Synthesis Reflections: What Is Most Important/Inspiring to You?

for the TRCC 2015 Co-Project Roundtable

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This is the first part of the Synthesis Round. Please share any final reflections you have regarding "what is most important and/or inspiring to you" about this co-project possibility. Feel free to copy and paste from earlier notes, but please be brief! You can add some more resources/ideas to the +Bike Rack as well, if you wish.

We suggest you take fifteen-thirty minutes to browse through the hackpads from earlier rounds, then reflect for about ten minutes. Let go of cynicism, fear and judgment, and open your mind, your heart, and your will (a la Theory U) to what is most resonant. Then take about ten or fifteen minutes to write about what showed up for you.

You can also add additional reflections that come to you later on as a secondary post (i.e. using another blank template). This space will stay "open" through November 4th.

Kelley Rajala

What is most important and/or inspiring to you about this co-project possibility?

I love that this process intentionally and purposefully brings leaders together to find the intersections between their important pieces of the solution.

Comments by others:

Thanks, Kelley. It's great to hear that, and to have you with us for that inspiring (and challenging!) work.

Agreed! I suspect that something juicier than any one thing that any one of us might come up with - will be born.

Ben Roberts

What is most important and/or inspiring to you about this co-project possibility?

I am very excited about this work! I see potential on so many different levels--a real opportunity for "stacking functions." It is possible that this small amount of money, leveraged by the incredible work already underway among our Circle members, and by the relationships we have developed and the community we have built in the Collaboratory over the past three years, might catalyze something like a quantum leap at the individual, organizational, community of practice, and Movement levels.

Here are some things that are most resonant elements of the possibility:

Places: Bay Area, esp Oakland and Richmond, and New England.

Moving not only money, but decision-making, out to the grass-roots (subsidiarity).

A way to keep expanding our Circle, and expanding the reach and depth of impact of our Circle members work (look how many new people have already shown up!)

Something that involves business (and ideally opens up investment opportunities for the "reinvest" side of fossil fuel divestment).

Tell the story of what we do really well, so that potential meta-effects of our work are maximized. See, for example, this short video on participatory budgeting, as the kind of story-telling output that is worth investing in:

http://vimeo.com/107121298

Here are some things that seem like important guidelines for whatever we consider:

Building on the work in progress, not inventing something new

Incorporating social justice/healing as a key theme

Keeping it simple and really easily understood

Making at least one aspect of it scaleable, e.g. as modules that can be launched in many different places, so that if more money comes in, it can expand our geographic reach (e.g. adding new location to "play" in this work requires X dollars, so if we can raise another 5X, we can do this in five new places beyond what the initial $50K can fund).

Nourishing the TRCC in the process of this work (giving back, helping us diversify our funding beyond the TRCF)

Not asking more of our collaborators than the money we provide can reasonably fund

Having this be a strong call to the wider world to wake up to the urgency/opportunity of this moment in history, so that more of them choose to join the party that is building a world that works for all, based on the joy of nourishing LIFE as the guiding light.

Comments by others:

Great synthesis, Ben. The video on participatory budgeting is inspiring! It makes me want to do this for new community-owned businesses that spin out of Local Economy Centers as communities identify new opportunities for localization (ala Evergreen Cooperatives). Thanks for sharing!

Thanks Ben for hearing and reiterating the "stacking functions" idea. I think there must be an elegant way to leverage the great work we are all doing. I am struck by a comment from an essay I was reading that used this phrase "Making a living on a living planet". To me that ties in the economic side and the environment. It also rings of equity too.

I can connect you with the Participatory Budgeting community if you like, Kelley. I actually wan't necessarily thinking about our initiatives using PB specifically--I just thought it was a very well-made video that was a good example of how to tell a story about change-- but I'm delighted that the concept itself is also of interest. I'm fascinated by it as well! (Ben)

Jeff Aitken

What is most important and/or inspiring to you about this co-project possibility?

That together we have the capacity to strategically determine what can be a very high leverage project - to walk a visionary path with very practical feet, thanks Angeles Arrien.

