A reflection on the past…
I remember my first visit to Detroit because my phone died on my first ever Amtrak train trip – and never came back on. When my train pulled up I stepped out tired, with no way to get in touch with friends for pickup. I wondered if this was how Detroiters felt as I walked to the nearest hotel – alone and stranded.
I took in the empty buildings as I neared the hotel entrance where a century-old v12 Rolls Royce was parked. I watched as a man in a tuxedo opened the rear door. A woman stepped out wearing a long mink coat and huge wide-brim hat.
It felt like a scene from a 1920’s movie – and that’s when the gravity of the place hit me.
It was truly another world. This was Motown
After a rest and some hotel business center internet use, friends had arrived and we quickly made use of the conference room, talking about the past few years of work we’d done together. From activism to disaster relief.
Detroit needed both.
Every third home was a pile of rubble, another third of homes were patches of grass where a home had once stood. The remaining third were about to have their water shutoff, citywide. But that isn’t why we were all there, at least not yet…
A week later, my first trip to Detroit was coming to an end and I departed by train again, to give myself time to reflect, alone.
The people were amazing and welcoming. The sense of community here was stronger than anything I’d experienced or felt in other cities. Particularly in Highland Park. The vibe was like what we all imagine America would feel like if it were indeed the America we’d all imagined.
I fell in love, with the people.
When I got home to Boston I was overwhelmingly moved by what I’d seen and felt.
I called everyone back the day after I got back home.
“Lets stop the water shutoffs.”
…it was on all of their minds too. I whipped out a pen and drafted up an outline for the project, One part what we all did with Occupy Sandy, one part stopping the shutoffs.
A little activism, a little relief.
After all it’s what we’d all been doing for the previous 3 years.
You see this was a meeting of the founders of Occupy Wall St. We’d met to discuss the possibility of launching of a political party.
…but instead, a few weeks later we’d transformed into the “Detroit Water Brigade”. We couldn’t help it. It’s what we were. People who care – a lot.
And on June 4th 2014 we launched the Brigade. Doing exactly what we’d done during Hurricane Sandy with a hard mix of what we did with Occupy Wall St, the activism we were all used to.
After all this was a manmade disaster, and there were men responsible for it. And they needed to be stopped.
And as an unlikely band of scrappy activists, we stopped them – mostly. And we helped a lot of folks. But the story was, and is much bigger than ‘us’ or what we did.
10 years later
It’s time for a horizontal monopoly
The biggest lesson from having launched and made an impact with the Detroit Water Brigade (and other grassroots orgs both before and after this one) is that the existing model for community members and organized groups that respond directly to the needs of a community in crisis is a broken model. It’s not a model where organizations work horizontally together. Instead, organizations work in competition with eachother – and I don’t mean in competition to see who can have the most impact either but rather, a competition for attention and funding that distracted from the work at hand.
And this was one of the biggest issues we faced with the Brigade. The difficulties in horizontal movement building that felt truly inclusive of all organizations within the city, were real. But there wasn’t a model for this, for real Coalition-building that fit Detroit. Just a loose, exclusive and somewhat ineffective struct – that we’ll solve at a foundational level with the horizontal structure of People Powered’s Impact Network.
The Finance problem.
The model in place is firstly a Capitalist struct where you are made to believe and internalize through reinforcement and social conditioning, that there is no value in you, helping others (after all, they cannot give you capital in exchange for your help). It’s a fundamental flaw in every capitalist system. Unless you’re part of a capitalist system’s exclusive model and struct that is currently in place to help others.
The exclusive model, and struct.
And some smaller grassroots orgs in Detroit saw us this way.
1. Governments, (particularly socialist and to a much worse degree fascist communist governments which are anything but communally driven) have a well paid monopoly on ‘helping’ folks. Often taking direct financial contributions at a rate of 20-60% of everything you earn, to do their work. But is a government truly democratic if you have 0 say in how money is spent? Of course not. Is there an app you can open that shows you how many crimes your financial contributions helped stop in your area today? No, of course not. How about how many people you’ve helped today with your funds, and in what ways? Nope. Nothing. It’s a monopoly. And it doesn’t inspire contribution. You have no idea the impact you’ve made today, despite the fact that you have indeed made an impact, financially.
2. Elite global orgs, the many ineffective ones who often times show up for the disaster or the (insert problem), for press and funds, and then run off to the next disaster and repeat – to the tune of billions of dollars a year. I won’t mention any names. But they’re unable to scale due to their ‘exclusive’ nature and often for fear of liability (governments have a similar fear-of-liability problem).
For everyone else, working outside of a government or corporate NPO/NGO struct, often those who care a lot more (like many of you) are unable to do the meaningful work they love in a sustainable way. Does this make governments and elite global NPO/NGO structs bad? No, of course not.
