Collaborative Solutions: a Newsletter from Tom Wolff and Associates

[Discussion list for COMM-ORG]

From: "Tom Wolff" <tom at tomwolff.com>

Dear Friends and Colleagues,

Welcome to the early fall 2008 issue of the "Collaborative Solutions 
Newsletter" from Tom Wolff & Associates. This is a very special issue as 
it continues to address the link between spirituality and social change. 
It is the second in a series of newsletters on this topic.

I have spent the last six months grappling with how to write about these 
critical issues. Part of the stimulus has been the growing stress and 
distress that I am seeing and feeling in communities as I work with 
them. Our communities are in greater need and our helping systems are 
increasingly facing their own dysfunction as they sink into competition, 
conflict, hopelessness and retreating from a focus on social change. 
This led to my list of six serious limitations in our helping system. In 
this issue I address the last four of these issues.

I follow this with a look at the spiritual principles that can guide us 
out of the present morass. This emphasis on spiritual principles comes 
from my long term spiritual pursuits and my ongoing hunt for ways to 
connect spirituality and social change. The questions that fascinate me 
are – how can our spirituality inform our work at social change and how 
can our work at social change inform our spirituality?

This issue of the Newsletter issues is available online at 
www.tomwolff.com. You may find that the web version to be the easiest to 
read and download. A text version can be found below.

We encourage you to distribute this information to your friends and 
colleagues. You can subscribe for free or unsubscribe at the end of the 
newsletter. The topic of spirituality and social change is one where I 
am especially interested in your responses - so please le me know what 
you think. There now is a guestbook link at the end of the Newsletter 
for your comments and so you can see what others have to say.

Thanks
Tom Wolff
Tom Wolff & Associates
tom at tomwolff.com


Collaborative Solutions
A Newsletter from Tom Wolff & Associates
Contents of Early Fall 2008 Collaborative Solutions Newsletter:

In This Issue:

Spirituality and Social Change - Part II: Fnding renewal, inspiration, 
hope and direction
Our nation continues to be dominated by racism
New directions based on the spiritual principle of acceptance.
Our helping systems suffer from professional dominance
New directions based on the spiritual principle of compassion
The dominance of professionals has led to harmful competition
New directions based on the spiritual principles of interdependence, 
appreciation, acceptance and compassion
We have lost our spiritual purpose
It’s profound, and it’s not easy . . . but it’s also within our reach
What is new at Tom Wolff & Associates: New trainings

* Spirituality and Social Change
* Moving from Social Service to Social Justice
* Two Day Workshop on Building Healthy Communities through Collaborative 
Solutions

References
Spirituality and Social Change Part II: Finding renewal, inspiration, 
hope and direction

In our last Collaborative Solutions Newsletter, we proposed that our 
helping systems are in deep trouble and that the nonprofit sector and 
the helping industry are becoming a significant part of the problems 
they were established to solve. We identified six issues that need to be 
addressed, and we discussed the first two. In this newsletter we will 
tackle the remaining four. Here’s a review of the whole set:

1. We have overemphasized the deficits in our communities. (Spring 2008)
2. We have lost social change and social justice as our goal. (Spring 2008)
3. Our nation continues to be dominated by racism and our helping 
systems are characterized by a lack of cultural competence.
4. Our helping systems suffer from professional dominance. The dominance 
of professionals has led to a lack of connection to those most affected 
and their communities—the communities are not driving the process of 
strengthening their communities.
5. The dominance of professionals has led to another harmful aspect of 
our helping system: competition.
6. We have lost our spiritual purpose.

We established a conceptual thread in the last newsletter that continues 
in this one: we propose that applying spiritual principles to these 
issues will give us new insights and the possibility of new solutions.

This emphasis on a spiritual approach led to the strongest reader 
response to a newsletter that I have ever received. With the permission 
of those who submitted thoughts and comments, I have attached a few of 
the dozens of communications that came in after the last newsletter. I 
invite my readers to join the discussion and keep the exchange going. To 
encourage this, we have established a new “Guestbook.”

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Issue 3. Our nation continues to be dominated by racism and our helping 
systems are characterized by a lack of cultural competence.

Let’s look at one of the most difficult social issues in America—racism. 
The helping sector’s approach to racism has generally focused on racial 
disparities in health. For several years, this has been a headline issue 
in health care and public health. Disparities in health outcomes for 
ethnic and racial minorities are well documented. A national campaign to 
provide 100% access to health care with 0% disparity brought the issue 
to the country’s attention. The recent television series called 
Unnatural Causes: Is Inequality Making Us Sick? continues to bring this 
issue to our attention (www.unnaturalcauses.org).

