Renew Civic Life

How Can Perking Up Your Board Influence Your Community?

by Jim Lord

What can happen if you start in a new place — just for part of one board meeting? Could you get some new oomph into the room? And how might that new perspective ripple outward, influencing your community?

[click to continue…]

A Bold Foundation for Your Work: Appreciative Inquiry

by Jim Lord

Everything you see on this web site is founded on the methods and perspective of appreciative inquiry (even if the term itself is pretty much missing). Get a quick overview of this powerful approach here.

[click to continue…]

Can We Make an End Run Around “Problems”?

by Jim Lord

What will move us forward both quickly and effectively? Do we spend time dissecting and attempting to solve all the problems we can find, or do we lift our gaze to our capabilities and worth — as seen in our best moments — so we can go straight to a higher level?

[click to continue…]

What is Appreciative Inquiry?

by Jim Lord

AI asks us to pay special attention to “the best of the past and present” — in order to “ignite the collective imagination of what might be.” It’s an exciting way to take human enterprise to its next level, and to inspire people, for the benefit of us all.

[click to continue…]

Deepening Engagement in Civic Life

by Jim Lord

Civic life is almost always problem-focused. Whether the talk is of potholes or poverty, it’s almost always about the community’s deficits. And political campaigns are notoriously negative, with candidates eager to attack and blame their opponents. What might civic life look like if a different kind of dialogue were taking place?

[click to continue…]

What Can Street Children Teach Us?

by Jim Lord

When circumstances seem daunting, where can you look for resources and vitality? Here’s what I learned from street children in Africa.

[click to continue…]

Can coffee shops upstage the “tea parties”? (Part 2)

by Jim Lord

As promised, here’s some of the back-story about how folks in North Central Washington are reclaiming the civic stage — and countering what Rufus Woods called “the social, political and economic malaise that infects our country.” One of the instigators of this positive revolution, Nancy Warner, told me how they got themselves organized — without a lot of hoopla — at the local coffee house.

[click to continue…]

Can coffee shops upstage the “tea parties”? (Part 1)

by Jim Lord

Rufus Woods, editor and publisher of The Wenatchee World, recently wrote in his newspaper about an auspicious day in his community. But first, Rufus was on a rant.

[click to continue…]

From Victims to Leaders

by Jim Lord

How students from Jonesboro and Columbine showed, in an especially poignant way, what can happen when we interrupt the discourse of despair and draw attention to life and hope.

[click to continue…]

What is Your Work Really About?

by Jim Lord

Imagine this scene: A researcher watches as a five-year-old girl draws a picture of her extended family. The girl grabs bright-colored crayons and carefully draws her smiling parents, brother, and sister in the middle of the paper. Then she reaches for dark gray to sketch her grandparents, smaller and off to the side.

[click to continue…]

← Previous Entries

Image source