Community = relationships
Easy to forget. And yet the essence of all community weaving work.
Here is the most important thing about communities that I keep forgetting:
Community = relationships
Community isn’t structure. Community isn’t having a plan or a roadmap. Community isn’t the gatherings we organize to come together. Community certainly isn’t a social network or any other technology we use to connect. Community isn’t a shared vision, mission or agreements. Those are all tools that can enable or hinder a community. But they aren’t community in themselves. And they don’t create community by themselves.
Community = relationships
When we forget this truth, we invest energy and resources in the wrong ways. We invest it into tools, platforms, strategies, large, expensive and performative convenings, governance agreements, budgets, research, websites, social networks, mobile apps… We go through lengthy processes to develop “clarity”. We develop programs and activities and then encourage people to join them. We start treating community members like consumers that we need to cater to.
Community = relationships
Relationships are the energetic core of communities. They are the glue. They are the reason people keep showing up. They are the biggest (and yet ironically the most intangible) value that communities create. Relationships are the community’s soul and source of life. Without relationships, the community is an empty shell.
Community = relationships
Remembering this often makes me reprioritize. It makes me ask different questions. It invites me to use my intuition and other senses than just my mind. It grounds me in the things that actually matter in community: care, trust, wellbeing, belonging, safety, reciprocity, healing… The appropriate next step — more often than not — lies in conversation and listening to another person. One relationship at a time.
Community = relationships
Even though I so believe in the powerful possibility of relationships, and work in service of it every day, I keep forgetting this essence. The context we live in defines us so much. In the early 21st century there is a well-established playbook on how to get things done. You set objectives, you develop strategies and you deploy resources towards it. You’re focused on outcomes. The community playbook is fundamentally different.
This is also reflected in the dehumanized language we use around this work. “Networks”, “connections”, “impact” or “systems”. It sounds like we’re talking about abstract concepts and machines. But really we’re talking about human beings and their relationships. Katherine Milligan, Juanita Zerda & John Kania put it beautifully: “Sometimes we lose sight of a simple truth about systems: They are made up of people…. Relationships are the essence and fabric of collective impact.” (SSIR).
Systems = relationships
Networks = relationships
Community = relationships
What do you think?
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Related posts
- Relationships before structure — an obvious lesson we keep forgetting?
- People join communities for reason x, but they keep coming back for relationships
- Gathering ≠ Community
Thank you to the people who help me see this essence
This has been at the heart of our shared conversations at the forthcoming Community Weaving Project, thank you to my colleagues Erin Dixon, Sita Magnuson and Michel Bachmann. A special thanks to Erin Dixon who has strengthened this perspective in me over the past few years and opened my horizon to think about the deeper web of life we’re all part of. And thank you to Sandra Ortiz Diaz who has been living and breathing this ever since I met her.
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