Civic renewal must begin with an account of how we, the professional managers and control freaks, have devitalized the civic ecologies we now seek to “fix.”
You didn’t know this was gonna happen but maybe you did… every word of this piece was crafted for me to grapple with, right on time.
Just 12 hours ago I internally smiled and patted my back settling on a civic bridging strategy that, while much of the plan may survive and be worthy of pursuing, contains many/most of the flaws you’ve identified so clearly here.
It’s an uphill battle to make these shifts when not in the world as-it-should-be but you’ve touched on truths and goals I already know to be worthwhile yet struggle to implement in the world as-it-is.
The change I’m working toward, effective transformation of our statewide public school system, is desperately needed. Harm and dysfunction are profound, dehumanizing at an unacceptable scale, and a whirlpool for our state’s moral and economic past, present, and future.
There are arduous, practical pathways to spur change (through fostering thousands of purposeful civic conversations that I still feel proud to be developing). But this piece is going to push me short and long term to seek the both/and.
I’ll also be reaching out to break some virtual bread soon.
I don’t have David Brooks in a pool for you, but I sure do have an extra kayak (includes paddle, life vest, and a marked up copy of The Second Mountain), great local beer, and 10,000 lakes to share…
Terrific piece. It reminds me of my interactions with the peer community when I was state behavioral health director. That community was hungry for the official structures of legitimacy: things like licensure, accreditation, certifications, etc. I’d always tell them, “don’t make the same mistakes of the broken system you are trying to join–credentialism, hierarchy, etc.”
At the end of the day, though, it was about money. Those same structures unlocked funding from Medicaid and other state/federal grants. If you want relational, community-rooted work, you have to redesign the way funding flows.
Great stuff, Sam, as ever. I think this is why I'm so drawn to organizing festivities like the Solstice in the Park project -- which does much of the "civic" work we'd want to see but is always oriented to a more meaningful/religious/spiritual horizon, therefore avoiding some of the managerial vibes. Thanks for writing.
This is exactly the type of thing we grappled with when I worked in Person and Family Centered Care. When healthcare organizations are being measured by survey results and specific measures that sometimes poorly reflect the patient's lived experience, how do you bring the patient voice into system improvement without breaking the bank in terms of the staff time and money needed to do the work well?
What you're looking for is alive and widespread, if underfunded. One of the names it has been given by the professionalized management sector is Asset-Based Community Development. There are lots of ways into learning more about it, if you're interested. Personally, I admire the work of D'Amon Harges (who went from being a "Roving Listener" to working with others in his neighbourhood to negotiate a favourable loan with his city for the neighbourhood itself to buy a city block and design and run their own affordable housing and community centre). There are also different approaches to data gathering out there, and the Tamarack Institute has suggestions that can strike a balance between what donors are looking for and what people live. And if you want to read about a faith-based version of the crisis of conscience you've described, Michael Mather's _Having Nothing, Possessing Everything_ is enjoyable and to the point.
This discussion also applies to religious groups. The professionals have become experts and no longer value input from members. They already know what is needed, and what is wanted is of no concern. Churches have become professional organizations and the human condition, what is important to people, is sidelined. Church pastors and church board seek to control people rather than serve them. Jesus told his disciples not to be fathers, not to be in charge, but to be servants. He came into the world to serve, not to be a king.
It is the same with civil government. Policemen, formerly to serve and protect, are now law enforcement, serving the government not the people. They are arms of the state, the conduit through which the civil power flows from the top down. And government, rather a few pages of rules that restrict what the government is authorized to do, is hundreds of thousands of pages of what citizens are not allowed to do.
Civilian organizations, too, no longer plan how members are to serve their communities, but how they can manage those over whom they exert control.
There is no organization that offers customer service. Rather they have help desks located overseas, employing minimally paid clerks that know nothing about what their companies do, nor what their customers can expect from them. The companies develop and sell products and services and employ markets to convince customers that they need those products and services. Their only feedback is the results of surveys designed to elicit responses they predetermined they want.
