type here...

Friends & Neighbors

Friends & Neighbors

Belonging: A 21st Century Challenge

Al Etmanski -
  Author’s Note: Here is an excerpt from a breakfast presentation sponsored by Metro Vancouver.  I had the pleasure of co-presenting with Catherine Clement and Lidia Kemeny, two leading philanthropists with the Vancouver Foundation. Illustration courtesy my talented Australian friend Paul Pholeros.                         I...
Friends & Neighbors

7 Ways to Have More by Owning Less

Maria Popova -
Stuff. We all accumulate it and eventually form all kinds of emotional attachments to it. (Arguably, because the marketing machine of the 20th century has conditioned us to do so.) But digital platforms and cloud-based tools are making it increasingly...
Friends & Neighbors

Communities on the Move

Laura Fulton -
Laments about being stuck on cars, trains, buses and airplanes are commonplace. It’s easy to complain about being stuck in transit. This post, I want to turn this around and instead look at how commuter experiences can be transformative...
Friends & Neighbors

HoodRoving in G-Park: Chocolate, Radio, Tango, Change

April Doner -
This is an excerpt from April's piece that ran in This Week in Sarasota on June 25, 2012. For the complete story plus lots more photos and links to videoclips, sources and related material, go to http://www.thisweekinsarasota.com/hoodroving-in-g-park-chocolate-radio-tango-change   We hear week-in and week-out...
Friends & Neighbors

It’s the Community, Stupid!

Ron Dwyer-Voss -
The presidential race in 2012 is increasing attention and interest in local economies and small business.  So far the debate has focused on perceived economic drivers such as tax incentives and an educated workforce.  These have their place, but...
Friends & Neighbors

10 Ways to Create Community Where You Live

Ross Chapin -
Community is not just for extroverts. For thousands of years, our ancestors lived in barrios, hamlets, neighborhoods, and villages. Yet in the time since our parents and grandparents were young, privacy has become so valued that many neighborhoods are not...
Friends & Neighbors

Restoring Lives: Now That’s Justice

Patrice Gaines -
It was the summer of 2009. I was on my second day of work for the U.S. Census Bureau, knocking on doors in rural South Carolina. My cell phone rang. It was my supervisor. “Patrice, headquarters called me and told me...
Friends & Neighbors

Time Banking: An Idea Whose Time Has Come

Edgar Cahn -
  An event sponsored by a time bank in Lathrup Village, Michigan. Photo courtesy of Michigan Municipal League   Ten years ago, Susan Dentzler of NPR was retained by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to investigate whether time banking (a system that lets people swap...
Friends & Neighbors

Join Us for Connecting4Community in Cincinnati in May

Louise van Rhyn -
On May 3 and 4, community and organizational leaders from all over the world will gather in Cincinnati, Ohio for the inaugural Connecting4Community gathering. The purpose of the event is to gather together people who have been inspired by Peter Block...
Friends & Neighbors

Vollmer’s List: The Increasing Burden Placed on America’s Public Schools

Jamie Vollmer -
          From the beginning of my journey through the land of public education, I was shocked by how much we had added to the curriculum since the first schools were established. In order to keep track of the additions, I...
Friends & Neighbors

Breathing Life In by Stepping Away

Laura Fulton -
Sometimes the best way to enhance our communities is to step away from them. ... this can provide a means through which we can refresh our thoughts, gain perspective and return with renewed vision and purpose. The business world has...
Friends & Neighbors

Change the Story to Change the World

Duane Elgin -
The next five to ten years represent an unprecedented break in the human journey. We are between stories, or the guiding narratives, that serve as beacons for our collective future. For example, the "American Dream" that pulled the U.S....
Friends & Neighbors

The Meaning of Citizenship

Abundant Community -
Mike Fraser draws from Peter’s book Community: The Structure of Belonging, Fareed Zakaria’s The Future of Freedom and Mamphela Ramphele’s Laying Ghosts to Rest in his exploration of the meaning of citizenship in South Africa’s Times iLive. Read Fraser's post at http://www.timeslive.co.za/ilive/2012/02/01/the-meaning-of-citizenship-ilive   Related: ...
Friends & Neighbors

When I Grow Up: A Six-Year-Old’s Vision of a Gift Community

Bill Kauth and Zoe Alowan -
Social inventors Bill Kauth and Zoe Alowan work at the forefront of the “Gift” movement, traveling the world learning and teaching the concepts and processes of Gift Community. After one of their seminar tours last year, they received this...
Friends & Neighbors

A Love Letter to My Neighborhood

April Doner -
This is the complete text and selected photos from April's piece that ran in This Week in Sarasota on Valentine's Day. For the complete picture gallery go to http://www.thisweekinsarasota.com/neighborhood-love-letter-dear-gillespie-park/.     Ten Things I Love About You: A Love Letter to Gillespie Park   Dear Gillespie...
Friends & Neighbors

Building Competent Communities: A Matter of Survival in the 21st Century

Jimmy Toyama -
In 2011 I was involved in a year-long conversation with a group of active, insightful, and seasoned community builders. I recently wrote a piece on what I thought I heard and learned in our conversations and want to share...
Friends & Neighbors

Occupying a Different Community Space

John McKnight And Peter Block -
“Health happens in neighborhoods, not doctors’ offices,” says Dr. Richard J. Jackson, professor and chairman of environmental health sciences at the University of California, Los Angeles, in a forthcoming public television series on ways to redesign the built environment...
Friends & Neighbors

The Key to Disaster Survival? Friends and Neighbors

Shankar Vedantam Vedantam -
After political scientist Daniel Aldrich faced Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans he started thinking about how neighbors help one another during disasters. He decided to visit disaster sites around the world, looking for data. From New Orleans to Japan...
Friends & Neighbors

Gambling on Community in Las Vegas, NV

Richard C. Harwood -
I was in Las Vegas where I discovered a community — once on top of the world — fighting to come back in the wake of the Great Recession. What people in Las Vegas are doing offers a vision of...
Friends & Neighbors

About Time

Clare Goff -
Now aged 77, Edgar Cahn – or “Father Time” as he is known – is showing no signs of slowing down.  The US-born inventor of timebanking is at the end of a trip to the UK, during which he...
Load more

Topics

Association449Gifts449Cooperation430Local Economy296Care of People on the Margin275Raising Children257Hospitality246Generosity215Safety205Health203Food195Land/Environment191

Latest News

Latest ThinkingSteve Dubb -

Corporate Capture: Can We Find a Way Out?

This article, published originally by Nonprofit Quarterly, from Nonprofit Quarterly Magazine’s summer 2024 issue, “Escaping Corporate Capture.” The aircraft manufacturer Boeing,...
Abundant Community
Awakening the Power of Families and Neighborhoods

Contact Us

Navigate

Stay Connected

Sign-up for our mailing list and we’ll keep you updated on what we’re doing and learning. We keep your address private and you can unsubscribe anytime.

© 2020 The Abundant Community