News

Community Resilience And Transitions Ahead: April 2020 Newsletter

Spring is here. With all its vagaries of rain, mud, sunshine, and frost. With all its signs of new life in the red buds on the trees, in the high-pitched chime of spring peepers in the wetlands, in intense shades of green shyly returning to alleyways and roadsides and backyards, we welcome this change in … Continued

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Notes from the Field: What is Home?

by Aja Schmeltz “ECO MEANS HOME: ‘eco’ comes from the greek word oikos, meaning ‘home’” – from Movement Generation’s JustTransition Zine Home. What does that mean to you? Is it a place? Is it an idea? Is it people? Perhaps it is a feeling? I happen to think that home is all four of those … Continued

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Crisis Decisionmaking in a WSDNP

by Susan Grove On Tuesday, March 10, 2020, one of the facilitators of the Developing a Social Equity Practice workshop that GWI had begun planning in August 2019 wrote to raise questions about ask contingency plans, and whether any thought had been given to postponing or canceling the event. Academy Circle members quickly checked in … Continued

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Social Connection and Social Distancing for Community Wellbeing

Dear GWI community, We stand for collective health and well-being. We believe that it is exactly in times such as these that we must band together and support each other, to overcome fear, to protect the vulnerable, and to deepen our commitment to connection, collaboration, creativity, and love.  As a community, we celebrate courage and … Continued

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Notes from the Field

by Caitlin Dourmashkin. Photo by Decora A few months ago, our co-Worker Susan told us about Move Up, Move Up, a less ableist alternative to the Step Up, Step Back framework that encourages people who historically speak the most to step back and create space and for others to step up and share their voice. … Continued

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Roles: Circle to Circle

by Hélène Lesterlin, with Susan Grove At Good Work Institute, we organize our collaborative work into “Circles”. Circles function as sub-groups of the six-member GWI team; each circle is focused on a specific aspect of the organization. We have three organizational circles (Operations, Development and Communications), four program circles (Network, Academy, Alliance, Greenhouse), a Learning … Continued

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Task Management in a Circle

by Micah, with Susan Grove It’s funny the amount of inherent power there can be even in the small things. How ingrained hierarchy is within our systems. Who gets to determine the tasks to be done? Who then has to get them done? And how do these two roles function in relation to each other … Continued

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Leading Through Shared Leadership

The Role of the Steward at GWI By Terri Hall with Caitlin Dourmashkin At GWI, we have done away with roles that place each person on a hierarchical scale of power. There is no one at the top who gets to make all the decisions and no one at the bottom who gets us coffee. … Continued

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What’s in a Title?

by Caitlin Dourmashkin That which we call a Director by any other name would still have meaning. Early on in our transition to a Worker Self-Directed Nonprofit, it became clear that our business cards would have to change. We had an Executive Director, a Greenhouse Director, a Network & Communications Manager, a Director of Operations, … Continued

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Notes from the Field

by Micah Personally, I think I’m good at playing the support role. I have played this role many times as a board member, volunteer, and also as staff. I think I’m good at working for myself. I like the autonomy – no one to answer to except me. But working in circle with others is … Continued

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