As someone who is a manager in a nonprofit focused on research and measurement, and has also been a volunteer leader of mutual aid and other volunteer groups, I definitely feel this strongly. In my experience it affects not just funding opportunities but the morale and character within volunteer groups themselves. When my mutual aid group was making food deliveries throughout the pandemic, it was surprising the extent to which the volunteers themselves would get discouraged if we weren't always growing or innovating or doing more measurable things. We just delivered 100 boxes of food with zero funding last week and are gearing up to do it again, but shouldn't we all feel bad that we never managed to collect the testimonials to put on facebook about how lifechanging our work is?
There is also sort of an expectation from those participating of a certain level of sophistication - frequent social media postings and very effective comms, very efficient logistics at every event, extremely well-run meetings where there is a focused agenda and things get done, but also everyone feels included and like they got to say their piece. I think there is a service-model (as opposed to a shared community or responsibility model) that people have been trained to expect with nonprofits that carries over to all-volunteer groups.
None of those things are bad, per se (I love a well-run meeting!) but add it all up and even skilled managers need to invest time to create all those things. These volunteer positions take way too much time to be realistic for most people. It makes it impossible to spread ownership of tasks around to folks with less formal training. This is a big part of why I couldn't actually keep running a mutual aid group once I had kids.
You didn’t know this was gonna happen but maybe you did… every word of this piece was crafted for me to grapple with, right on time.
Just 12 hours ago I internally smiled and patted my back settling on a civic bridging strategy that, while much of the plan may survive and be worthy of pursuing, contains many/most of the flaws you’ve identified so clearly here.
It’s an uphill battle to make these shifts when not in the world as-it-should-be but you’ve touched on truths and goals I already know to be worthwhile yet struggle to implement in the world as-it-is.
The change I’m working toward, effective transformation of our statewide public school system, is desperately needed. Harm and dysfunction are profound, dehumanizing at an unacceptable scale, and a whirlpool for our state’s moral and economic past, present, and future.
There are arduous, practical pathways to spur change (through fostering thousands of purposeful civic conversations that I still feel proud to be developing). But this piece is going to push me short and long term to seek the both/and.
I’ll also be reaching out to break some virtual bread soon.
I don’t have David Brooks in a pool for you, but I sure do have an extra kayak (includes paddle, life vest, and a marked up copy of The Second Mountain), great local beer, and 10,000 lakes to share…
Terrific piece. It reminds me of my interactions with the peer community when I was state behavioral health director. That community was hungry for the official structures of legitimacy: things like licensure, accreditation, certifications, etc. I’d always tell them, “don’t make the same mistakes of the broken system you are trying to join–credentialism, hierarchy, etc.”
At the end of the day, though, it was about money. Those same structures unlocked funding from Medicaid and other state/federal grants. If you want relational, community-rooted work, you have to redesign the way funding flows.
Whew... this is a word, and the kind that you print and keep with you as part of your practice for years to come.
This describes some, not all of the ills of community organizing today. Useful, appreciate it.
Great stuff, Sam, as ever. I think this is why I'm so drawn to organizing festivities like the Solstice in the Park project -- which does much of the "civic" work we'd want to see but is always oriented to a more meaningful/religious/spiritual horizon, therefore avoiding some of the managerial vibes. Thanks for writing.
This is exactly the type of thing we grappled with when I worked in Person and Family Centered Care. When healthcare organizations are being measured by survey results and specific measures that sometimes poorly reflect the patient's lived experience, how do you bring the patient voice into system improvement without breaking the bank in terms of the staff time and money needed to do the work well?
What you're looking for is alive and widespread, if underfunded. One of the names it has been given by the professionalized management sector is Asset-Based Community Development. There are lots of ways into learning more about it, if you're interested. Personally, I admire the work of D'Amon Harges (who went from being a "Roving Listener" to working with others in his neighbourhood to negotiate a favourable loan with his city for the neighbourhood itself to buy a city block and design and run their own affordable housing and community centre). There are also different approaches to data gathering out there, and the Tamarack Institute has suggestions that can strike a balance between what donors are looking for and what people live. And if you want to read about a faith-based version of the crisis of conscience you've described, Michael Mather's _Having Nothing, Possessing Everything_ is enjoyable and to the point.