Inequalities in the access to and delivery of health care affect the 
health and life expectancies of people across the country, particularly 
those who are low-income, uninsured, underinsured, and people of color. 
As Alan Nelson, former president of the American Medical Association 
(AMA), has said, “Disparities in the health care delivered to racial and 
ethnic minorities are real and are associated with worse outcomes in 
many cases, which is unacceptable. The real challenge lies not in 
debating whether disparities exist, because the evidence is 
overwhelming, but in developing and implementing strategies to reduce 
and eliminate them” (2003).

Racism has several dimensions that affect our lives, as the work of 
Camara Phyllis Jones illustrates (2000). Jones has developed a 
theoretical framework for understanding racism on three levels: 
institutionalized, personally mediated, and internalized. Institutional 
racism is defined as differential access to the goods, services, and 
opportunities of society. Personally mediated racism is defined as 
prejudice and discrimination. Internalized racism is defined as 
acceptance by members of a stigmatized race of negative messages about 
their own abilities and intrinsic worth.

Jones’ framework provides a thinking tool that leads to hypotheses about 
why we find race-associated differences in health outcomes. The 
framework also offers insight into how we can design interventions to 
eliminate those differences

Over time, the large issue of racism—which is so clearly about social 
change—has acquired a narrow focus. I have heard of major campaigns to 
reduce health disparities that only focus on the attitudes of staff and 
on providing staff training in cultural competence. Staff attitudes are 
a significant variable that does affect outcomes, and this work is 
valuable. However, to say that health disparities in America are solely 
the result of providers’ racist attitudes misses the broad, systemic 
impact of racism on all aspects of our lives. When we look so intently 
at the cultural competence of providers, to the exclusion of other 
factors, we risk moving away from critical social-justice approaches 
that are more likely to help us resolve deeper sources of racism.

For the last year I have been working with an exciting grassroots 
program called Boston REACH 2010. REACH stands for Racial and Ethnic 
Approaches to Community Health. This program, which focuses on racial 
disparities in breast and cervical cancer survival rates for Black 
women, is an excellent example of bringing the issue of racism in health 
to the forefront and then creating a comprehensive social-change format 
for addressing it.

I have had the privilege of working with the women on the steering 
committee of REACH 2010. I have been deeply moved by their stories, 
energy, and commitment. All of the committee members are women of color, 
and many are cancer survivors. When we completed a visioning process, 
they declared of their newly created vision, “Of course, we are going to 
work make this happen. For as long as it takes.”

At the end of a visioning process, groups usually express more moderate 
energy and commitment, because members are still “growing into” the 
ideas they have formulated. The REACH 2010 participants were already on 
board, with total dedication and enthusiasm. This is not the usual 
energy and commitment one encounters at the end of a visioning process. 
They are engaged in saving their own lives and the lives of others. For 
this is not an issue of interest to them, this is their life!

The REACH 2010 brochure states the issues clearly: “Fact. If you’re a 
black woman living in Boston, you have a greater chance of dying from 
breast or cervical cancer than a white woman. Why? Racism may play a key 
role in determining your health status. It may affect your access to 
health services, the kind of treatment you receive, and how much stress 
your body endures. The REACH 2010 Coalition can help.” The REACH group 
does not mince words in labeling the role of racism in the health 
disparities they experience.

The REACH 2010 understanding of health disparities was laid out in the 
citywide Boston Public Health Commission’s (BPHC) Disparities Project 
Blueprint to Eliminate Racial and Ethnic Health Disparities backed by 
the Mayor (http://www.bphc.org/director/disp_blueprint.asp). This not 
only includes the need to address racism in health care but also covers 
environmental and social-justice issues. This broad social-change 
framework was the basis of the work that REACH 2010 has done. The women 
developing the program understood that in order to address the social 
determinants of health, you need to talk about racism and you need to 
garner support for a systemic social-justice approach.

For many people, this represents a considerable paradigm shift, 
requiring both personal and institutional commitment to eradicating 
racism. The Boston Public Health Commission (BPHC) has made the 
elimination of racial and ethnic disparities in health a top priority. 
Through their work in this area, the people in BPHC acknowledge that 
racism and discrimination are root causes of disparities in health.

By focusing on environmental and social factors, the BPHC expands the 
view to include issues like residential segregation and the part it 
plays in health disparities. Geographic segregation is often associated 
with “substandard housing, under-funded public schools, employment 
disadvantages, exposure to crime, environmental hazards, and loss of 
hope, thus powerfully concentrating disadvantage” (Williams, 2001).