But it does mean resources are limited and out of your reach, and you’re often not supported and/or left begging for scraps in the form of donations. I saw a lot of this in Detroit, and in many other crisis zones over the past 20 years. There are many people, and many small grassroots orgs on the ground in communities going through a crisis, and the great majority of them make an impact that can’t be quantified (this is the first issue) – and no one knows they exist (this is the second issue). And nothing they do is sustainable (this is the third issue).
It’s time for that to change.
Because more often than not, People, working horizontally and transparently, are more effective than 1 and 2 mentioned above. It’s time to empower, through tools, reward, through automatic funding based on impact, and uplift and amplify, through automatic boosting and media amplification; those who make an impact, everyday. And it’s time to build a more inclusive, horizontal monopoly – around specific problems that aren’t being addressed well by the existing more exclusive model, and struct. It’s time to build a truly horizontal monopoly, that is Powered, and Led, by People. And that’s what we’re building here with People Powered.
A different model.
An inclusive one that supports and rewards not only small grassroots orgs but individual people around the world, who take action and directly respond to the needs of their communities. Starting with the needs that arise during natural and manmade disasters. Detroit’s water crisis was (and to a degree still is) a manmade disaster. Over time, I believe adding an array of community needs categories for local orgs and community members to tackle; around housing, poverty and education is a naturally progressive forward path for People Powered to take, globally.
There is a lot of detailed information here on the website and I’d like everyone’s feedback on what I’m proposing to build as it relates to People Powered’s first set of tooling for community led response to both natural and manmade disasters. The biggest question(s) on my mind now, in a feedback related sense are:
As a impact and change-maker in your community, does what I’m proposing to build help you, as an individual who wants to make a difference in these first 2 categories (natural and manmade disasters)?
Will it help you, as the leader of a small grassroots organization trying to make an impact in your community (as it relates to the first 2 categories)?
As a person who wants to help a community in crisis either on the ground or from afar, will our tools as they’re presented, be enough?
Did I miss something you feel would help you be far more effective?
And lastly, did you find anything confusing in any of the information presented here on the website?
All feedback from folks is welcome and I appreciate those of you who took the time to read this through. Please reach out to me here: general@peoplepowered.io with your feedback.
If you haven’t combed through things yet, start here with the Impact Network & Tools:
Thanks for reading,
Danny McGlashing – Former founder of the Detroit Water Brigade & current Founder of People Powered
A reflection on the past…
I remember my first visit to Detroit because my phone died on my first ever Amtrak train trip – and never came back on. When my train pulled up I stepped out tired, with no way to get in touch with friends for pickup. I wondered if this was how Detroiters felt as I walked to the nearest hotel – alone and stranded. I took in the empty buildings as I neared the hotel entrance where a century-old v12 Rolls Royce was parked. I watched as a man in a tuxedo opened the rear door. A woman stepped out wearing a long mink coat and huge wide-brim hat. It felt like a scene from a 1920’s movie – and that’s when the gravity of the place hit me.
It was truly another world. This was Motown
After a rest and some hotel business center internet use, friends had arrived and we quickly made use of the conference room, talking about the past few years of work we’d done together. From activism to disaster relief.
Detroit needed both.
Every third home was a pile of rubble, another third of homes were patches of grass where a home had once stood. The remaining third were about to have their water shutoff, citywide. But that isn’t why we were all there, at least not yet… A week later, my first trip to Detroit was coming to an end and I departed by train again, to give myself time to reflect, alone.
The people were amazing and welcoming. The sense of community here was stronger than anything I’d experienced or felt in other cities. Particularly in Highland Park. The vibe was like what we all imagine America would feel like if it were indeed the America we’d all imagined.
I fell in love, with the people.
When I got home to Boston I was overwhelmingly moved by what I’d seen and felt. I called everyone back the day after I got back home.
“Lets stop the water shutoffs.”
…it was on all of their minds too. I whipped out a pen and drafted up an outline for the project, One part what we all did with Occupy Sandy, one part stopping the shutoffs.
A little activism, a little relief.
After all it’s what we’d all been doing for the previous 3 years. You see this was a meeting of the founders of Occupy Wall St. We’d met to discuss the possibility of launching of a political party.
…but instead, a few weeks later we’d transformed into the “Detroit Water Brigade”. We couldn’t help it. It’s what we were. People who care – a lot. And on June 4th 2014 we launched the Brigade. Doing exactly what we’d done during Hurricane Sandy with a hard mix of what we did with Occupy Wall St, the activism we were all used to.
After all this was a manmade disaster, and there were men responsible for it. And they needed to be stopped. And as an unlikely band of scrappy activists, we stopped them – mostly. And we helped a lot of folks. But the story was, and is much bigger than ‘us’ or what we did.