To address the great transitions we are in: how our awareness and work with worldview differences can serve as inspiration and strength, rather than dividing us; how to bring old and new stories and practices into a culture of regeneration in our communities; how to grow the trust in one another that supports alignment, coherence, and resilience being real experiences growing from our dialogue and work together.

i'm inspired by Peggy Holman's framing (which I posted near my desk - can't find online right now) that Appreciation plus Diversity, well hosted, can enable Alignment (noticing we're having the same conversations throughout the room, or the system), Coherence (the trust that emerges, which enables embracing even more diversity), and Resilience (the capacity for staying together in the scary, exciting dance of chaos and order.)

Two local examples. I don't mean to bias the Bay area but suggest these as thought provokers and inspirations.

Last week I was touched by the remembrance of October 17, 1989 (25 years ago) and the evidence that the Bay will be shaken again, likely powerfully, and in this region it helps focus the question in building resilience amid disruptions related to climate, institutional injustice, systems failures, etc.

This morning I'm touched by this modest proposal by Kazu Haga, a nonviolence trainer and organizer in Oakland, asking why can't all people devoted to the vision in Oakland also devote the coming ten years to working together with the power of a movement. And inviting leaders from organizations communities networks to gather with this intention...

http://eastpointpeace.org/dont-build-movement/

thanks for the invitation to participate.

Comments by others:

It seems that learning how to work together is the work of these times. If we can crack that we can friggin' do anything!

Aho, Carolyne! Love Kazu's work too, Jeff. +Here's an appreciative interview I did with Kazu+ as part of Metta's Roadmap initiative.

I forgot to note that Kazu is also talking about a transformed relationship to funders and funding in his modest proposal. Very interesting.

Here's a quote I like a lot from the interview with Kazu that I linked to above:

I've also been part of too many campaigns and movements that [have been] been motivated and grounded in anger... [T]here's plenty that we need to be upset about. And at the same time how do we channel that in a way that it doesn't become the motivating force behind our movements? Anger and indignation can spark movements, but it's not a sustainable force that can keep movements going. So looking on a deep internal personal level, how do we allow anger and indignation to motivate us in a healthy way, but also be grounded in something that's beyond that?

Thanks Jeff! I think Kazu is spot on. I love this, and I think this is what it will take:

What if all organizations in Oakland who work for social justice put down their egos and worked to create a COLLECTIVE work-plan for the next 10 years? Not just deciding to work together on 1 campaign for a year. Actually built integrated workplans that allow us to still do what each of us do best, but with a grand strategy of how we’re all contributing to the same change? What if nonprofits stopped their turf wars? What if nonprofits stopped feeding into the capitalist, individualistic mentality of this culture and took the idea of movements and collaborations seriously? What if we told all of our funders that after spending down our current grant, we’re all gonna change directions slightly and start to work together for real? What if….

Carolyne Stayton

What is most important and/or inspiring to you about this co-project possibility?

Thanks all for the rich contributions and thoughtful ideas. Very inspiring. Very tough too for making a decision! I ask myself “what is the goal”? Is it to get as many players together to do a specific project (theoretically creating more impact)? Or is it to harness the momentum of a few efforts and run with that? Is it to shore up the resilience in one region?

Or might it be something like this:

a) Using this opportunity to create a national media campaign that connects social justice, the economy and the environment with a centerpiece like: “Making a living on a living planet”. AND produces marketing materials that shows all that is going on in all of its rich diversity? And funding goes to manage the project with stipends to organizations to cover their staff costs to participate. All this towards influencing the 2015 Paris climate talks.

b) And if a media campaign is too removed from the front lines – what about viewing this $50K opportunity to help work on that interface between social justice, economy, and the environment? If we could elegantly crack this and find the glue, map our processes, draft a roadmap – that could be of huge value to others and could well be replicable.

So, what if our goal is to reduce economic inequality, strengthen social equity, AND address the climate crisis - What would that project look like?

(Keeping in mind that all of the organizational players are already doing so much - there is likely a simple and elegant way to leverage all that too without adding a lot of extra work:)

Comments by others:

Thanks, Carolyne!