Our experience with REACH 2010 suggests that coalition projects 
concerned with health equity need to take a broad and holistic approach 
to systems change. Such an approach must address all sections of the 
Boston Blueprint, both in Health Care and Public Health and in 
Environmental and Societal Factors. Here is the comprehensive list:
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Health Care and Public Health

Health Insurance – Ensure that all residents have access to universal, 
affordable, high-quality, and comprehensive health insurance.

Data Collection – Require that all health-care organizations and 
insurers gather uniform data on the race, ethnicity, preferred language, 
and socioeconomic status of patient/member populations.

Patient Education – Develop programs that build the skills of community 
members to become better informed and equipped patients, able to 
effectively navigate the health-care system.

Health Systems – Develop programs that identify and address specific 
obstacles to overcoming disparities.

Cultural Competence – Provide cultural competence education and 
training, including educational components on racism and other social 
determinants of health, as part of the training of all health 
professionals (undergraduate, graduate, and continuing).

Workforce Diversity – Increase resources to recruit, train, retain, and 
graduate persons from underrepresented groups of color in the 
health-care field.

Public Health Programs – Establish and/or strengthen state and local 
government health agency offices to help guide the effort to eliminate 
health disparities.

Research Needs – Conduct research to determine the causes of and 
solutions to health disparities.
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Environmental and Societal Factors

Neighborhood Investment – Undertake efforts to eliminate 
disproportionate health risks in neighborhoods of color in order to make 
them healthier places to live.

Jobs and Economic Security – Eliminate the disproportionate barriers to 
employment faced by residents of color.

Public Awareness – Increase the awareness of all residents about the 
impact of health disparities and related social justice issues.

Promotion of Key Community Institutions – Enhance the ability of local 
community organizations and neighborhood residents to effectively 
address issues that have an impact on health disparities.

Following the BPHC Blueprint gives people such a broad view of health 
disparities that there is no choice but to address issues of social 
justice. (REACH 2010 will have a publication describing their work 
available in 2009, - working title Creating a Health Equity Coalition: 
Lessons from Boston REACH 2010)

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New directions based on the spiritual principle of acceptance.

The answer to the problem of racism in society is to acknowledge and 
address racism in our systems and ourselves and then to develop a 
comprehensive social-change approach to the issue. The spiritual 
principle of acceptance is central here. The new directions we need to 
take involves deep acceptance of the value of all people and acceptance 
of their differences. Acceptance involves seeing the fundamental 
humanity that all humans share and clearly recognizing the spiritual 
essence inherent in all of us. Acceptance is the unconditional 
acknowledgement of what is. We are most empowered when we are coming 
from a place of acceptance. When we fully accept everyone, we find 
ourselves in deep peace.

Acceptance is not a passive stance; it involves action. When we accept 
what is, then we ask, “Given what is, what we are going to do about it?” 
(Tadd, 1995ff). An approach to racism that is based on the spiritual 
principle of acceptance allows for a deeper and broader set of systems 
changes than may be available from simple exposure to anti-racism 
training (although training may be a valuable component of a broader 
approach). In its principles for a new social contract, The Boston 
Foundation (http://www.tbf.org ) states the goals as “valuing racial and 
cultural diversity as the foundation for wholeness”—a wonderful 
description of acceptance.

We need to create and support broad approaches to eliminating racism, as 
described in the Boston Blueprint, and we need to do this from a place 
of deep acceptance.

To have deep acceptance for all humans is a tall order. Applying the 
spiritual principle of deep acceptance allows us to step back and 
examine our own roles, the roles of our agencies, and the roles of the 
overall helping systems in our community with regard not only to racism 
but to all the issues at hand.

When we approach our communities with the idea of acceptance in mind, do 
we see things differently? Do new approaches suggest themselves? Do new 
ways of looking at the community’s residents emerge?

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Issue 4. Our helping systems suffer from professional dominance. The 
dominance of professionals has led to a lack of connection to those most 
affected and their communities—the communities are not driving the 
process of strengthening their communities.

Our traditional problem-solving processes are seriously handicapped 
because they are not connected to the communities where they seek 
solutions and to the people most affected by the issues. When a problem 
arises, we tend to turn to the “usual suspects,” in most cases to 
professionals designated as experts on the topic of our concern.

Communities have two layers of helping systems, one that we easily 
recognize and one that we tend to overlook. The first is the formal 
system, composed of professional helpers: agencies and organizations 
staffed by specialists. The second is the informal, community-based 
system and includes neighbors, family, friends, and others who have 
close ties to specific people and places. The formal system often lacks 
connections to the communities and it tends to ignore the informal 
system. When we ask residents where they first turn when they have a 
problem, they generally answer, “Family, friends, and neighbors.” These 
are not groups that most formal providers attend to very much.

