Community Development

It’s not like she’s the only woman to ever have a baby. At 35. On her own. But Anne Lamott makes it all fresh in her now-classic account of how she and her son and numerous friends and neighbors and some strangers survived and thrived in that all-important first year. From finding out her baby is a boy (and getting used to the idea) to finding out her best friend and greatest supporter, Pam, will die of cancer (and not getting used to that idea), with a generous amount of wit and faith (but little piousness), Lamott narrates the great and small events making up a woman’s life.

Eco-distress is real. How to Live in a Chaotic Climate is here to help you rediscover meaning, joy, and connection as the tumult around us increases. Based on the Good Grief Network’s acclaimed 10 Steps to Resilience and Empowerment in a Chaotic Climate program, this book unpacks the social, political, and spiritual nuances of the climate emergency, step by step.

Author and pastor David Kim shares his experiences with loneliness as a Korean American immigrant and delivers compelling research about belonging that includes the revolutionary five anchors for developing meaningful relationships.

Sisterhood is that sacred space where all the masks that are worn for the world fall off. Dr. Joy Harden Bradford has been doing the work to help Black women heal together for over twenty years. In a sisterhood community with more than half a million members, she’s the go-to therapist for Black women looking to prioritize their mental health and become the best possible versions of themselves. Now she’s sharing all she’s learned using the tenets of psychology and group therapy to help us foster relationships that are not only positive, but transformative.

In this easy-to-follow self-help manual sprinkled with relatable stories, Florence Ann Romano introduces the six roles commonly found in villages and provides a road map to help the listener build their own support systems.

We live in a culture that suppresses our ability to truly feel our grief—deeply, safely, and on our own terms. But each person’s experience is as unique as the grief itself. Here, Camille Barton’s take on grief speaks directly to the ways that BIPOC and queer readers disproportionately experience unique constellations of loss.

Acclaimed author, process-oriented therapist, and earlier Jungian analyst Arnold Mindell teaches us how to find the power to make our own choices and control our own lives. Drawing on his experiences with "witch-doctors" and shamans in Africa, Japan, Russia, and India, Mindell leads us on a "death walk" through our worst fears and deepest emotional crises to wake our inner shaman - which he calls our "dreamingbody." Methods for tapping the wisdom hidden in crises free our own internal sorcery for use in our daily lives. These methods enable us to become whole from within and to avoid the phantoms of unrealistic hopes and desires that limit our lives.

You are a successful, intelligent person with so much to feel good about. But when you are confronted with the omnipresent clutter in your life, you feel like a failure. No matter how hard you try to get organized, you can’t figure out how to make the clutter go away for good. You can tell that there’s something bigger going on, but you have no idea what it is. You’re stuck. The good news is, you absolutely can learn how to free yourself from clutter.

In a world overflowing with information, how can we adapt our learning methods to thrive? Dave Cormier, a pioneering figure in digital education, presents a thought-provoking manifesto in Learning in a Time of Abundance. A leading voice in digital learning, Cormier offers a fresh perspective on how we can face the uncertainty of a world where our challenges don't have clear answers amid an overwhelming digital landscape.

In 2008, with no event production experience and two college degrees between the four of them, Elliott Bisnow, Brett Leve, Jeff Rosenthal, and Jeremy Schwartz became business partners and set out to build a global events company. With passion and tenacity, they began cold calling as many inspiring company founders as they could and tried to convince them to attend their first event. In the beginning, only nineteen people said yes.

Master the art of communication in your relationship in just a few weeks, even if endless quarrels and misunderstandings have formed your everyday reality. Are you seeking concrete strategies to improve your communication and strengthen your relationship? Do you feel unheard or misunderstood by your partner? Have trivial issues snowballed into bitter disagreements because of poor communication? Are you yearning to rebuild trust, navigate life changes together, and maintain intimacy over time but don’t know where to start? If so, then this book is your ultimate guide.

Craftivism, or the space where art and activism meet, is a powerful, ever-evolving social justice movement that continues to grow and diversify as more voices and mediums take part in it. In Let's Move the Needle, Shannon Downey, an outspoken voice in the craftivist movement for over a decade, provides a roadmap and accessible toolkit for burgeoning art activists.

Community is more than just a word; it is one of our most fundamental requirements. So how do flawed, abnormal people such as ourselves master the forces that can drive us apart and come together in the life-changing relationships God designed us for? In Everybody's Normal Till You Get to Know Them, teacher and best-selling author John Ortberg zooms in on the things that make community tick. You'll get a thought-provoking look at God's heart, at others, and at yourself. Even better, you'll gain wisdom and tools for drawing closer to others in powerful, impactful ways.

Coping Skills for Teens with Autism provides essential guides and tips for helping teenagers with autism develop the skills they need to navigate life's challenges and improve their quality of life. The coping skills shared here are not just for immediate relief—rather, they will become an integral part of the teenager and fortify them with a lifetime of knowledge and self-help tools.

Get Together is a practical and heartfelt guide to cultivating a community. Whether starting a run crew, connecting with fans online, or sparking a movement of K-12 teachers, the secret to getting people together is this: Build your community with people, not for them. In Get Together, Bailey, Kevin, and Kai share true stories of everyday people who created thriving communities, both in-person and online.

So, let's talk about loneliness. Human connection specialist Simone Heng knows a lot about being lonely. She left an enviable career and social life to move back to her family home to care for her mother. All alone in a house filled with memories but devoid of people, she was faced with the realization that human connection is one of our most essential needs. Simone shares her journey to understanding the value of human connection and explains how to distinguish authentic relationships from fake substitutes.

Finding Comfort is a book about easing grief and trauma after unimaginable horrors - mass shootings, catastrophic natural disasters, and terrorist acts. Through personal recollections of responding to tragedy, combined with a practical application, Earl Johnson offers listeners the tools they need to seek support and offer it to those in need. The book walks through the life cycle of disaster care from the first hours and days to the years that follow.

Drawing on dozens of intimate audio interviews with families from all across the country, award-winning psychologist and writer Andrew Solomon redefines what it means to be an “ideal family” in America today. Solomon observes that America, led in large part by the women’s, civil rights, and gay rights movements, has undergone a radical social shift in the last few decades. Although the structure of family has changed, economic and legal structures lag behind and need to adapt to accommodate this explosive new reality.

In this powerful and practical guide, Minaa shares therapeutic tools, client stories, and actionable insights to help you on your healing journey, along with reflections from her personal experiences. Each chapter focuses on a common emotional struggle—from overcoming dysfunctional family patterns to developing emotional maturity, finding our village, navigating racial trauma, and moving past isolation and despair.

In 2001, when Jacqueline Novogratz founded Acumen, a global community of socially and environmentally responsible partners dedicated to changing the way the world tackles poverty, few had heard of impact investing - Acumen’s practice of “doing well by doing good”. Nineteen years later, there’s been a seismic shift in how corporate boards and other stakeholders evaluate businesses: Impact investment is not only morally defensible, but now also economically advantageous, even necessary.