Document Type

Article

Publication Date

4-11-2025

Abstract

Below I describe five intentional practices people working in human-facing professions can employ in order to create the conditions for a healthy democracy.

These practices were originally distilled from my observations at the Deaconess Foundation’s Helsinki D-Stations and from my interactions and discussions with professionals across the Foundation’s Civic Action and Community Programs team from January-June 2023, when I was hosted by the Deaconess Foundation on a Mid-Career Professional Development Award from the Fulbright Finland Foundation. Since then, I have augmented and clarified these practices through observation and reflection with colleagues in my American context, where I am the executive director of a well-established center for civic engagement at a small liberal arts university in Richmond, Virginia, in the southeastern United States.

This report aims to raise and address the following questions:

How can we, as professionals, participate in and cultivate democratic, inclusive forms of community building and civic action…

… in our own daily and programmatic practices? … structurally, within our organizations? … organizationally, influencing other structures? 

And, just as critically:

How are we, as professionals, ourselves perpetuating status quo power dynamics that often block the realization of those goals? How might we shift power to cultivate new possibilities for civic participation and collective problem-solving?

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