📝 usncan Note: In A Fragmented World, Community Is The Strategy
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In a fragmented world, designing for connection becomes the strategy.
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It’s hard to pinpoint the exact moment the impact sector began to quietly unravel. At a time when we should be accelerating, we are instead witnessing the erosion of its connective systems. Trusted networks are thinning. Institutions once seen as anchors are pulling back. Professionals across philanthropy, sustainability, and social innovation are increasingly burned out, opting out, or operating in isolation. These aren’t just personal dilemmas. They’re structural signals and markers that something foundational is shifting.
Fragmentation now defines much of our landscape, both in sentiment and structure. Cross-border partnerships are fraying under the weight of geopolitical uncertainty. Even long-standing funding architectures, like top-down development aid or centralized grantmaking models, are being questioned for their relevance and effectiveness. The cracks are no longer subtle, revealing that we are reaching the outer limits of what old paradigms can deliver.
And yet, in many leadership conversations, community remains an afterthought. Most times, it is discussed as a byproduct of “the real work,” rather than a design priority. This is a mistake. Community is not a soft power tactic. It is a structural lever, and one we’re underutilizing in a moment of high volatility and institutional recalibration. When designed intentionally, community enables coherence across sectors, accelerates the spread of ideas, and creates the kind of belonging that allows people to keep showing up.
For leaders navigating this terrain, a mindset shift is required. Convening can no longer live under engagement or communications teams alone. It needs to be understood as a core business function that enables strategy to land and ideas to scale. It also means asking harder questions:
Who is not in the room? What assumptions are we building on? What would it mean to design for connection not as a perk, but as a principle?
This belief is at the heart of my new role, leading global impact and the U.S. expansion of The Conduit, a global platform for people working at the intersection of capital, culture, and impact. Throughout my career, I’ve moved across corporate philanthropy, sustainability, and systems strategy — fields often kept siloed despite aiming to solve similar challenges. What excites me about The Conduit is its premise: that gathering the right people in the right ways can catalyze outsized change. That idea has never felt more urgent.
When we begin to treat relationships as core infrastructure rather than collateral benefits, our entire operating logic shifts. Listening is no longer secondary to execution, and trust isn’t the byproduct of collaboration; it’s the condition that makes collaboration possible. And with this mindset, we build ecosystems that are not only more inclusive and resilient, but better equipped to adapt in times of change.
The issues we’re facing extend well beyond the nonprofit world. In the corporate space, ESG and DEI commitments are stalling or quietly dissolving. The instinct in moments like these is often to pull back or isolate. But disconnection cannot be fixed through retreat. It demands intentional design.
In recent conversations with funders and field leaders, I’ve heard a clear appetite for investing in convenings. While encouraging, it also comes with a risk of creating echo chambers and conferences plagued by commercial incentives. We don’t just need more spaces to gather. We need better ones. The kind that are intentionally designed and rooted in clarity of purpose, not default formats.
That’s why I’ve been experimenting with alternative ways of bringing people together — from member-led gatherings to cross-sector salons to storytelling formats that center perspective over performance. We should focus on asking why people come together, and what that unlocks in moments of fragmentation. Increasingly, that also means leaning into more intimate, invitation-only settings, where the most strategic question is who’s in the room, and why.
As we navigate this shift, there are three principles that can guide us:
1. Prioritize coherence — Don’t just convene; design for alignment across missions, sectors, and strategies.
2. Ask who’s missing — If community is to be a lever, it must be intentionally inclusive. Inclusion is not accidental.
3. Design for action — Gatherings should move us somewhere. If connection is the strategy, execution must follow.
Innovation rarely happens in isolation. And while we may not be able to reverse every retreat, we can build new bridges. There’s no playbook for this next era. But if we want to move forward with clarity and courage, we have to do more than fund impact. We have to organize it. In a fragmented world, that starts with each other.
