Life before COVID was hurried; overcrowded with overwork, overeating, overscheduling, overthinking… “over” just about everything for a great many people. Perhaps in this great collective pause, we have a moment without those distractions to think about what it would mean to build the kind of “normal” that was worth returning to.
Divorce Your Ego: The Heartivist Response to Racism
What would it mean if we could express our hearts for service in the most authentic way possible? If we could hear truths about our world and heritage without it undermining our self-efficacy? If when we looked at others, we saw a reflection of ourselves?
Theory of Change #2: Capacity, Relationship & Collaboration
It is difficult to stand alone and blaze a trail, the destination to which seems only immediately clear to you. It is far easier to stand in community, toward a shared dream of acting with courage toward a kinder, more compassionate world.
Theory of Change #1: The Power of the Individual
The Pollination Project exists out of this belief in the power and beauty of individuals. Every day, our community chooses an individual whose passion project we collectively uplift with seed funding, capacity-building support, and connectivity.
Heartivism: How to Care Without Being Angry
Heartivism is the intersection of activism and heart, where inner transformation creates the causes and conditions for societal change.
Foundation Giving, or “The Human Anthill”
Ants can assemble themselves into living bridges or rafts to escape a flood. Although they are small, they accomplish a lot by focusing on different things and dividing jobs within the colony. But who decides what job each ant does? Who organizes foraging, or mobilizes defense against predators? Who is in charge? In short, nobody.
Flowing it Forward
To understand flow funding, it first helps to know who makes our funding decisions. Each application we receive is reviewed by at least three “advisors,” which is our term for members of our participatory grantmaking team. The majority of these 100+ volunteers are changemakers whose own work was funded by The Pollination Project in the past.
Animal Welfare in the time of COVID-19
This time of global crisis has led us all to recognize our interconnectedness. However, many are still failing to realize our deep connection to animals.
On being essential, and being “other”
What does it mean to be “essential”? Two weeks before he was assassinated, Dr. Martin Luther King...
Transformational Trust
It was a Monday in early March when I met with Lauren, James, and Carolyn on our executive team. We were starting to see the writing on the wall: COVID-19 was going to fundamentally change the world, to a greater extent than we could have ever imagined. It didn’t make sense to continue “business as usual.” In that meeting, we made a decision: we would pivot all of our focus to supporting frontline grassroots volunteers fighting COVID-19. We never looked back.
First Responders in the Pollination Nation
When you think of first responders, who comes to mind? I would wager that you are picturing lights, sirens, and official vehicles. In the case of disaster relief, you might think of FEMA or the national guard.
I bet you didn’t think about the Cajun Navy.
In the time of COVID-19, who gets to change the world?
In the time of COVID-19, who gets to change the world? In the last two weeks, my team has fielded...