Defining Community

Way back in 5th century Mesopotamia, when Western-style philanthropy first emerged, there was this idea that giving away grain surpluses to local people in need could foster solidarity, preventing unrest, and also stabilizing power.

Fast forward several centuries, to the early 1900s, and we see the birth of community foundations, which arose to responsively steward local resources to meet local needs over generations. Since then, who makes up a community and how communities connect has evolved too. There are many more communities that transcend location and kinship.

While not all philanthropies are focused on a single geographical location, all must contend with the question of how they relate to communities, whether they be defined by place, or other aspects of identity and values. Communities are the spaces within which philanthropies understand their institutional identity, roles, and to whom they are accountable.

The changing nature of communities can make their relationships with philanthropies more complex and challenging to navigate. In an increasingly plural context, Boundary Stories explores what makes a community and what that means for philanthropy.

Before we can establish the appropriate role of philanthropies vis-à-vis communities they touch, we must get a handle on this notion of “community.”

Community is another one of those words we often use, and seldom define. It can be a bit of a black box, in which the complexities, tensions, and overlapping boundaries inherent in any collective, chosen or unchosen, are hidden by the simplicity and nostalgic connotations of the word.

The normal way we use the word community has the tendency to simplify rather than delve into complexity. It’s a shorthand to refer to a group of people, who are actually part of many communities, based on as little as a single shared thread. It is easy to make the assumption that all of us understand, more or less, what we mean by community and belonging.

According to rural sociologist George Hillery there are at least 94 different definitions of community! In the aptly titled article, "Definitions of Community", community is likened to jello because it’s rather hard to pin down.1

Some ideas about community are nostalgic: we use the term to harken back to a simpler time, or 'the good old days' when relations between people were governed by natural ties, familiarity, habit, and custom.

Diaz's ‘community as communion’ is in contrast to the more modern arrangement of ‘community as commodity’ where friendship and loyalty are replaced by rules, contracts, exchanges, and competition. Both of these conceptions of community are based in human relationships, albeit distinct kinds. And arguably, both these kinds of human relationships co-exist in most contemporary communities.2

An alternative conception, grounded in Indigenous ways of knowing, anchors community in ecosystems. A community is more than a group of humans who share a space, an identity, or an interest. A community is an association of interacting plants and animals, defined by the nature of their interactions and/or by common conditions (Pierotti, 2010).

How might philanthropies behave as part of communities that include humans and non-humans, and have ecological purpose?

Digging deeper into these different conceptions, we can pull out some of the tensions and dimensions which shape everyday experiences of community.

Most of us exist within multiple communities, and therefore encounter multiple dimensions at once. David Chavis and Kien Lee, in their Stanford Social Innovation Review article, use the metaphor of Russian Matryoshka dolls to highlight how we fit within nesting communities. A community foundation, then, is a misnomer. Community is not singular. Communities are plural.

When we are not explicit about what we mean by community, we cannot identify who is present and who is missing, who holds power and who is sidelined, or whose interests are assumed, explicit, or hidden. Without an explicit sense of boundaries, we have few ways to measure and test accountability.

Other important questions require a strong foundation; that is, an organization that is clear on who it serves, to what end. For example, philanthropies may need to commonly ask about philanthropy's role in relation to particular communities in particular moments, including:

• 
  All Foundations Have Community

  While community foundations are defined by place, all foundations acting out there in the world come into relationship with communities.
  
• 
  Community Creates Accountabilities

  Once in community, foundations assume accountabilities to community, which can only be articulated as clearly as those communities are defined.
• 
  "Community" has many uses

  The word community is used to refer to many different kinds of groupings and affinities, but also to feelings and types of transactions.
• 
  Communities are natural and constructed

  Modern concepts can draw from both ecology, political economy, sociology, and other ways of understanding interaction and interdependence.
• 
  Nested communities

  Communities are never singular; we are all always part of multiple, and nested communities.

Experiences & Observations

What are some of the ways you see "community" defined (or left undefined) in the language and practices of a foundation you are close to?

Reactions & Impressions

How do you respond to different conceptions of community: does one feel more real or right to you than another? Can you trace that feeling to experiences or values?

Questions & Hunches to test

Where do you think having a clearer and more specific sense of communities that your foundation serves could have the greatest impact? Notice whether these are areas in which the foundations work feels guided by a very clear and specific purpose.