When the Ground Shifts

As we are all well aware, there are many things that are changing in our world and in the professional environments in which we engage.  An extremely important part of navigating these changes is being in community with others who are also focused on these challenges, and from whom we can share ideas and provide each other with positive energy.  Here are a few ideas from recent conversations and readings.

From conversations during 2026 Skoll Week:

  • We need to balance a pressing sense of urgency with the time to develop relationships/partnerships.
  • Look to ancestral knowledge – stand firm in your own identity, especially when it’s challenged.
  • Remember whenever the impact may seem small, it’s significant to those that were helped. “It mattered to that starfish”
  • Adaptive organizations get through challenging times by: 1) Listening– where can we best be of help? 2) Strengthening the community’s norms and values; 3) Raising up lived experiences that allow for resilience in challenging times; 4) Build with existing systems and practices; 5) Keep the joy.
  • When you think no one is coming to help you, you become more independent and resilient.
  • Build accountability into collaboration to minimize tensions that may come up.

From the Lusoma Gazette 

  • “Cracks” in the social sector system can also be opportunities.
  • How can external and local funding sources be complementary in a more diversified funding strategy? Long before the language of ‘philanthropy’ arrived, people were pooling harvests, burying the dead with dignity, educating one another’s children, and rebuilding after disasters. The work ahead is not to introduce giving where none exists. It is to strengthen, connect, and protect what communities already own. Community Philanthropy Toolkit
  • Do you have an honest answer to the question – is our organization built to deliver on our strategy?
  • Share decisions among the team so when the hardest decisions come, the muscle memory is already there. It doesn’t make the decisions easier, but it does make them shared.  It gives you the ability to sense check not just the ideas but each other, to have stamina and to hold steady through the inevitable resistance to change. ~ WomanKind co-executive directors.