10 years later
It’s time for a horizontal monopoly
The biggest lesson from having launched and made an impact with the Detroit Water Brigade (and other grassroots orgs both before and after this one) is that the existing model for community members and organized groups that respond directly to the needs of a community in crisis is a broken model. It’s not a model where organizations work horizontally together. Instead, organizations work in competition with eachother – and I don’t mean in competition to see who can have the most impact either but rather, a competition for attention and funding that distracted from the work at hand.
And this was one of the biggest issues we faced with the Brigade. The difficulties in horizontal movement building that felt truly inclusive of all organizations within the city, were real. But there wasn’t a model for this, for real Coalition-building that fit Detroit. Just a loose, exclusive and somewhat ineffective struct – that we’ll solve at a foundational level with the horizontal structure of People Powered’s Impact Network.
The Finance problem.
The model in place is firstly a Capitalist struct where you are made to believe and internalize through reinforcement and social conditioning, that there is no value in you, helping others (after all, they cannot give you capital in exchange for your help). It’s a fundamental flaw in every capitalist system. Unless you’re part of a capitalist system’s exclusive model and struct that is currently in place to help others.
The exclusive model, and struct.
And some smaller grassroots orgs in Detroit saw us this way.
1. Governments, (particularly socialist and to a much worse degree fascist communist governments which are anything but communally driven) have a well paid monopoly on ‘helping’ folks. Often taking direct financial contributions at a rate of 20-60% of everything you earn, to do their work. But is a government truly democratic if you have 0 say in how money is spent? Of course not. Is there an app you can open that shows you how many crimes your financial contributions helped stop in your area today? No, of course not. How about how many people you’ve helped today with your funds, and in what ways? Nope. Nothing. It’s a monopoly. And it doesn’t inspire contribution. You have no idea the impact you’ve made today, despite the fact that you have indeed made an impact, financially.
2. Elite global orgs, the many ineffective ones who often times show up for the disaster or the (insert problem), for press and funds, and then run off to the next disaster and repeat – to the tune of billions of dollars a year. I won’t mention any names. But they’re unable to scale due to their ‘exclusive’ nature and often for fear of liability (governments have a similar fear-of-liability problem).
For everyone else, working outside of a government or corporate NPO/NGO struct, often those who care a lot more (like many of you) are unable to do the meaningful work they love in a sustainable way. Does this make governments and elite global NPO/NGO structs bad? No, of course not.
But it does mean resources are limited and out of your reach, and you’re often not supported and/or left begging for scraps in the form of donations. I saw a lot of this in Detroit, and in many other crisis zones over the past 20 years. There are many people, and many small grassroots orgs on the ground in communities going through a crisis, and the great majority of them make an impact that can’t be quantified (this is the first issue) – and no one knows they exist (this is the second issue). And nothing they do is sustainable (this is the third issue).
It’s time for that to change.
Because more often than not, People, working horizontally and transparently, are more effective than 1 and 2 mentioned above. It’s time to empower, through tools, reward, through automatic funding based on impact, and uplift and amplify, through automatic boosting and media amplification; those who make an impact, everyday. And it’s time to build a more inclusive, horizontal monopoly – around specific problems that aren’t being addressed well by the existing more exclusive model, and struct. It’s time to build a truly horizontal monopoly, that is Powered, and Led, by People. And that’s what we’re building here with People Powered.
A different model.
An inclusive one that supports and rewards not only small grassroots orgs but individual people around the world, who take action and directly respond to the needs of their communities. Starting with the needs that arise during natural and manmade disasters. Detroit’s water crisis was (and to a degree still is) a manmade disaster. Over time, I believe adding an array of community needs categories for local orgs and community members to tackle; around housing, poverty and education is a naturally progressive forward path for People Powered to take, globally.
There is a lot of detailed information here on the website and I’d like everyone’s feedback on what I’m proposing to build as it relates to People Powered’s first set of tooling for community led response to both natural and manmade disasters. The biggest question(s) on my mind now, in a feedback related sense are:
As a impact and change-maker in your community, does what I’m proposing to build help you, as an individual who wants to make a difference in these first 2 categories (natural and manmade disasters)?
Will it help you, as the leader of a small grassroots organization trying to make an impact in your community (as it relates to the first 2 categories)?
As a person who wants to help a community in crisis either on the ground or from afar, will our tools as they’re presented, be enough?
Did I miss something you feel would help you be far more effective?
And lastly, did you find anything confusing in any of the information presented here on the website?
All feedback from folks is welcome and I appreciate those of you who took the time to read this through. Please reach out to me here: general@peoplepowered.io with your feedback.
If you haven’t combed through things yet, start here with the Impact Network & Tools:
