Hi friend!

How are you?

I’m coming to you with a post-event glow. 🥰

Last week we chilled at ‘Off The Clock’, the official Issue Space Summer hang in NYC. We we ate, we laughed, we drank, we shared – we missed you if you didn’t make it!

Catch the vibe:

We also helped our partners at Amnesty International USA put their finger on the pulse of the moment. In a special interactive session, we captured what the Issue Space audience — a savvy, socially-minded group of builders, providers, professionals, creators, and consumers from across the impact landscape — thinks about what’s wrong, right, and ’ick’ about the impact approaches we’re seeing in today.

(And if there was ever a time to get things right…)

What did we learn from the conversation? Well:

🎭 First of all, our feelings are all over the place. Are we surprised?? Impact pros are tired and scared and feeling guilty about it. And we’re still trying to find joy and live our lives. Be kind to your teammates, folks. We’re doing our best. And while you’re at it, be kind to yourself!

Also – 

🎯 Despite our hyper-awareness of crises and needs in pretty much every facet of life, we social impact pros largely still operate from a place of personal issue area sweet spots — we’re super knowledgeable about a few key realms of experience but less confident about our expertise on the rest. Which is maybe why it makes sense that…

🤝 Our community doesn’t believe that any one audience or activist group is going to be our silver bullet for change. (To the chagrin of audience-targeting digital strategists everywhere.) We’re seeing more belief and energy around a multifaceted force for progress that includes diverse age groups, identities, and our own impact workforce. So get your coalitions kicking, folks!

🏃 And speaking of getting things up and running, a lot of us are dying to do. Most people in our community identified very few advocacy actions they wouldn’t be willing to take when called upon (though maybe don’t ask them to pull a march together 😉). But that willingness to dive into the action sometimes leads to…

🤖 Action-by-autopilot. As in, some of us stay so ready to take action for impact, that we’ll end up making moves whether or not we actually believe they will work. (Like, I’m calling my congressman…but I don’t actually believe it will make a difference to call my congressman. 🙃) Deep dissonance vibes! You have to wonder — is acting from auto-obedience helping? Or is it time to try something new?

🆕 Yes. Yes, it is. The sector pain points, calls-to-action, and institutional defaults the impact workforce runs on are all feeling terribly passé, darling. (Still mulling over whether you need diverse leadership and authentic community insights in 2025? Babe…) The people want new KPIs, calls-to-action, and systems that take on problems from the ground-up — rather than tweaking what worked before and calling it change. They want to see leaders overcoming the urge to self-soothe by clinging to the old ways and stepping up to the moment with new thinking and plans. And in this moment, can we really afford not to innovate? I would say it’s not a luxury.

So there you have just a few of the threads that got us yapping at ‘Off the Clock!’

Up next — 

Stay tuned for a new podcast episode featuring diverse, experienced, vulnerable voices in impact, based on the theme of pursuing positive change at work, ‘off the clock’, and everywhere in between. And if you’re new to the Issue Space podcast series, catch up on past episodes about topics sure to strike a chord with any impact pro.

We did it, Joe. We enjoyed another wonderful moment together. Enormous thanks to our partners in insights, deliciousness, gifting, and physical space, respectively — Amnesty International USA, Zehra Mirza Bakes, Blue Water Girls, Kalma Futbol, and Impact Hub NYC. Additional enormous thanks to July Third for engineering the evening and to Creative Class 6 for capturing footage for us to share.

I’m so grateful to count all of you in this community and wish every one of you a wonderful, beautiful, uneventful week. (Please, God.) 

Stay safe, keep the faith, and welcome to the Space!

🪄 Interested in co-designing or commissioning your own Issue Space event? Reach out to [email protected].

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