Our Worldview

It’s encouraging to see more individuals and communities recognize the negative effects of the pursuit of power, wealth, and status on society — and take action to create a more compassionate and fair society. Change in every social sector is necessary and can reinforce each other to create a virtuous upward spiral of positive change.

Furthermore, it’s essential for political organizations, unions, social services, mental health organizations, schools, and religious institutions to support their members and clients in engaging in political action and providing mutual support for self-development. Solid, harmonious partnerships within families can also contribute to creating a more compassionate and fair society.

Religious and spiritual individuals can join forces with those who do not identify in this way to promote holistic and systemic transformation. Addressing both the individual and the larger societal systems can help achieve this mission.

By working together, we can grow a new broad, united, democratic grassroots movement that fundamentally reforms our self-perpetuating social system. This mission is vital to creating a society that values compassion, fairness, and equality for all.

 Embrace Core Values

These principles represent a powerful set of values for promoting positive change in the world. By advancing justice and compassion, we can work towards a more equitable and fair society. Improving ourselves and supporting each other allows us to create a stronger community and build resilience in the face of challenges. Undoing oppressive social conditioning is essential to overcoming systemic barriers that prevent people from reaching their full potential.

Respecting those who engage in spiritual growth recognizes the importance of diverse worldviews and fosters a sense of unity and understanding. Acknowledging each person’s equal worth ensures that everyone is treated with dignity and respect, regardless of their background or circumstances. Setting aside the desire to dominate for personal gain promotes collaboration and cooperation, and cultivating bottom-up hierarchies empowers people at all levels of society to participate in decision-making processes.

Nurturing relational equality and co-equal partnerships throughout society recognizes the importance of strong relationships and encourages mutual respect and cooperation. Supporting grassroots, broad-based, unified, independent, activist campaigns empowers people to make positive changes in their communities and work towards a better future.

Ensuring that everyone can meet their basic needs, participate fully in society, and fulfill their potential promotes a more just and equitable world while opposing discrimination based on identity helps to eliminate harmful biases and prejudices. Finally, creating new structures to solidify these improvements helps to ensure that the progress we make is sustainable and lasting.

Form Small Teams

Encouraging the formation of small teams that promote shared values and endorse an agreed-on mission statement is key. As envisioned here, this can be an effective way to create a community of individuals who are passionate about making a positive impact and help to build the new movement.

Informal teams are a great way to start building a community of like-minded individuals. These teams can form from existing relationships with friends, relatives, colleagues, or group memberships. They provide a supportive environment for individuals to share ideas and collaborate on projects that align with their shared values.

Formal teams are more structured and involve regular meetings. We recommend incorporating a moment of silence and a “holistic check-in” during which members report on their recent personal, social, and political activities. This helps to foster a sense of community and encourages members to share not only their professional activities but also their personal and social experiences.

Affiliated teams are organizations that help to amplify the movement’s work and create a broader network of individuals working towards a common goal. In this way, they are even more powerful as they promote shared values and a mission beyond their immediate community. 

Overall, these teams are learning communities that facilitate peer learning, self-reform, collaborative teamwork, political action, and mutual support. By encouraging members to become better listeners and speak honestly, and practice what they preach, they create a culture of accountability and authenticity. This pushes institutions to serve the public interest and make a positive impact on society.

Support Pragmatic Idealism

Pragmatic idealism recognizes the importance of both realism and vision in achieving meaningful change in the world. While idealism provides the goals and inspiration for a better world, pragmatism helps to ground those ideals in reality and make them achievable through incremental steps.

This philosophy recognizes that achieving meaningful change requires both the courage to dream big and the patience to take practical steps toward those dreams. It also acknowledges that the needs of all human beings must be given equal attention, and that love and solidarity are essential ingredients in the struggle for justice.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. articulated in his Six Steps for Nonviolent Social Change, guidance for how to conduct incremental nonviolent campaigns that build momentum with victories, aim for reconciliation, and cultivate the Beloved Community with other-centered solidarity.

The principles of pragmatic idealism can be a valuable guide for individuals and organizations seeking to make a positive impact on the world. By combining visionary idealism with practical pragmatism, we can create a more just, equitable, and sustainable future for all.

Cultivate Collaborative Leadership

Cooperation is essential for building strong relationships, whether at the personal, interpersonal, or political level. It involves working together towards common goals while respecting each other's needs, views, and perspectives. To cultivate cooperation, it is crucial to adopt a nonviolent approach that promotes reconciliation, empathy, and mutual respect. Collaborative leadership is an important aspect of cooperation. 

At the organizational level, effective leadership can play a vital role in fostering cooperation and collaboration. The governing board can adopt written policies to guide the staff and delegate responsibility to the staff without micromanaging. The staff can form democratic teams that engage in collaborative problem-solving together — within the organization’s framework.

Teams should be encouraged to seek unanimous consensus, but also have processes in place to allow for a super-majority when necessary. The team leader can retain the authority to make the final decision when necessary, but everyone should be encouraged to exercise leadership by voicing their opinions and contributing to the team's work.

Designated leaders should create an environment where everyone's voice is heard, and decision-making is a collective effort. This can be achieved by adopting democratic, bottom-up hierarchies that empower workers and members to hold their supervisors and leaders accountable, as can happen with unions. 

Cultivating cooperation requires a deep commitment to nonviolence and mutual respect, which is essential for building strong relationships and achieving lasting change at all levels of society.

Pursue Compassionate Action 

The Charter for Compassion is a powerful call to action, “urging us to restore compassion to the centre of morality and religion.” As individuals and communities, we can cultivate empathy for the suffering of all human beings and appreciate the diversity of cultures and religions. By working together with like-minded organizations, we can strengthen our efforts to relieve and prevent suffering by addressing systemic issues and policies that perpetuate it.

It’s important to recognize that pursuing compassionate action requires a commitment to challenging oppressive structures and engaging in political action. As Martin Luther King Jr. declared, “Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice, and justice at its best is power correcting everything that stands against love.” This means actively advocating for policies and social structures that promote equality, justice, and compassion.

At the same time, pursuing compassionate action also involves personal growth and development. As individuals, we can strive to cultivate compassion in our daily lives, whether it's through small acts of kindness or more significant efforts to help those in need. By balancing individual and community efforts, we can create a positive cycle of strengthening ourselves and our communities and working together to create a more compassionate world.

Pursuing compassionate action requires a commitment to challenging oppressive structures and policies, while also cultivating empathy and compassion in our personal lives. By working together with like-minded individuals and organizations, we can create a more just and compassionate world for all.

Promote Holistic and Systemic Transformation

This project aims to create a more just and compassionate society that values universal moral values, mutual support, and cooperation. This involves addressing multiple issues at once, including economic and personal security, environmental destruction, and discrimination based on arbitrary identities.

To achieve this transformation, we propose a holistic approach that recognizes all areas of society — including cultural, social, personal, economic, environmental, and political aspects — are interwoven. This approach involves nurturing cooperation and partnership, as well as promoting peer learning and self-development and effective political action.

Reconciliation isa critical component of this transformation, both within and among individuals, communities, institutions, and nations. By simultaneously promoting positive growth in every arena, a synergistic upward spiral can lead to holistic and systemic transformation.

By working together towards this goal, we can create a more just and equitable world for all. As this transformation ripples through society, we envision a compassionate society that, in many respects, looks, feels, and is NEW — while retaining positive traditions and qualities from the past.