Underlying Assumptions
We are losing and we know it. We’re losing what we love most: our wild places and wildlife; clean air and water; safe futures for our children. While great progress has been made on key issues of equality and equity, for almost 30 years we’ve been backsliding and forced to settle for half measures that at best are band-aids for what ails civil society and threatens our future on this planet.
Some now believe that what is needed is a sea change: a profound transformation of civil society that will allow us to meet the challenge of creating a way of living on the planet and with each other that is not compromised by short-sighted, unsustainable decisions.
While many people are working on strategies for reframing the debate and devising new strategies for implementing our agenda, I am interested in examining the structures of the organizations that will support these efforts. To that end, I want to create some vibrant, constructive, and if necessary challenging dialogue around 12 questions that I hope will help us dramatically remodel civil society so we are fit to meet the challenges we face. I need your help. Review the questions below, and then send me your comments. Later I’ll invite broader comment via an online feedback tool, as well as good old fashioned face to face conversations. I believe that getting the questions right is the first step to answering and implementing them.
My intent is to use the dialogue around these questions, and the answers that emerge as the basis for my work over the next five years. That may take the form of articles for magazines or a book, and it may become the basis for some professional contracts with organizations that I believe have the power and vision to advance these ideas.
Some of these questions are specific to Canada, but I believe that they are all appropriate for our work across North America.
The Questions
- What does a Sea Change mean? What is your initial response to the idea of a sea change? What does creating a sea change mean to you?
- Being the Change: Before we can implement a sea change in how we advocate and organize within civil society, we must first become that sea change. What changes do we need to make in how we work, live, and relate with one another before we can be effective agents of change in society? Can we expect a profound transformation in our culture and our ability to effect society if we don’t first undertake that profound change ourselves?
- A New Type of Organization: To overcome our opposition and meet the challenges we face today, and those we will face tomorrow in protecting the environment and advocating for a civil society, we need to become not 10 times, but 100 times, more effective. What types of organizations are needed to face these challenges? What are their form and function? What qualities are needed to be capable of addressing the tasks we are faced with? Can our existing organization’s change to meet these demands, or must we create something new all-together?
- Lasting Leadership: What kind of leadership is needed to guide these organizations? How do we find, nurture, and sustain these leaders?
- Communication skills: According to George Lakoff, knowing values and framing the debate have been key to the success of the neo-conservative movement in the United States. We need to do this much better than they have. What communication skills are required to first articulate our values and then frame the debate? How do we build those skills into everything we do? How do we encourage organizations to embrace these communication skills, and use them consistently not just for the short term, but for the long haul -- for 20, 30, or 40 years?
- Scale: To build organizations that are 100 times more effective, and that last for 40 years we must find the appropriate scale for our efforts. Does being 100 times more effective necessarily mean that we must become 100 times bigger? What scale of movement is required to achieve our goals, and how do we stay nimble while building long term vibrancy in our efforts?
- Funding for organizations: Finding funding for our efforts is the single greatest challenge to organizational sustainability. While our goal might be to develop a movement that can sustain itself for 40 years, our funding must often be found one, two, three, or at best, five years at a time. How can non-governmental organizations become more entrepreneurial in their fundraising efforts and diversify their funding sources so that foundations play a more long term strategic, rather than short term tactical role in our success. How can foundations help them become less dependent on foundation funding, and more resilient in their approach to raising money?
- Influencing decision makers: Our power in Washington and Ottawa, in the state, provincial, and territorial capitals, hasn’t increased in the last decade. In fact, it’s decreased. To advance our policy initiatives we need to build and reinforce our influence with decision makers. How do we do this while also building the grassroots organizing support needed to complement these efforts?
- Collective voice: For civil society to advance its various mandates amoung the broader public, and with decision makers in both business and government, we must first learn to find a common cause: to find our collective voice. How do we break through the silo mentality that isolates various sectors of civil society in order to advance our broader common mandate for a progressive society?
- Role of ethical business: Some businesses are embracing corporate social responsibility as part of a triple bottom line approach to commerce. What role can these businesses play in the effort for a sea change in society?
- Role of public institutions: What roles do publicly funded organization’s play in implementing a sea change? Do teachers, health care professionals, civil servants and others have roll to play in reshaping the NGO world, and our society? If so, what is it?
- We can’t do it all at once: how do we determine our priorities in approaching this sea change? What would your top priorities be?
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