While working with groups of service providers, I have found over the 
years that these professionals have diminishing numbers of contacts with 
the people who are living with the problems that they are trying to 
solve. When the professionals want to know what is happening, they ask 
other providers.

I often encourage groups to do assessments that rely on the words of 
community members, as opposed to demographics or the perceptions of 
providers. Yet even after we ask a community for its views, we struggle 
with honoring what the people tell us. The helping system has become 
accustomed to a bunker mentality; we put our heads down to avoid facing 
difficult issues and we pick easy and familiar responses that may not be 
solutions.

In one example, a survey of young people was done, asking about drugs in 
the schools. We learned that these students identified the highest risk 
factor for drug use as “Community Disorganization,” a risk factor that 
was composed of questions devised in order to elicit perceptions about 
neighborhood crime, fights, graffiti, feelings of safety, empty lots, 
and so on. These were the issues that the young community members were 
saying were the top risk factor for preventing drug use.

However, when the group of service providers who had undertaken the 
survey decided on a project to tackle, they chose to address the risk 
factor of “Parental Attitudes.” They then created a social marketing 
campaign for parents. The providers put their energy and funds into 
fixing a concern 16 items below “Community Disorganization” in their 
survey results. This item was much more comfortable for the providers; 
it fell within their familiar skill set and conceptual framework.

You can see in this decision a shift from a social-change agenda 
(community-oriented) to a program more focused on the skills of parents 
(focusing on individuals).

Abraham Maslow reminded us that if the only tool you have is a hammer, 
then all problems look like nails. In a helping system that is not 
trained or supported for doing work on social change, all problems look 
like problems of individuals that require remedial care rather than 
problems that require systems change.

I am beginning to feel that neighborhood organizing and even 
neighborhood outreach are becoming lost arts in the established helping 
system. Fewer and fewer providers even know how to do organizing and 
outreach. And fewer also believe that it is an important part of their 
community work. This professional ignorance is dangerous, and the entire 
nonprofit helping system seems to be losing its compass.

I was recently at a local conference for nonprofit human service 
providers entitled “Generating Change: From Thought to Action.” I found 
the keynote speakers’ presentations frightening. The speakers 
represented a range of statewide organizations that considered 
themselves to be advocates for the best interests of the nonprofit 
sector. They were far removed from the mission of these nonprofits—to 
help communities and individuals. Their attention was locked onto their 
organizations’ self-interests.

Here’s what I mean. The presenters talked about:

1. The best public relations messages that would emphasize the 
importance of the nonprofit sector.
2. How to lobby for more money in the state budget.
3. How to get better staff wages for agencies.
4. And, in general, how to organize to advance their agendas.

There was no talk of client needs or social justice.

Getting the needs of those most affected to drive the system is not 
easy. It requires new ways of thinking about power. The ways in which 
nonprofit service agencies are governed reinforce this disconnection. 
The members of nonprofit boards are increasingly out of touch with the 
people most affected by the services provided by the agencies that they 
serve. This is ironic in light of the origins of nonprofit boards, which 
were designed as a way of keeping an organization in touch with its 
community. Nonprofits now draw board members from outside the affected 
community, or they include board members for reasons more related to 
fund-raising than community insight.

This is bad policy and bad practice. This lack of connection needs to be 
replaced by resident-driven approaches.

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New directions based on the spiritual principle of compassion.

We need to re-think and re-design our helping system so that it is based 
on loving compassion for those in the community we work with, as well as 
for our other community partners. We must also have loving compassion 
for ourselves. A helping system based on compassion would be so open to 
the entire life situations of those in our communities that it would 
naturally be driven by those most affected, with professionals serving 
as resources.

Compassion has two essential components: the willingness and ability to 
open fully to the other’s whole life situation and wishing the other 
well (Gill, 2008). If we are to be fully open to other people’s whole 
life situations, then we will want to be immersed in our 
communities—hanging out, talking, and learning from residents. We will 
base our approaches to solving problems on what we have heard in the 
community. If we truly wish these residents well, then we will look 
forward to working shoulder to shoulder with them to improve matters.

Compassion is quite different from sympathy and pity, which are more 
closely allied with the paternalistic stance of our present helping 
system. Compassion includes a commitment to action, to do something to 
alleviate suffering. Sympathy implies no such commitment.

The compassionate perspective is deeply rooted in a nonjudgmental view 
of healing. It is the most powerful medicine because it never turns away 
from reality. Compassion is grounded in deep insight into the goodness 
and equanimity at the very center of each person’s being. Some believe 
that compassion is the way to heal the world (Gill, 2008).