"I ask myself “what is the goal”? Is it to get as many players together to do a specific project (theoretically creating more impact)? Or is it to harness the momentum of a few efforts and run with that? Is it to shore up the resilience in one region?"

I'm right there with you in seeing many different sorts of goals that we might organize around. How do we choose what is most resonant? Do we go on trying to imagine and design projects without aligning first on an overall approach? Are there some projects that can hit on more than one of these modes? And how much can we do with $50K, and how much effort is it fair to expect from busy people in developing proposals for a $50K project, especially if they might not even get selected? that leads me to wonder how much our design should focus on identifying things that we could take to other funders within the next couple of months in order to attract a lot more money, which is also something we're experimenting with here.

I like both of those ideas!

Heather Tischbein

What is most important and/or inspiring to you about this co-project possibility?

What is giving me great joy and inspiration is seeing how ideas and experiments, "seeds" that were sown in the 1960s, and lovingly tended in mostly "marginal communities" through the latter decades of the 20th century, are coming to fruition, ripening and "re-seeding" across time and place in the 21st century...being spread by the winds of change and the dreams of "new generations" coming into maturity. It is a comfort and a gift to be able to see some of the arc of history unfolding...revealing itself...rather like a rainbow that is only partially lit up in a stormy sky. Even though one cannot see the entire of arc of a triple rainbow...one knows that "It" is there in the angle of light reflecting off the rain drops....when one is standing in just "the right place". For me, standing in the TRCC is standing in "just the right place" to be able to catch glimpses of the triple rainbow arc of her/history being created through peoples' best efforts over decades. It's beautiful.

I'm dreaming up a co-project around an emerging food systems initiative/initiation here where I live. The idea is still "seasoning"...each morning I get up and fuss with it a bit. It's coming along...and I'll post it soon. I can already feel its resonance with ideas that are posted and I'm looking forward to seeing how we will work with, play with, all these brilliant ideas to co-create magic for ourSelves and The World.

Comments by others:

Can't wait to try your well-seasoned co-project dish!

Ben Roberts (again!)

Additional reflections (see my original post above).

I'm simply delighted by the range of +co-project proposals that are showing up. They all look fabulous on their own, and also offer possibilities for combining and synergizing. then we have the two "add-on modules" that are being offered, one by me and another by a group of us led by Gretchen Krampf. So much that is possible here.

At the same time, this energy is presenting us with a very challenging task as far as winnowing things down to no more than three RFPs when we meet in Oakland on 11/10. The good news is that we only need to select the anchor orgs, not the specific proposals. We have until 1/9 to submit proposal outlines to Threshold. Also, the work done developing proposals that don't get selected will hopefully still be of value, perhaps forming the basis for funding requests that can be made in other venues.

Comments by others:

@Marissa Mommaerts

What is most important and/or inspiring to you about this co-project possibility?

I'm most inspired by the possibility to create real solidarity and alignment between TRCC members, and the hope that the co-project will foster real & deep collaboration and reflect a commitment to social justice and cultivating new leadership. At the same time I believe that level of collaboration will require more discussion and co-thinking than most of us have the capacity to do before the retreat.

I will also echo what has been said by others - it is important that this process is not overly-taxing on groups & individuals that are already operating over-capacity. Ideally there would be some sort of compensation for the time people spend participating in this process, so people have equal access and ability to participate. This could be a goal for next time around!

I think it is also important to provide an opportunity for participants and TRCC members who were not able to participate to give feedback on the process so what know what works and what can be improved next time. Perhaps a session during the retreat paired with a survey.

Comments by others:

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Synthesis Reflections: What Is Most Important/Inspiring to You?
Menu: Home | Online Rd 1 | Call 1 | Online Rd 2 | Call 2 | Synthesis
Synthesis Round Menu: Main | Reflections | Co-Project Proposals | Bike Rack
Kelley Rajala
Ben Roberts
Jeff Aitken
Carolyne Stayton
Heather Tischbein
Ben Roberts (again!)
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