Revisiting the Social Change Ecosystem

A helpful way to make sense of our role (and each other's role) in social change work

I promise I am busy writing up notes from the three conferences I got to go to this summer—prepare for content on how to talk politics with not political co-workers, what “transformative organizing” models can offer us for our nervous systems in these hard times, and how “culture work” can play a role in our work for justice.

I’ll also be using the last Friday of each month to provide special content for paid subscribers, mostly what I’ve been learning in school (I’ve been doing some really interesting mapping of Heritage Foundation board members and their connections to other nonprofit boards, and I’ve learned fascinating stuff about “collective intelligence” and what structures can foster real democracy…and how well it actually works, according to some fascinating research).

For today, though, I want to re-share a newsletter that you may remember or may have missed when I ran it back in January 2022. The reason I wanted to share this is the following:

I heard an organizer who’s been working with low-income tenants in Los Angeles (some of whom were disappeared during the ICE raids there, leaving behind families and work and community) talk about how to resist the injustices happening in our communities. At the end of his talk, he said something along the lines of “listen; I know how frustrating organizations are. But right now, if you want to take on injustice, you’ve got to connect with a group.” He wasn’t saying it had to be a nonprofit or a political party. But being alone with our thoughts, or letting most of our energy go into being angry about the news, it can be soul damaging and disempowering, and it also doesn’t help the people who are suffering.

That said, what we contribute can look like so many things. Marching in the streets is great, but it’s not an option for everyone, and it’s only one of many, many roles we can take on in making the world a better place. And the organizations we work with are better when they think about how to honor and incorporate all of these roles—it means more room for elders, for parents working outside the home and people whose job is parenting, for people with disabilities, for youth…because all of us have gifts that the movement needs.

So today I want to revisit Deepa Iyer’s amazing social change ecosystem, and I thought you might enjoy encountering it again or for the first time.

And if you’ve been working with a group that you think is a good one for other folks to plug in with, I’d love it if you shared in the comments, and what is great about them. For me, as I’ve mentioned before, now that the dust of my exams has settled, I want to spend more time with Working Families Party to establish a multicultural democracy and elect folks who are focused on the wellbeing of working people. I also serve on the board of Asian Americans for Civil Rights and Equality, an umbrella organization whose member organizations are working with AAPI prisoners, refugees, activists, trans people, and more to provide both services and resistance to unjust laws affecting them and those around them.

Without further ado, Deepa’s Ecosystem!

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OK, I am super proud of today’s newsletter content. It’s the Social Change Ecosystem, created by Deepa Iyer, a longtime justice organizer and strategist, as well as the author of “We Too Sing America.”

• If you work at a social change agency and haven’t done this activity with your staff, I feel genuine excitement that you’re going to get to! One of our staff members at the Oakland Peace Center led us through it, and it took all my energy not to shout out “I KNOW THE PERSON WHO CREATED THIS!!!” We loved doing it and it helped us understand each other and the landscape of our organization better.

• If you DON’T work at a social change agency, I think you’ll love exploring it to get deeper clarity about your own role within your workplace…and maybe you could reflect on what it would feel like to do this activity at a staff meeting, as a way to let people reflect on their roles as changemakers.

• And if you’re on a DEI (Diversity/Equity/Inclusion) or anti-oppression team, your team would deepen connections in beautiful ways using it!

This newsletter is about joy in racial justice, and I think Deepa’s tool is an amazing one.

And since this is my newsletter and I don’t have to behave, I’m just going to shout out: I KNOW THE PERSON WHO CREATED THIS! And what I love is that I learned about it because so many people I know were using this tool and asking if I had heard about it.

I checked in with Deepa, because I know a lot of folks have been misusing it or reappropriating it without offering the context that makes it so rich. She said I could absolutely share it, and that I could also share with you the workbook she created to go with it, so you can do a deeper dive with your team or on your own.

(If you’re into podcasts, there’s also a great episode of Inclusive Life where Deepa explains the Social Change Ecosystem.)

Lastly, Deepa is now doing amazing work with the Building Movement Project, building power in the nonprofit sector to equip organizations for social change.

Mark out some time in your calendar, reflect on your own role, and take a little time to think of the people in your own social change ecosystem who fill out the other parts. Offer up a little gratitude today; we deserve the healing that pausing and being grateful can offer us.

And if you’ve been able to poke around the workbook as well as the graphic, drop me a line and share what you learned about you, your organization, and your community! And feel free to hazard a guess about where you think I fall within the ecosystem.

Grateful we’re in this work together.

Deepa Iyer, Building Movement Project. SM, © 2018 Deepa Iyer. All rights reserved. All prior licenses revoked.