 From a perspective of loving compassion, professionals would find 
appropriate roles for themselves in communities—roles that honor the 
community and its members as partners in addressing community issues.

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Issue 5: The dominance of professionals has led to another harmful 
aspect of our helping system: competition

Competition is the American way. It is deeply embedded in our economic 
and political systems and it has many advantages, but it is a 
significant barrier to promoting communal, collaborative approaches. 
Competitive energy is surprisingly pervasive in the helping systems. We 
see this clearly in cities and towns where two hospitals or hospital 
systems compete in what is as much a life-and-death battle for the 
institutions as are the individuals’ fights for survival in their ERs.

In one community, I have been working with a neighborhood center serving 
a largely Latino neighborhood. Through our work together, the 
organization shifted from being a service-delivery organization and 
returned to its original mission of community development, community 
organizing, and community engagement. This change has taken almost four 
years, but now under a new young, vibrant, and creative Latina leader 
the organization is achieving enormous success.

So what is the response of the other organizations in the community to 
this group’s wonderful accomplishments in addressing the needs of its 
very poor neighborhood? Are they celebrating and supporting the 
neighborhood center? No. The other institutions have set out to do 
everything imaginable to destroy this small nonprofit. The major state 
funder defunded the center, resulting in the loss of half of its budget, 
in spite of the state program’s mandate to do organizing work in this 
neighborhood. The community’s largest anti-poverty agency hired a 
community organizer to work in direct competition with the center. And 
some other minority-serving agencies became overtly competitive. The 
more success the neighborhood organization achieves, the more the other 
groups try to kill it off. Why?
Competition.

I know it may sound like heresy to say this, but we need to get 
competition out of the helping system. Competition and helping do not 
necessarily go well together. In fact, competition seems to cause a 
great deal of harm. We need to replace competition with cooperation and 
collaboration.

Leland Kaiser, a visionary health futurist, offers a lot of wise 
observations about competition in the health-care system (2005). Here 
are a few of his thoughts:

* “Contemporary health care is a collective mental model based on 
competition, scarcity, and profit. It is a limited model and will not 
significantly improve the health and well-being of our population, 
regardless of how long or hard we try. We need a new mental model based 
on abundance, the pursuit of wellness, potentiation of people, community 
collaboration and assumption of personal responsibility. Until we adopt 
such a model, things will get worse even though we're spending more and 
more time and money trying to make things better.”
* “To transform anything, it must be viewed in its completeness. Its 
relatedness and connectedness to the universe. We should be designing a 
healthy planet, healthy community, healthy organization, and a healthy 
life.”
* “I tell hospitals, they should never have enemies in a competitive 
marketplace; they should only have allies. I want each hospital to 
convey to its competitors that they're not out there to destroy them, 
steal their patients, or put them out of business. All providers in the 
community should work collaboratively. There is more than enough work to 
do, and it should be done cooperatively. I want to move all health care 
providers toward a unity perspective. I often ask hospital CEOs, How 
many times last year when a competitor got in trouble, did you send them 
money? If the hospital across town is going broke, you should say, ‛I’m 
sorry about what is happening to you. We value your contribution to our 
community. For whatever reason, we've had a very good year, so we are 
cutting you a check for $5 million. Take it. I hope it helps.’”

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New directions based on the spiritual principles of interdependence, 
appreciation, acceptance, and compassion.

The answer to our problems with competition is to develop a 
collaborative system, where all entities aim to enhance each other’s 
capacities (Himmelman, 2001). This collaboration needs to be based on 
the spiritual principles of interdependence, compassion, appreciation, 
and acceptance. This is not coalition-building to reduce duplication of 
services or to help us do more with less. It involves redefining the 
system so that all the pieces interact with each other from a foundation 
of spiritual principles.

Kaiser eloquently expands on this idea: “A spiritual orientation 
requires all the providers to come together and form a sacred covenant 
to jointly meet the health needs of everyone in the community. In a 
spiritual context, providers view one another as ‛organs of the same 
body.’ Although they maintain their individuality, they also achieve a 
unity of purpose and function. The eye does not despise the ear. If one 
part of the body gets in trouble, the others do what they can to come to 
its aid and restore healthy functioning. Isn't it strange that the human 
body has more wisdom than our health-care system? Spirituality unites 
diverse people in a common effort to improve the human condition” (2000).

This common effort to improve the human condition can be part of the 
rallying cry to have spiritual principles, rather than competition, 
drive the helping sector.

