Thriving community

Thriving community

How do you know a thriving community when you meet one?
Information and resources flow smoothly through the community from where these assets exists to where they can be best applied. The people within a thriving community feel cared for, acknowledged, and yearn to give back to their community as a whole as well as the people within it. There is a sense that the community becomes greater than the some of the parts. The community becomes resilient to shifting outside forces and responsive to the needs of its members. A thriving community does not become passive, instead it holds a balance of tension for the uplift of the community as a whole.

How do we achieve thriving communities?

We encourage connection, we foster a sense of shared purpose, we highlight small as well as large successes. We celebrate the best in the people around us, and we challenge each other to strive further toward our edges. A thriving community generates a sense of meaningful engagement. Conversations in thriving communities foster a sense of something greater than ourselves that we are working together for. Both in the big picture and also visible in our everyday tasks. A gift economy emerges with an expanding sense of pay it forward and longer and longer timeframes on the expectations of when one will get their payback.

http://thrivability.wordpress.com/2009/07/28/thriving-community/

First published here Feb 2013