Collaborative Solutions: a Newsletter from Tom Wolff and Associates

[Discussion list for COMM-ORG]

[ed:  Cheryl responds to Tom's post]

From: "Cheryl Honey, Community Weaver" <wecare at familynetwork.org>


Have you heard of the compilation of articles in the book "The 
Revolution Will Not Be Funded"... Check out Paul Kivel's article online:

http://paulkivel.com/articles/socialserviceorsocialchange.pdf

John McKnight's book "The Careless Society: Community and it's 
counterfeits" enlightened me on this conflict of social services vs 
social change.

Good luck on your search...the eternal Community Weaver (social change 
transformer)

Cheryl Honey

Cheryl Honey, C.P.P.
Family Support Network, Int'l
(206) 240-2241
www.familynetwork.org
www.communityweaving.org

"The more resourceful we are among ourselves, the more valuable a 
resource we become to our families, our communities and our world."

Discussion list for COMM-ORG wrote:
> --------
> This is a COMM-ORG 'colist' message.
> All replies to this message come to COMM-ORG only.
> --------
>  
> 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.”
>
> Page Top
> 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:
> Page Top
> 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.
> Page Top
> 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)
>
> Page Top
> 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?
>
> Page Top
> 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.
>
> Page Top
> 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.
>
> Page Top
> 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.’”
>
> Page Top
> 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.
>
> Page Top
> 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.
>
> Page Top
> 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.
>
> Page Top
> 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:
>
> Page Top
> 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
>
> Page Top
>
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