In an article on “engaged Buddhism,” Kenneth Kraft notes, “Awareness of 
interconnectedness fosters a sense of universal responsibility. The 
Dalai Lama states that because the individual and society are 
interdependent, one’s behavior as an individual is inseparable from 
one’s behavior as a participant in society” (1990).

A competitive stance fails to acknowledge our unavoidable 
interdependence and interconnection. When services compete with each 
other, everyone suffers. When we recognize the strengths of our 
connections and we can put them to work on each other’s behalf.

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Issue 6: We have lost our spiritual purpose.

I believe that when we first started finding ways to help people in our 
communities, our efforts had a more spiritual tone and were far less 
mechanistic, competitive, and business-like than they are today.

Jane Addams lived from 1865 to 1930 and is recognized as one of the 
earliest and most effective workers for social change in the United 
States. She was also the first American woman to be awarded the Nobel 
Peace Prize. In 1889, she and a friend founded Hull House, one of the 
first American settlement houses. At peak visitation, Hull House helped 
about two thousand people a week—and this was in the late nineteenth and 
early twentieth centuries, a century ago. We’d be happy for our programs 
today to have that much community reach and positive results.

What drove Jane Addams’ work? A belief that, as she said, “The good we 
secure for ourselves is precarious and uncertain until it is secured for 
all of us and incorporated into our common life” (1990). This statement 
demonstrates a wonderful melding of spiritual principles and social 
change in the context of one of America’s earliest, most visionary, and 
most effective helping systems.

But we seem to have lost track of these spiritual roots.

In this newsletter and the previous one, I have described the deep 
trouble facing our nonprofit helping systems, and have shown how our 
problems derive from (1) an emphasis on deficits; (2) a failure to 
address issues of social justice; (3) the ongoing role of racism and 
lack of cultural competence; (4) professional dominance, rather than the 
community, driving the process; and finally (5) competition.

We can’t fix these major issues with efforts that come from a 
mechanistic, efficiency-oriented approach. We are not making matters 
better by applying business principles to the nonprofit sector. Because 
of the attention we are paying to efficiency and business management, 
arguments in favor of a greater focus on social justice and social 
change seem to fall on deaf ears.

Albert Einstein pinpointed the problem we’re facing: “We can't solve 
problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.”

Although business tools can be helpful adjuncts to our work, when 
applied without wisdom they can kill the heart of our efforts. The focus 
on the bottom line, billable hours, and other “deliverables” has helped 
create the problems that we face. So my proposal to bring a spiritual 
perspective to these problems reflects an attempt to step outside the 
boxes we’ve nailed ourselves into and to find a perspective that can 
give us renewed inspiration, hope, and direction.

Spiritual principles can guide us in all the work we do. They can help 
us understand the shortcomings of our present community systems and they 
can support us as we work with the community to design better ways to 
proceed. Spiritual principles can help us and our communities move 
toward sharing abundance, honoring the natural environment, promoting 
social justice and compassion, and operating from a stance of 
collaboration rather than competition. A spiritual grounding lets us use 
loving compassion as a guide for our decision-making. It helps us honor 
every member of our community as a valuable asset and appreciated resource.

I have always thought about our work in building healthy communities 
through collaboration as a spiritual endeavor. The answers to the 
biggest problems in our helping systems can be found most easily when 
each of us remembers, and works from, our highest spiritual essence.

Many of us who work in the helping nonprofit sector do so for spiritual 
purposes, although we can define these for ourselves in very different 
ways. Here’s Kaiser again: “Spirituality refers to a broad set of 
principles that transcend all religions. Spirituality is about the 
relationship between ourselves and something larger. That something can 
be the good of the community or the people who are served by your agency 
or school or with energies greater than ourselves” (2005). As one worker 
once said to me, “I do this work to connect to a larger purpose in my 
life and in the world.”

Interestingly, and ironically, we see many books currently being written 
about spirituality and business. They talk about how to draw on the 
spiritual aspects of people working in the world of business. The goal 
of these spiritual programs is to help workers feel more fulfilled, to 
help companies achieve their objectives, and even to change the 
companies’ objectives so that they are more “spiritual.”

Where are the equivalent books in the helping sector? Today’s helping 
industry does not generally draw out, or even acknowledge, the spiritual 
qualities of the good people who work in it. Although the business 
community is turning in this direction to find positive change, the 
nonprofit helping sector is ignoring it.

I suggest that spiritual principles such as compassion, interdependence, 
appreciation, and deep acceptance—by themselves and combined—may offer 
us a fresh perspective in looking at, and solving, the issues we face. 
The advantage of basing our responses to problems on spiritual 
principles is not that this approach yields easy solutions. What it does 
do is set a clear direction and intentionality for the solutions we will 
devise.

