What Could We Imagine? Relationship Infrastructure as Central to Crisis Response
By: Amy Baker Mcisaac
Tags: Crisis Response, Relationships, Philanthropy, Imagination, Pace Imagination

In a year like 2020, how do you begin to make sense of the future? It feels like we have been weathering crisis after crisis; at times, it can start to feel like we are just making it to the next crisis. And at some point the crises will slow and we will live in whatever “new normal” remains — right?

PACE had a different idea. What if when the status quo is in total upheaval — the way it has been in 2020 — we see that the previously impossible becomes possible? What if we had an opportunity to proactively and intentionally envision what we want our “future state” to look like, rather than be pushed into a “new normal” we didn’t mean to create? Where could our imagination lead us?

We were so inspired by these questions that we developed a new way to explore them: Imagination Sprints. Imagination Sprints are opportunities to fully immerse ourselves in the creative and collaborative process of re-imagining a new reality for our future around particular topics. In the civic engagement and democracy space, we were intrigued by the ways we might deploy imagination around topics such as civic learning, trusted relationships, and a few post-election topics like voter turnout and mis/disinformation.

But there was one topic that we knew we wanted to tackle: crisis response. Earlier in 2020, PACE started to reimagine what could be different on “the other side” of crisis, and we wanted to continue those conversations with a particular focus on the role of relationship infrastructure in crisis response. We selected this focus because we needed to look no further than the events of 2020 to see how critical relationships are to our individual and collective ability to respond to any number of crises. In a crisis, relationships provide tangible things (food, medical attention, emergency housing) and intangible things (information, problem-solving support, moral support) and in a broader sense, they contribute to a collective social fabric (community-level connection, solidarity, and resilience). Nothing helps us understand the strength of our relationships and communities better than the stress-test of a crisis. But we also know trends indicate we are doing less together as a society and relationships are often deprioritized. For example:

A majority of Americans (57%) say they only know some of their neighbors; almost a quarter (23%) of people under 30 say they don’t know any of their neighbors. [Pew]

“Organized religion and unions have become far less central. Neighborhoods have stratified by income, with people spending less time with coworkers and neighbors.” [The Atlantic]

Over half of U.S. adults under 50 (and 60% under 30) say most people “can’t be trusted.” [Pew]

In addition, research indicates that when community members engage and have relationships, communities are better prepared to respond and recover when emergencies strike. For example, a 2012 study found that communities with stronger social cohesion were not hit as hard during the Great Recession. What if we had a more intentional relationship infrastructure ready to be activated in times of crisis? What if we were proactive about building that?

In October 2020, PACE hosted an Imagination Sprint focused on imagining relationship infrastructure as central to crisis response. The sprint engaged fifteen participants with diverse backgrounds spanning philanthropy, academia, research, business, emergency management, national service, crisis communications, DEI, civic science, and the arts. Together, we engaged in a series of exercises designed to do three things:

identify assumptions we carry about relationships and crisis response, which helps us break down the current frames that may not be serving us in our new reality; spark insights about relationships in crisis, which helps us build new scaffolding upon which we can envision a new reality; and create the conditions for kernels of new ideas about relationships in times of crisis to sprout.

For example, one of the exercises we did prompted the group to explore how different groups might leverage relationships to respond to specific crises, which encouraged us to “try on” different situations as a way of accessing deeper truths about relationships in crisis response. Groups spent time working through how we might help seniors living along respond to a climate event or help immigrants respond to potential post-election violence using relationship infrastructure. Each scenario in this exercise — and all of the sprint’s exercises — prompted discussion that surfaced important assumptions and identified useful insights for the imagination process.

Uncovered Assumptions and Insights

By way of further sharing what imagination transpired during our time together, I want to provide a glimpse into the assumptions and insights about relationship infrastructure and crisis response that were revealed to us through our process. While these points are not exhaustive of all the conversations or angles we touched on, I consider them the “greatest hits” as I reflect back on the sprint.

We often say in our imagination work that each word is a universe to explore, and that was evident in this Imagination Sprint. At times, it felt like crisis response was the context in which we were imagining new things about relationship infrastructure. At other times, it felt relationship infrastructure was the context in which we were unearthing new insights about crisis response. Our group grew to appreciate the interdependency of these two topics as ways to apply parameters that made the imagination for both richer. After all, you’re shortchanging any discussion of crisis response if you’re not talking about the role relationships play, and similarly, you’re not getting to deeper truths about relationship infrastructure if you’re not able to learn from the ways crises test and strengthen them.

That said, there was much discussion about the uniqueness of relationship infrastructure in crisis response, and as one participant shared, “Relationship infrastructure does what no other infrastructure can do.” It’s the web of relationships that support individuals and communities, and it serves as critical connective tissue, especially in times of crisis. We see it play out in a variety of ways — both in settled and unsettled times. It’s the group of friends who start a google doc to organize homemade food deliveries when a new baby arrives. It’s the neighborhood watch group that keeps the community safe. It’s the group of community leaders who organize donations delivered after a hurricane hits. Sometimes, these roles fall into formal job descriptions for people at organizations, but often, they are the informal workings of compassionate people who see that we can do more together and that a little coordination can go a long way. This insight left us to ask: who is responsible for relationship infrastructure? Is there a “system” that can/should provide this infrastructure, or is it inherently and necessarily individual? Is anyone accountable (or incentivized?) for the infrastructure’s efficiency, inclusivity, and effectiveness? And further, what are the indicators of “good” relationship infrastructure? How do we measure it, particularly in a culture that doesn’t always value investment in relationships?

