⏲️Executive Summary

If you want to get a quick glance at what's being proposed with ReVisioning, this section can give you a simple overview.

This full draft of the Network’s ReVisioning Recommendation is necessarily long and detailed so that Code for America as an organization can develop the targeted support needed to sustain the change and transitions to its system that the draft describes.

This doesn’t make it easy reading for the busy Brigade member or non-Brigade volunteer. Here’s a quick rundown of our current experiences and what we hope can change or improve with the Recommendation’s implementation:

Where Do We Start Making Changes?

We start with developing better ways of relating to one another: nonprofit employee to Network volunteer, Brigade leader to member, Brigade members to non-Brigade volunteers, and our community to those we offer our tools and resources.

Our potential to negatively impact one another, to negatively impact communities we hope to help, can be lessened when we as a group exercise empathy in actionable, applicable ways. As a practice, small, guided group conversations develop this nuanced understanding of one another best.

The Network Team recently partnered with Tribeless, who host #EmpathyCircles, as a way of introducing this concept to the volunteer network. There isn’t a one-size-fits-all answer to how we build empathy as a skill, but that is one way to start.

The other way to involve yourself with empathy practices is through our own peer-to-peer team’s choices for connecting through conversation. Members of our Network can request time, or join the team to help how we develop this necessary part of our work together.