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It’s profound, and it’s not easy . . . but it’s also within our reach

Below is a summary of the six critical issues facing our helping systems 
and the new directions suggested by the application of specific 
spiritual principles that I’ve selected to help my own thought processes:

1. We have overemphasized the deficits in our communities: – appreciation.
2. We have lost social change and social justice as our goal: 
interdependence and interconnection.
3. Our nation continues to be dominated by racism and our helping 
systems are characterized by a lack of cultural competence: acceptance.
4. Our helping systems suffer from professional dominance. Our 
communities are not driving the process of fixing their own problems: 
compassion.
5. The dominance of professionals has also led to another harmful aspect 
of our helping system: competition: interdependence, appreciation, 
acceptance, and compassion.

There is nothing rigid about the matching of particular principles to 
the issues. I welcome readers’ ideas on how we can apply spiritual 
principles to fixing the broken system. The big goal is to see how we 
can work together to enhance our capacity to create systems change.

My work and that of many communities and colleagues around the globe, on 
numerous issues, convinces me that collaboration based on spiritual 
principles is a powerful force. It’s not easy, but it’s much easier and 
so much more rewarding than staying stuck. What we need now is 
additional clear guidance about how to go about the collaborative 
process in a way that leads to successful community change. The 
challenge is to translate these ideas into real action in communities. 
The challenge is to make a difference.

The responses from my readers to the last newsletter (selections are 
included below and full responses can be found in the guestbook - LINK) 
provide some direction to what comes next.

1. We need to find examples of best practices of the translation of 
spiritual principles into community action.

A very moving communication from Louise Brady, an Alaska Native from 
Sitka, describes a perfect illustration. Her community responded to the 
tragedies of drug overdoses with a community totem-pole carving. The 
group also recorded its process, so the rest of us can honor and learn 
from this community’s work together. Louise Brady says, “I co-produced a 
film called Carved from the Heart: A Portrait of Grief Healing and 
Community. The reason I was so drawn to the project is exactly what you 
talk about in your article. . . . [T]he carving of a traditional totem 
pole by a man who had lost his son to a drug overdose became the 
catalyst for the entire community and others from around Southeast 
Alaska to come together and understand the importance of reaching out.” 
“http://www.ssd.k12.ak.us/PHS/pages/mainpage.html
Sophia Wesolowski from California offers a link to conversations on 
“Celebrating Human Greatness” (http://humangreatness.org/), where 
participants “imagine approaching their community from a place of deep 
appreciation of its strengths, assets, and even its shortcomings.” This 
shows the use of the Appreciative Inquiry methodology as another best 
practice.
2. We need to find models and trainings that will inspire us, and show 
us how, to bring spirituality to our work.

Terri Foster from Connecticut describes the transformative experience of 
attending a training at the University of Rhode Island 
(www.uri.edu/nonviolence/about.html). The training is based on Dr. 
Martin Luther King’s Six Principles of Nonviolence 
(http://www.thekingcenter.org/prog/non/6principles.html ).
Mary Jacksteit writes of working from a model that expresses her 
spiritual values through her work with the Public Conversations Project 
( http://www.publicconversations.org ).
3. We need to ask the tough questions that arise.

Dick Sclove says this so well when he writes, “I have a sense that 
actually integrating spirituality into worldly affairs somehow requires 
something deeper of us. I can't articulate this well, because I don't 
yet really know what I mean. I guess it's something to do with the fact 
that merely advocating for incorporation of principles like appreciation 
and interconnectedness isn't going far enough. As articulated, these are 
ideas, and to function in tune with spirit is not primarily a matter of 
ideas. It's somehow a matter of learning to integrate a less egoic mode 
of being into our daily activities.

“I'm guessing that at some point effective social action that 
incorporates spirituality must somehow call upon or encourage all 
participants to stretch themselves spiritually, to strive to act from 
our higher selves, impulses and intuitions, and to engage in social 
action in a way that cultivates deeper spiritual growth for ourselves 
and for those with whom we interact. Spiritual growth often demands that 
we each reach beyond our comfort zones (of course, effective social 
action demands the same thing); it also doesn't always come easy. 
Discipline and effort—as opposed to easy New Age-y self-indulgence—are 
often part of the mix.