The group talked a lot about the role of trust in relationships and how that plays out in moments of crisis. There has been a lot of focus on trust in America, motivated by data indicating that Americans trust each other and government less and less. In order to deploy relationships to respond to a crisis, trust is a necessary condition; there has to be enough trust in those relationships to be effective in emergency situations. We hear a lot about the need to “build trust” but that can sometimes feel conceptual and aimless. In some ways, crises present big opportunities for trust to deepen and broaden. After all, trust is only required to the extent that someone has an unmet need and seeks support from someone else to fill it. And because there is no greater moment of need than when someone is in crisis, it led us to identify an assumption we might reevaluate: We often think trust is built first and then we are ready for crisis, but perhaps there is value in the crisis coming first and forcing the trust in relationships to blossom in ways it wouldn’t on its own.

Looking more closely at crisis response, we unearthed an insight that felt foundational to our imagination. As we began our sprint, we spent some time dissecting what we meant when we said “crisis.” After all, are we talking about natural crises (like hurricanes and earthquakes) or man-made crises (like mass shootings or polluted water)? Are we talking about unexpected/quick-to-appear crises (like COVID-19) or long-term/protracted crises (like systemic racism)? We learned that relationship infrastructure is important in all of these scenarios, but we also learned that the world may be operating with different levels of urgency in each crisis category, and we suspect that is driven by assumptions and value judgements underneath them. We didn’t fully explore this with our limited time, but some considerations that seem to matter include the degree to which we feel proximate or connected to a crisis, the ways we value — consciously or unconsciously — the people or communities impacted by a crisis, and the extent to which we believe our efforts can make a difference.

Related, a lot of participants shared that they were interested in this topic because they saw too many people falling through the cracks during times of crisis. When the systems that support people in crisis are overwhelmed, relationship infrastructure can catch people before they fall into worse conditions. But when people or groups are not connected to others or they don’t have robust and trusted relationships to turn to, what happens to them in crisis? This is where we think relationship infrastructure can play a role and fill a gap. As one participant shared: “We must build upon existing infrastructure in ways that are driven by the people at the receiving end… We need relationship infrastructure that supports a culture of belonging, equity, and civic participation.” It was important to focus on who we are designing relationship infrastructure for, and it helped remind us that the people who don’t have anyone else to turn to might be the first priority.

Kernels of New Ideas

From those assumptions and insights, these kernels of ideas emerged:

Pulling on this thread about prioritizing imagination for vulnerable populations, or people who are not already connected to a relationship infrastructure, a group of participants sketched out what Little Free Libraries for Crisis could look like. Imagine that across communities, little free library structures were constructed, and inside were burner phones for people in crisis — whether that was because a storm hit and needed care or they were experiencing domestic abuse and needed safety or they were experiencing homelessness and needed resources. The phones could be pre-programmed with support lines and depending on your crisis, you could confidentially make a connection to someone who was willing to help.

Participants started to put shape around an idea they were calling “HospitalBNB.” This idea takes what works in the model Airbnb has popularized in the travel and home-sharing space and applies it to healthcare. HospitalBNB would match healthcare workers who can provide care in their home with people experiencing homelessness. This would enable a way for people without the relationship infrastructure or the ability to ask their “doctor friends” a quick medical question to get care before their condition worsens.

While it was less of a tangible idea, there was a lot of conversation about how we might practice resilience. Are there smaller-scale experiences we could engineer that would require people to self-organize and work within effective and equitable crisis relationship infrastructures so that once a larger, more serious crisis hits, people are ready? Participants started to play around with this idea of “relationship infrastructure drills” as a way to stay resilient and pressure-test where the gaps in a community’s infrastructure might exist.

Areas for Further Exploration

A revisit of our recordings, virtual white boards, and notes from our sessions reminded me of just how rich the discussions were in our imagination sprint. Insights were abound, and they deepened our collective understanding of the role relationships play when crises hit. They also helped us see where further exploration and imagination could be helpful, such as:

The roles racial equity and inclusion play in relationship infrastructure during crisis

What equitable relational infrastructure might look like

The role of in-group/out-group dynamics in imagining solidaristic crisis relationship infrastructure

The potential for building and leveraging relationship infrastructure to mitigate and prepare for crisis (before it hits)

The metrics and ways to measure relationship infrastructure, particularly in crisis

How we might insert a “learning period” into the response-recovery-mitigation-preparedness crisis cycle

One of PACE’s learnings at the end of the year is pushing us to think about how we evolve our understanding of crisis and urgency. Instead of thinking about what philanthropy might fund in response to a crisis, could we instead accept that there will be another crisis in the future and think about funding the capacities and capabilities that will increase our resilience for crisis long-term? Could we shift our paradigm from crisis response to crisis resilience? Our sprint delivered a lot of truths, insights, and ideas about the role relationships might play in a crisis resilience mindset. While this sprint was intended to “get the juices flowing” on how we might imagine new ways of responding to crises, we now have a keener sense of the topic and a strong community of participants who are thinking deeply on how it might shape their work moving forward. These feel like important tools in our toolbox as we move onto whatever the world presents us in 2021 and beyond.

To learn more about PACE’s Imagination Sprints, please visit: www.PACEFunders.org/imagine.