Here’s Why Serve Agile is the Most Exciting Ngo of 2020
Serve Agile is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization based in the United States which works community welfare and empowers collective community action. In 2020, their goal was to encourage and inspire people across the city to organize, act locally, and find ways to share resources. The organization’s invitation has brought together residents who would not have worked together in other circumstances.
The members of the organization come from very different backgrounds, histories and life experiences. They include community organizers who have worked on this all their lives, privileged people who have never participated in community organizing, women who have cared for the people on their streets for years, men who are part of community safety structures, people older than they don’t know how to use online technologies, people with full-time jobs, people who have lost their jobs, and many more — all in one virtual space.
Because of this diversity, along with the country’s — and neighborhood — history of inequality and exclusion, we have to grapple, as a collective, with the way these stories and power dynamics play out in our daily interactions.
In today’s charged environment, we all seek clarity and answers. Consequently, many people automatically turn to approaches that value control and efficiency, rely on formal roles and responsibilities, and focus on achievement and results. However, as a community, they tried to experiment with new and old forms of community building — as many other activists and organizers are doing as well — to create a transformation in our neighborhood that lasts beyond the response to the pandemic.
Serve Agile believes that collective action becomes possible in the community. They have tried to adopt an approach that says: the organization to create communities must have the objective of creating belonging. Belonging creates the conditions for change, action and collective thinking.
(1) Focus on critical connections rather than a critical mass
Relationships are the foundation of all our work. The quality and strength of these are more important than the number of people involved. In the current context of COVID, this has meant being aware of how we create an online solidarity space.
They have done it in several ways. First, trying to cultivate one-to-one communication, welcoming people with individual messages to create a sense of connection early on. Second, by creating spaces to be human, forging bonds beyond just “doing.” Weekly online meetings allow to hear the voices of others and see members in “natural habitats” (homes), which makes everything more personal and humane. Third, the organization employed a policy for all members to be kind, especially on WhatsApp, where it is sometimes difficult to convey tone, humor and personality because volunteers and members come from different backgrounds of life and demographics, where technological literacy cannot always be met.
Through all of this, Serve Agile fostered practices of self-care and personal resilience. We cannot pour from an empty container. We need to replenish what is depleted by the constant flood of news, memes and messages that our brains must absorb, order and use to decide what to do, while we take care of our people, work in our community and retain our day-to-day jobs. Balance is difficult. This involves encouraging each other to be patient and respecting each other’s energy limits, creating a blame-free space for people to pause when overwhelmed.
(2) Practice collective conscience:
Community organizing is primarily about the community, so it is very important to decenter the individual self. The organization aimed t to create the conditions for people to think collectively (and not as individuals within a collective).
They are experimenting with creating collective values and “group agreements” related to purpose and vision.
(3) Move to the rhythm of confidence
In the organization, the instinct is to move fast and respond with urgency; But when relationships are a priority and central element, trust becomes the metric that determines action.
This focus on trust means that we share the responsibility by encouraging more people to take on co-leadership roles and manage WhatsApp spaces so that the group is not hearing the voice of just one person. It means that leaving space for different people to answer the questions, reminding us that there are other people in a better position to answer if there is a space for them to do so. Also, it is learned that it is okay to leave some questions unanswered. Sometimes it can be good for everyone.
Sowing seeds of belonging
These are just a few of the organizational practices Serve Agile are experimenting within the online community space. What began as a reactive response to an unprecedented crisis has become a proactive space for community organization and consolidation. Through the conscious intention to create belonging, we hope that these online relationships that we cultivate and nurture will continue to shed seeds offline.