Great moral-spiritual leaders—the M. L. Kings, Gandhis, and 
Mandelas—often are great precisely because they speak and act with a 
passion, moral and spiritual force, and clarity that summons others to 
rise to a higher level of spiritual efficacy.” (Richard at Sclove.org)

Cat Janson poses another provocative question: “You may want to ask for 
responses from those who work in non-faith-based agencies, about how 
they balance faith and not being able to share or ask about faith. I 
work with teens through the Department of Corrections as well as a 
faith-based neighborhood center. In my role with the DOC, I am not 
allowed to share or talk about faith unless the family or teen bring it 
up. Even then I must stay neutral.”
4. Finally, we will all want to continue to read and find new direction 
from a wide range of sources.
One reader pointed me to an interview with Andrew Harvey. The topic is 
“sacred activism.” Called “The Ordinary Decency of the Heart, an 
abbreviated version can be found online ( 
www.thesunmagazine.org/issues/389/the_ordinary_decency_of_the_heart ). 
Here are some quotes: “What’s required now is inspired, radical action 
on every level. . . . The great revolution that has to happen for the 
world to be saved will be organized through networks of grace. Look at 
South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, a court in which 
victims of apartheid could give testimony and perpetrators of violence 
could request immunity. . . . .Sacred activism is the fusion of the 
mystic’s passion for God with the activist’s passion for justice, 
creating a third fire, which is the burning sacred heart that longs to 
help, preserve, and nurture every living thing.”

I welcome your responses to all of these thoughts on spirituality and 
social change. Click here to make a Guestbook entry.

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What is new at Tom Wolff & Associates?

Tom Wolff & Associates will be offering new programs in the area of 
Social Change and Spirituality. Contact us for information on trainings, 
retreats, workshops, salon/discussions for your local, state or national 
organization.

Specific topics include:

* Social Change and Spirituality,
* Moving from Social Service to Social Justice
* Two-Day Workshop

In addition to the long-standing half-day and day-long workshops, Tom 
Wolff & Associates now offers a new two-day workshop on 
coalition-building and collaborative solutions. A perfect offering for 
your statewide or national organization. Contact us today: tom at tomwolff.com.

The goals of the workshop are to increase the skills and understanding 
by the participants of the collaborative process with an emphasis on 
concrete skills and tools. There is a lively mix of didactic material, 
exercises, and full-scale coalition simulation. The workshop can be 
adapted for experienced coalition leaders to help expand and strengthen 
their skills, or for newcomers, or for both. Topics covered include: 
Engaging the Community, Principles of Collaborative Solutions, Strategic 
Planning, Creating a Common Coalition Vision, Collaborative Leadership, 
Sustainability, and Evaluation. Participants leave with new energy for 
the work and new skills and tools.

For full sample agenda as developed for an audience in Lisbon, Portugal 
go to link http://tomwolff.com/two-day-workshop.html:

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References:

Addams, Jane. Twenty Years at Hull House Urbana and Chicago: University 
of Illinois Press, 1990

Boston Public Health Commission "Creating a Health Equity Coalition: 
Lessons from Boston REACH 2010." Manuscript in progress 2008

Boston Public Health Commission Mayor’s Task Force Blueprint: A Plan to 
Eliminate Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Health 
(http://www.bphc.org/director/disp_blueprint.asp) 2005

Gill, Penny. Manuscript channeled from a teacher who names himself 
Manjushri. 2008
Himmelman, Arthur “On Coalitions and the Transformation of Power 
Relations: Collaborative Betterment and Collaborative Empowerment” 
American Journal of Community Psychology 29, no.2, 277-284, 2001

Jones, Camara Phyllis, “Levels of Racism a Theoretic Framework and a 
Gardener’s Tale”, American Journal of Public Health , 90 no8, 1212-1215 2000

Kaiser, Leland “Spirituality and the Physician Executive: Reconciling 
the Inner Self and the Business of Health Care.” The Physician Executive 
26, no. 2 (March/April 2000). 
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0843/is_2_26/ai_102342512 .

Kaiser, Leland 2005 Interview .EXPLORE: The Journal of Science and 
Healing, Volume 1, Issue 4, 241 – 241

Kraft, K. Engaged Buddhist Reader Ed. Arnold Kotler, Berkeley, Parallax 
Press; 1996 p64-69

Nelson, Alan in Unequal Treatment: Confronting Racial and Ethnic 
Disparities in Health Care Ed.Brian D.Smedley, Adrienne Y. Stith, and 
Alan R. Nelson, National Academies Press 2003

Tadd, Ellen Notes from meditation classes with Ellen Tadd and her guides 
(www.ellentadd.com) 1995-2008.

Williams, David and Collins, Chiquita “Racial Residential Segregation: A 
Fundamental Cause of Racial Disparities in Health” Public Health Reports 
Sept-October 2001 Vol. 116 p 404-416

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