Collective Care
Gather. Listen. Invite. Make plans. Support. Feed. Fuel. Love. Don't wait for permission.
As we step into this new year, I'm noticing something powerful emerging from the turmoil around us. While institutions of all sizes—philanthropic organizations, small businesses, non-profits—retreat into cautious silence, afraid that speaking up might trigger more funding cuts, a different kind of organizing is taking root, not waiting for official permission or institutional backing. Enter collective care.
We can't rely on traditional institutions to convene us right now. We need to convene ourselves. This is the moment to dust off those informal email lists. To reinvigorate the invisible networks where money was never the convener. Remember that WhatsApp group you started two years ago? That book club that meets sporadically. The parent group at school. The work network you tried to start but never got funding to make official. These connections aren't just nice-to-haves—they're lifelines. They're the infrastructure of care that holds us and encourages us to lead with integrity, think clearly, and navigate brittle times.
The magic happens when we gather, talk, make each other tea, feed each other, send the kids upstairs to play together, share perspectives, and offer help. A couple of sessions of these conversations lead to strategy. A couple more, and we can connect groups to create bigger movements. Not all gatherings are created equal. To make our time together truly generative and emergent, we need intentional framing. Here are some approaches that have sparked meaningful conversations in recent community gatherings I have been a part of.
Three Essential Questions
What are you seeing?
What are you sensing?
What do you need help with?
These questions reveal both individual experiences and collective patterns. They show what people value most and how current events are impacting different people in different ways.
The "Top 3" Exploration
Similarly, "What are the top 3 things keeping you awake at night?" work the same. The diversity of answers is illuminating—it reveals both shared concerns and the unique ways this moment is landing for each person.
So What, Now What
For more action-oriented gatherings, use this progression:
What is happening? (observation)
So what—what does this mean for us? (analysis)
Now what—what are we going to do about this? (action)
Those friendships, networks, and connections of care and support that we sometimes dismiss as "soft and fuzzy"? They're revealing themselves to be the infrastructure that keeps us sane, thinking clearly, and able to act with courage. We're living in times where secrecy might be better than publicity, where informal might be more powerful than official, where care might be more strategic than strategy itself. The invitation is simple: Don't wait for permission. Gather the people. Create the space. Ask the questions. Share the food. Build the relationships that will carry us through whatever comes next.
The revolution might just look like a dinner party. The resistance might just look like showing up for each other. And the strategy might just be love, practiced collectively, with intention and without apology.
