Category Community Building

‘OK Doomer’ and the Climate Advocates Who Say It’s Not Too Late https://nyti.ms/37R4NR4

A growing chorus of young people is focusing on climate solutions. “‘It’s too late’ means ‘I don’t have to do anything, and the responsibility is off me.’”

‘OK Doomer’ and the Climate Advocates Who Say It’s Not Too Late https://nyti.ms/37R4NR4

With evidence of the climate crisis growing every day, along with the rise of authoritarian governments, war and other tragedies, it can be hard to stay motivated to keep working for what’s right, for a sustainable, livable, safe planet, for everyone.

In development and sustainability circles, a phrase that is often heard is

Individual action is a great place to start, but a terrible place to end.

And it’s true, in certain ways. We absolutely need strong government action on many things. At the same time, the downside to phrasing our work like this is the somewhat implied apathy, which can lead to

It doesn’t really matter how much or little I try to change my own life, my own actions, how much I try to influence my circles or institutions to change. Someday, some bigger agent than me is going to swoop in and fix everything, so I’m off the hook. I can try a little bit, and then stop when it gets hard or inconvenient.

Here’s the catch. Big systems changes are needed, and we have to keep working for them AND those changes if/when they happen will simply accelerate the changes that, in many cases, we can already make now, for ourselves, without waiting.

For example:

So, while we continue to advocate for massive government intervention, which changes can we – individually and in our circles (extended family, faith group, community groups etc) make today? Which changes are you ready to make today? Which changes are we each prepared to make, even if nobody else does it with us?

In the comments below, let’s share which changes we are ready to make today. Which might we be ready to encourage others to do with us? What steps are we taking, today, for a better tomorrow?

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For the next while, we will be focusing on sustainable holidays. There are a lot of decisions/plans etc to make around the holidays, and not all decisions are easy, clear or straightforward. For today, we’re looking at holiday and year-end donations, although these guidelines apply to all year-round giving, as well.

If you are anything like me, your email inbox is getting overloaded with asks from various NGOs, political parties, faith groups etc, asking for a year-end donation (in addition to phone call asks for money etc.) Sometimes, it’s easy to sort out how to manage all of the requests, and sometimes it can get a bit muddy. So, today, we’re going to talk about some of the red flags and how to make sure that the projects you are donating to are deserving of your donation. In general, these will show up more often in really small organizations, but big organizations can have challenges, as well.

So, here’s a quick (but not exhaustive) list of things to check for before sending off a donation, using an email request (one of many) that I received recently as a case study (in this case asking for funds for an extremely large capital campaign, from a very small organization):

• Email received – Check how often the org emails me, and how often they are asking for $.
  • Answer: Only a handful of short emails per year, and all are asking for $.
  • Result: Fail
  • What to Look For: Regular communication and updates on programming etc, going well beyond asks for $.
• Website Check – After reading the email, I checked the website.
  • Answer: The website has not been maintained in any way. Basic pages are up, but most/all pages are basically empty, because the website has not been maintained. Given that the org is asking for donations for a very large capital campaign, this is very problematic. If the org can’t even maintain a basic website, how can they handle large sums of money? What does this gap say about their ability to run effective programming?
  • Result: Fail
  • What to Look For: Well designed website, appropriate for the size of the org and the projects being funded. Clear, concise info, easy to navigate.
• Overall Transparency and Financial Accountability: With the website and other checks, I’m also checking for accountability and transparency
  • Answer: There are no budgets, annual reports or any other transparency/accountability measures shown anywhere. It appears that funds received are not accounted for, to the public in any way.
  • Result: Fail
  • What to Look For: This piece is really important, and often undervalued in poorly run orgs. (Note: For orgs that are not registered to give tax receipts or acting as a charitable org etc, naturally, some of these rules are a bit different). This, in my opinion, is a significant red flag that funds should not be given.
• Contact info and Org Structure: In addition to the basic website info, I’m looking for easy ways to get in touch with senior leadership, board etc. to help ensure that the org is accountable to the public.
  • Answer: Nobody other than the Exec Director is listed on the website. Given that the website is poorly maintained, the board and others are not named, and the other issues, it does not give confidence that contacting the ED through the website would result in a meaningful and timely reply.
  • Result: Fail
  • What to Look For: Senior Leadership, staff, board etc named and with contact info (eg an email address associated with the org). Reasonable term limits etc are also important. Watch out to see if the same person(s) is in a senior position for 15-20+ years at a time, especially in a small org (instead of transitioning by 10-15 max) – as that’s a red flag for other challenges. The org is at high risk of not successfully managing the transition to the next director, and may end up closing down in the relatively near future, which has implications for your donor dollars.
• Others – This is not an exhaustive list, but is a good start for evaluating end or year (or anytime of the year) support for orgs (particularly small orgs) that might be asking for help, whether financial, volunteer time or other.

