I’ve been a community organizer for most of my life. I only began to understand what I could be doing after hearing John McKnight speak about Asset Based Community Development. (ABCD) This led to a lifelong friendship with John and … Read More
Search Results for Caring
Loving Strangers – A Vital Source of Social Innovation
65,000 Vietnamese boat people were welcomed to Canada in 1979. More than half of them were privately sponsored by community groups.In fact, so strong was the outpouring of caring that the Canadian government had to invent a system for private … Read More
The Journey to Transformation Starts with a Resurrection of the Ordinary
There is a great deal of caring, conserving, creating, innovating, entrepreneuring, protecting, advocating for all life on earth (human, plant and animal) that is done by so-called ordinary people. A quick scan of my friends and neighbours reveals C. who … Read More
A Robust Society is a Feminist Society
Feminist as in women and men making the world a better place together. As in honouring all life. As in being able to do more than one thing at the same time such as taking care of our children, families, … Read More
When Einstein’s Scared I’m Scared
That line from the anti-nuclear bomb folksong “Atomic Talking Blues” has been swirling around my brain since the release of recommendations by the joint Parliamentary Committee on physician-assisted dying. The song refers to Einstein’s sober conclusion that we are not … Read More
A New Media Cocktail – 10 Alternatives to Mainstream Media
I severed my connections to mainstream media because: It does not cover the indispensable and abundant happenings of civil society. Civil society is where problem-solving to make the world a better place takes place every day, everywhere and by just … Read More
Happy Without Heroes?
It’s sad but perhaps fitting that few Canadians know of Women’s Institute. Even fewer remember Adelaide Hoodless who got it started. Sad because not too long ago Women’s Institute was selected as one of the top ten social innovations in … Read More
Top Ten New Brunswick & Nova Scotia Social Innovations
My soul is Maritime infused. My earliest memory is of tap dancing as a toddler to Don Messer’s Jubilee on the radio. My Mother was a Prince Edward Islander. I cut my community and political organizing teeth in Halifax. Scents, … Read More
Peace Is Our Time
Canada is a country with deep peacemaking roots. We were welcomed in peace by First Nations and aboriginal people, although we seriously betrayed their hospitality and trust. Many of the early French explorers were humanists who sought a land where … Read More
Wanted: Social Entrepreneur Book Publisher
It’s been a busy book-publishing year for me. My new book, Impact: Six Patterns to Spread Your Social Innovation was published in April. In addition, two expanded versions of my first book, Safe and Secure were published – one in British … Read More