Challenge yourself with new perspectives

Thinking About Reconstruction Part 5

Image description: Orange, black and white butterfly on a blurred pink flower. Photo by Daniel Klein on Unsplash.

I’m excited to share some additional resources related to thinking about organizations and social change in new ways. Learning about alternative models makes me hopeful and helps me better understand what more equitable and sustainable organizations might look like. Note that so much of the work is about attending to relationships and building trust along with sharing power.

Ananda Valenzuela “provide supports for leaders to build more equitable, joyful workplaces that fuel our collective liberation.” Read about Cultivating a Liberatory Board and Transitioning from Hierarchy to Distributed Leadership.

Dean Spade “is an organizer, writer, and teacher who…works to build queer and trans liberation based in racial and economic justice.” Challenge your thinking by watching Mutual Aid 101, and read his new book, Love in a F*cked Up World: How to Build Relationships, Hook Up, and Raise Hell Together.

Leadership Learning Community “makes space for convening, play and practice outside of the dominant culture structures and systems. This space (1) centers people of color and those historically excluded from leadership, (2) catalyzes doing just work in just ways, and (3) invites leaders of the social good sector to move towards collective liberation which seeks power, joy, and thriving for all people.” Check out their Liberatory Leadership Framework.

Change Elemental “partners across sectors to disrupt and transform systems of inequity and create powerful vehicles for justice. Combining wisdom and experimentation, experience and reflection, we join with our clients and partners to imagine and co-create transformative approaches to change.” Explore the five Elements of Deep Change.

Nonprofit Quarterly” advances critical conversations that support and develop nonprofit, philanthropy, and social movement policies and practices.” NPQ has evolved considerably from its earlier incarnation and contains a lot of thoughtful and provocative writing about equity-centered leadership.

Please add your own recommendations in the comments.