October 2025
Who are your people?
What is your power?
Where is your place?
Most of us are feeling deeply unsettled by the direction of society in this season of polarization, cruelty and disruption. With alarming consistency, across all facets of public life, we see fear rather than aspiration, division rather than unity, attacks rather than dialogue, and violence rather than love and care.
In these perilous times, how should those of us who know that social progress and collective liberation will only come through interdependence and common purpose anchor and orient ourselves?
People. Power. Place.
Ask yourself, who are your people?
Who are the people you draw strength and guidance from these days? Are you spending enough meaningful time learning from, strategizing with, and offering support to them on a regular basis? Who are the people who bring out your best? Who challenges you to stand firm in your values and resist the allure of despair and apathy? Are you making time and space for them to help shore you up?
And who are the people you are committed to supporting? Whose stressors and uncertainty far outweigh your own? Who is not yet positioned to be seen, heard and respected in the way that every human being should? Who is the constituency that is counting on you to stay the course for social justice?
Who are your people?
Ask yourself, what is your power?
In a world and a time when so much feels out of our control, what power do you hold? What are your spheres of influence, the areas in your daily life where your decisions affect others? How thoughtfully and effectively are you using that power? How could you influence a little extra positivity, empathy, and connection – for yourself, your family, your peers, your colleagues, your neighbors, your faith community, your civic realm.
And where might you be holding onto power and influence that you could be sharing with and shifting to others? Are you attuned to ways that you yourself are power hoarding? When can you make a seat at the table for someone whose perspective is not represented? When might you share the spotlight, or better yet, shift the spotlight from you to someone else?
What is your power?
Ask yourself, where is your place?
Where are you most known, welcomed and valued? Where do you feel a sense of belonging and purpose? Are you spending enough meaningful time drawing comfort, solace and motivation in those places? Are you pouring enough into others in those places, to fortify the culture of mutual support and connection that sustains the restorative power of those places for you and others?
And where are the neglected, underinvested and avoided places that you are called to engage and nurture? Where are there overlooked legacies and leaders which can yield deep wisdom to guide us forward?
What is your place?
People.
Power.
Place.
Let’s invest more time in those who bring out our best, make more intentional ripples of change in our spheres of influence, and be more attentive to nurturing the places to which we belong and are committed.
Onwards friends.
Mark is the Founding Director of The National Initiative on Mixed- Income Communities and the Leona Bevis and Marguerite Haynam Professor of Community Development at the Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel School of Applied Social Sciences at Case Western Reserve University.