“What needs healing” in rural startup communities

One of the most difficult questions you’ll encounter in the Community Weaving Framework as a rural startup community leader is “What needs healing?”

Quoting The Web directly from the framework’s guide:

We think of community as an invisible web of relationships. That’s the foundation underpinning every group, holding git all together. The web is strong when relationships are based on trust, respect, and mutual care. When the web is fractured, relationships can be superficial, transactional or contentious, and as a result ideas, resources and energy cannot flow.

The question is posed to encourage leaders to reflect on the shared experiences members of their community may have had even before joining the community. It helps the leader recognize that these experiences shape their people and how it affects the collective through their words, ideas, and actions. Thinking about this helps the leader create more relevant opportunities for deeper connection between members.

When I pose this question, the common reaction I get from my fellow volunteers is a good natured laugh. Not in a mocking way, but because we Filipinos are so resilient that it is natural for us to default to humor and good-natured fun before we can even recognize something… heavy.

It’s something I love about our culture, don’t get me wrong, and I often enjoy doing it myself but I also recognize we need to be more intentional about processing these events and emotions to grow and recognize what kind of spaces our locality needs. I’ve noticed that when prompted deeper, many leaders haven’t yet considered this question for themselves and they are even less likely to have considered it for their community members.

“Why bother?” you might wonder. It’s uncomfortable and kills the “vibe”. A community is about having fun together and the feeling of kumbaya, after all. Doing events and mixers should feel light, productive, and something that we should be doing to show people how cool we are.

Although those things are also true about tech/startup/design communities in general, I argue that if you are a leader who cares only about those things then I would call you superficial and your community, transactional. If that is what you are aiming for though, you can stop reading at this point.

Communities are made of people. They have experiences, biases, traumas, past relationships, and expectations that has helped form the version of them that you see when they contribute to the community. This holistic view of a person isn’t visible, but it matters. It tells you about what they care deeply about, about the principles and values they hold dear, and is probably the thing stopping them from transforming from a lurker to an active contributor to your community.

So going back to the question: What needs healing?

Here are some common examples that I’ve observed within my own community and from the other rural communities I’ve had the benefit of getting to know:

• I am not as good as ___ [insert people from the city, or Silicon Valley, or students from X school, etc]
• I should keep my rates cheap because I am not someone from ___.
• I shouldn’t speak up because I am not smart enough.
• My future is doomed because I don’t have the same access to resources as ___.
• By doing something different, I am considered a failure/weirdo.
• I am trapped here.
• My dreams should stay small because I am small.

Regardless of the community, I have seen some flavors of this thinking. The source of these thoughts can come from many factors: the society, parents and friends, our education system, etc.

Each locality will have varying flavors and levels of intensity of these beliefs.

It is important as a leader to recognize these beliefs and, if deemed too detrimental, take action on creating a space where it can be surfaced, addressed, and changed. Naturally, these doesn’t mean that after you identify these aspects, all you do is organize one event about “mental health” and then be done with it.

Addressing these points that need healing takes time, regular practice, and trust building. The bad news is that this will take forever to actually heal, but the good news is that it can be both a guiding point and a centering point for your community.

For example, if one aspect that needs healing is this sense of “By doing something different, I am considered a failure”, then this can tell you to organize opportunities around celebrating builders. Not school fares where everyone is required to begrudgingly participate, but a grassroots-led maker fare, for example, that could lead to showcases, PechaKucha conversations, and even workshops around the cool things people are working on and the “strange” technology they are using.

You could argue that “I already thought of organizing a maker fare, why should I need to go through this wu-wu bullshit of finding out what needs healing”.

Organizing a maker fare is one thing, but knowing what partners to invite, which leaders to work with, the tone and voice of the event, and on designing how the event is perceived by the public is another. It is sometimes easier to just take whatever sponsorship comes your way but understanding what kind of messaging that drives is important.

Building on the example above, if the sponsor you have access to is a well-known software development company that is known to focus only on Artificial Intelligence (AI) as it is applied in software, and if they take a higher-tier sponsorship that results in having their logo plastered prominently in your marketing material, what message does this send to the public?

Yes, you will have mainstream attention, and you will attract innovators who do work with AI to do the showcase, but what if your locality isn’t interested in AI? What if most of the makers in your area are hardware-centric and more interested in technology related to the Internet of Things (IoT) that help the agriculture sector? Taking on such a sponsor would alienate a majority of your local builders and reinforce that “fear of being different”.

I understand that such scenarios may be inevitable for smaller communities. There is a lack of access and resources, and sometimes we have to take on partners or participant types that don’t perfectly align with the identity of the community. In my years of doing this work: it is only okay if you are doing it with awareness.

Going back to my example, for as long as you are aware of the effect that this partnership brings, and for financial reasons you decide to take them on regardless, is an acceptable choice. How does the awareness help? You can be more strategic with how their presence is presented in the event.

You could find a way to fulfill the sponsorship requirements but also not make their branding not too prominent, you could create a section of the fare that focuses only on the IoT builders, you could decide to take on smaller hardware companies as partners but make a point to get more of them. There’s a lot that you could do but the trick is knowing which thing to be done is right for the good of your locality.

It’s not easy building communities, and building them the right way is even harder. But from my practice, I’ve found that being aware of what needs healing, along with the other prompts from the framework, makes the work more intentional, effective, and enjoyable.

Have you now thought of what needs healing in your community?