Maybe We’ve Been Asking the Wrong Questions
What if we started somewhere different?
What if, instead of immediately asking, How do we fix this?, we asked, Who is here? What do they know? What strengths and relationships already exist? And what might be possible if we worked alongside them?
Those questions are at the heart of a new three-part series on the Rethink Community Podcast.
This season, Think Tank is exploring three core anchors that shape how we approach poverty, community, and change: Compassion, Connection, and Influence.
But this isn't a series about abstract ideas.
It's about what those ideas look like in real life, and what we can learn from people and organizations who are putting them into practice every day.
Across three conversations, we'll meet leaders who are challenging familiar assumptions about homelessness, community-building, service, and who gets to shape solutions. Their stories offer more than inspiration. They offer questions, practices, and ideas that listeners can take back to their own organizations, communities, and lives.
Compassion: What Happens When We Move Closer?
In our conversation with Dr. Gabrielle Clowdus, founder of Settled, we explore what happens when compassion asks more of us.
Through Settled's Sacred Settlements, Gabrielle and her team are challenging traditional ideas about what it means to help someone experiencing homelessness. A home, she reminds us, is about more than four walls and a key. It's about being known. Being missed when you're gone. Having neighbors who notice when you're struggling and celebrate when you're doing well.
They call it neighboring.
Gabrielle draws a powerful distinction between pity and compassion: “Pity would mean, ‘Oh poor you,’ and then I move on with my life. Compassion would say, ‘I'm going to suffer with you.’”
What would change if compassion wasn't simply something we felt, but something we practiced?
Connection: What Are We Missing When We Start With Programs?
Our conversation with Susan Sherman of Weave: The Social Fabric Project at the Aspen Institute, along with Weavers Jaime Encinas and Nesti Castillo from the Illuminators, explores what happens when connection becomes central to how we build community.
Programs matter. Services matter. But these conversations challenge us to ask whether they're enough on their own.
Lasting change depends on things that are harder to measure: trust, belonging, mutuality, friendship, and the relationships that hold a community together.
As one guest says, “You can't have a community if you don't have trust within one another.”
From Weave's work identifying everyday people who are quietly bringing their neighbors together to the Illuminators' efforts to build relationships between housed and unhoused neighbors, this episode asks us to look again at the people around us.
Not: How can I fix this person?
But: Who is this person? What do they care about? And what gifts do they bring?
Influence: Who Gets to Shape the Answer?
In our conversation with Jonathan Kumar, founder of Samaritan, we turn to Influence.
For Think Tank, influence isn't just about having a seat at the table. It's about agency. It's about whose experiences, ideas, and goals actually shape what happens next.
Samaritan challenges people to see their unhoused neighbors not as problems to solve, but as individuals with dreams, skills, relationships, and their own definition of what moving forward looks like.
As Jonathan puts it, the goal is not to pity people, but “to partner with them.”
That shift can change everything.
What happens when we get curious about what our neighbors want and need? What happens when the people closest to the challenge are not simply invited into the conversation, but help shape the path forward?
Conversations That Might Change the Way You Work
Compassion changes how we see one another.
Connection changes how we relate to one another.
Influence changes who gets to shape what comes next.
We chose these organizations because they are doing more than talking about these ideas. They are living them out and showing us what can happen when our assumptions are challenged and our relationships change.
These three conversations may leave you with more questions than answers. We hope they do.
We hope you'll hear an idea you can bring back to your organization. A question you can ask your team. A new way to approach a relationship. Or simply a reason to pause and look again at the people and communities around you.
Because sometimes, meaningful change begins not with a new solution.
Sometimes, it begins with asking a different question.
Listen Along With Us
The series will be released over three weeks, with each conversation exploring one of Think Tank's core anchors.
September 7 — Compassion
Dr. Gabrielle Clowdus, founder of Settled, on moving beyond pity and practicing compassion through proximity, relationship, and neighboring.
September 14 — Connection
Susan Sherman of Weave: The Social Fabric Project, Jaime, and Nesti of the Illuminators on trust, belonging, and the relationships that hold communities together.
September 21 — Influence
Jonathan Kumar, founder of Samaritan, on agency, partnership, and what becomes possible when people have the opportunity to shape their own path forward.
Join us for all three conversations. Listen, reflect, challenge your assumptions, and bring the ideas that resonate back to your own work, organization, and community.