few of us are visionaries, with the flexibility to seek out, articulate, and reconnect us to our north star, even after we can not clearly see the sky.
And others of us are builders who’re actively creating the concepts, the buildings, and the scaffolding for our organizations and actions.
Not all of us can (or ought to) play every of those roles. We would additionally discover ourselves falling into completely different roles relying on private and exterior circumstances. Or, we could be observers and supporters from the aspect every now and then. An efficient, wholesome, and sustainable social change ecosystem requires completely different actors to play these roles, and sometimes, at completely different occasions.
Listed below are some guiding questions to make use of together with the picture above.
- What function(s) do I really feel snug and pure enjoying, and why? What function(s) make me come alive, and why? Are there any variations between these two responses for me to discover?
- What function(s) am I usually requested to step into by others? How do I really feel about assuming these roles?
- What’s the impression of those roles on me bodily, energetically, emotionally, and spiritually? Is there an impression on others consequently?
- How can I stretch myself? The place can I take bolder dangers, particularly if I maintain completely different types of privilege? What do I have to study extra about earlier than I do this, and who can train me how to do this?
- Am I visioning and dreaming in my function? Or am I caught in a cycle of repetition and redundancy, or compromise and sacrifice? How can I generate creativity and innovation?
- How do I transfer via completely different roles with out feeling like I’ve to choose only one with the intention to be efficient? On the similar time, how can I make it possible for I’m not a wanderer or a short-term novice? Or positioning myself as an knowledgeable inside a silo?
- If I work in or adjoining to the non-profit and motion ecosystem, how am I holding onto objective particularly given the pulls and contradictions of purity (proving “wokeness”), productiveness (sustaining fixed efficiency and output at the price of overwork, replication, martyrdom, and low impression), character (the over-emphasis on movie star activism and social media relevancy), and perfectionism (anticipating to get it proper on a regular basis and being afraid to come clean with errors)?
- When (and never if) I make errors, how do I acknowledge them and course appropriate with out feeling like I’ve failed?
- Who’s my help system — the individuals who maintain me accountable in a compassionate manner? Write their names into the varied roles in the event that they play them, or on the edges. How can I widen this group? What have I requested of them by way of help?
Organizations may reply the identical questions with a watch in direction of understanding and assessing how they perform as a part of a marketing campaign, coalition, community, or ecosystem, and the way they’ll course appropriate or deepen their impression.
Individuals and teams, from non-profits to lecturers to college students to “skilled” activists, have used the picture and guiding questions at workers conferences and retreats in addition to to help with your individual private reflections and check-ins. I hope you’ll achieve this as properly! And, you probably have suggestions, I’d love to listen to it. Please drop me a line at [email protected].