This discussion also applies to religious groups. The professionals have become experts and no longer value input from members. They already know what is needed, and what is wanted is of no concern. Churches have become professional organizations and the human condition, what is important to people, is sidelined. Church pastors and church board seek to control people rather than serve them. Jesus told his disciples not to be fathers, not to be in charge, but to be servants. He came into the world to serve, not to be a king.
It is the same with civil government. Policemen, formerly to serve and protect, are now law enforcement, serving the government not the people. They are arms of the state, the conduit through which the civil power flows from the top down. And government, rather a few pages of rules that restrict what the government is authorized to do, is hundreds of thousands of pages of what citizens are not allowed to do.
Civilian organizations, too, no longer plan how members are to serve their communities, but how they can manage those over whom they exert control.
There is no organization that offers customer service. Rather they have help desks located overseas, employing minimally paid clerks that know nothing about what their companies do, nor what their customers can expect from them. The companies develop and sell products and services and employ markets to convince customers that they need those products and services. Their only feedback is the results of surveys designed to elicit responses they predetermined they want.
Not for Everyone. But maybe for you and your ‘Thinker’ patrons?
Hello Sam,
I hope this finds you in a rare moment of stillness.
We hold deep respect for what you've built here—and for how.
We’ve just opened the door to something we’ve been quietly handcrafting for years.
Not for mass markets. Not for scale. But for memory and reflection.
Not designed to perform. Designed to endure.
It’s called The Silent Treasury.
A sanctuary where truth, judgment, and consciousness are kept like firewood—dry, sacred, and meant for long winters.
Where trust, vision, patience, and stewardship are treated as capital—more rare, perhaps, than liquidity itself.
The 3 inaugural pieces speak to quiet truths we've long engaged with:
1. The Hidden Costs of Clarity Culture — for long term, irreversible decisions
2. Why Judgment, ‘Signal’, and Trust Migrate Toward Niche Information Sanctuaries
3. Why many modern investment ecosystems (PE, VC, Hedge, ALT, spac, rollups) fracture before they root
These are not short, nor designed for virality.
They are multi-sensory, slow experiences—built to last.
If this speaks to something you've always felt but rarely seen expressed,
perhaps these works belong in your world.
One publication link is enclosed, should you choose to start experiencing…
https://helloin.substack.com/p/from-brightness-to-blindness-the?r=5i8pez
Warmly,
The Silent Treasury
As someone who is a manager in a nonprofit focused on research and measurement, and has also been a volunteer leader of mutual aid and other volunteer groups, I definitely feel this strongly. In my experience it affects not just funding opportunities but the morale and character within volunteer groups themselves. When my mutual aid group was making food deliveries throughout the pandemic, it was surprising the extent to which the volunteers themselves would get discouraged if we weren't always growing or innovating or doing more measurable things. We just delivered 100 boxes of food with zero funding last week and are gearing up to do it again, but shouldn't we all feel bad that we never managed to collect the testimonials to put on facebook about how lifechanging our work is?
There is also sort of an expectation from those participating of a certain level of sophistication - frequent social media postings and very effective comms, very efficient logistics at every event, extremely well-run meetings where there is a focused agenda and things get done, but also everyone feels included and like they got to say their piece. I think there is a service-model (as opposed to a shared community or responsibility model) that people have been trained to expect with nonprofits that carries over to all-volunteer groups.
None of those things are bad, per se (I love a well-run meeting!) but add it all up and even skilled managers need to invest time to create all those things. These volunteer positions take way too much time to be realistic for most people. It makes it impossible to spread ownership of tasks around to folks with less formal training. This is a big part of why I couldn't actually keep running a mutual aid group once I had kids.
Sounds like you need Warm Data Labs. Check out Nora Bateson’s work.