Summary: Naturally, in this case, I will not be sending a donation to this organization. I would advise them, if I were their consultant, to drop the large capital campaign and spend their time building up a well-designed website, developing a clear and consistent communications plan with a strong senior leadership team, ensuring that the basic work of transparency and accountability happens every year (eg annual reports, budgets etc), creating a meaningful fundraising plan with an appropriately sized donor base and so on. It’s much better to have a well-designed program in a smaller building than a huge building with poorly designed organizational structures. Ultimately, donors give to support impact first, not for a shiny new building.

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Over the years, a conversation that I have had, on numerous occasions, relates to how we as Mennos (and others), do community. Within Mennonite circles, specifically, we have a long history of being very intentional about community-building, and have often done really well at it. At the same time, as with all systems, there are gaps, and places where we don’t meet our own standards, places where what we think of as average/typical/how it’s always done, is actually our idealized/glossed over version of reality – the “what you see on Facebook” version of how we’re doing at community, instead of the actual, real-world, hard reality of the fact that we have gaps, and places where people fall through the cracks.

(Before I get too far, you may be wondering how community fits in with sustainability – the short answer is that we are all working together to share one, livable, thriving planet. Finding ways to build community is one part of working together to share the planet as a whole.)

As a completely non-exhaustive, getting the discussion going, list, here are some of things that I think stand in the way of building better communities:

• Willful blindness – we can’t fix what we don’t’ acknowledge
• Lack of intention – it takes effort to put community building ahead of the countless other things that could take our time and attention
• Discrimination – We don’t name this often enough, but it’s there, and the impacts are real. If a faith group wants to build community, but, for example, opposes full rights for LGBTQ2+ members of the community, the group is choosing to prioritize discrimination over community, welcome and inclusion. Likewise, a faith group may claim to welcome our Middle Eastern neighbors, but support wars in the region that cause harm. We can’t do both – if we want to be in community with our neighbors, we can’t support wars that hurt others. We can’t support wars and then be proud of being a “safe haven” for refugees – or, even worse, support wars and then refuse to accept refugees that are fleeing the very wars we are supporting.
• Other – there are many others, but these are the first few that came to mind for me.

So, given all of this, how do we move forward more positively? Here’s my preliminary list:

• Admit that we all do some parts of community well, and have room to grow, at the same time
• Treat others as well as we want to be treated. If we do not want groups (faith, community or anything else) to discriminate or close doors to us, we absolutely can not do that to others. We can’t be grateful that we are “in” while supporting policies (based on gender and sexuality, race, religion, ethnicity or anything else) that keeps others “out”. Doesn’t matter if the negative thing that we are promoting doesn’t impact us directly (eg “I don’t identify as xxx, so I can support hurtful policies on that topic, because it won’t exclude me directly.”)
• Actively work to find people to include, who might really appreciate an invite, instead of limiting to the usual group (eg when planning an event/coffee meet up or anything else)
• Adjust systems, when needed, to ensure that everyone is welcome. For example, I know of many faith groups that have a formal “small group” system, to help build community – which can be great, in principle. However, I also know of times when the system denies new people a spot because “All of the groups are full and we don’t want to upset people by making a change, to allow space for the newcomers.” When systems are run like this, and there is active resistance to change, the systems that are supposed to ensure that everybody is included becomes the most direct, clear source of exclusion. (“Everybody has a spot – and nobody is willing to give up their very comfortable position to make space for a new person/family…”) It happens – even within our Menno congregations, and it’s something that I think we should be highly motivated to change.
• Be intentionally aware of when “this is how we’ve always done it” conflicts with “this is what we need to do to be welcoming and inclusive now.” If “the way we’ve always done it” is closing doors to people, and we don’t make a change, we are choosing to be unwelcoming, despite the fact that we probably aren’t naming it as such. Is that really the message we want to be giving to others? If we care more about inclusion than resisting change, are we making sure that the message is getting through to where it needs to be heard?
• Other?

The COVID pandemic, at least in my circles, has been, among many things, a reminder of how important community is. As we move forward, what are we, collectively, going to do to find a new, better normal, instead of going back to the way that it was? What areas of challenge have you seen? What steps have you been a part of to do better in these areas?

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Dr. Dean Ornish, the founder of the Preventive Medicine Research Institute, says this about the effects of loneliness: “I am not aware of any other factor — not diet, not smoking, not exercise, not stress, not genetics, not drugs, not surgery — that has a greater impact on our incidence of illness, and chance of premature death.”

Never underestimate the power you hold as ONE PERSON to save the life of another.

“Come join us,” you’ll say with a smile.

And the recipient will sigh with relief … angst gone instantly … a world of pain cut in half.

One person can do that.

Am I invisible? One mom’s pain-relieving response to being excluded: Link

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