We were in teh middle of the discussions, me and some people I know now, thanks to the internet and progressive conversations that deep over time. About the world of the NGO, and their reach for ‘impact.’
I am telling you, standing by on the sidelines blogging this blog and other blogs for a while, taking time off to introspect but kind of staying with it, that there is a lot of starting of things, and very often, things kind of fade off or disintegrate. I don’t know why, but I suspect it has to do with attracting dollars from foreign investors or organizations to ‘do something really impactful.’
The first year I arrived, someone I met who had been here about seven or ten years already was very skeptical of a grant that was getting talked about for a big project thas, he seemed to think, going to do nothing at all.
‘It’ll be a three-year party,’ he said. I was new, then, and I watched them buy gigantic computers and rent a fancy building. I watched all tehse people come through and all these events happen. I saw trainings’, and I stayed and lunched and partook of networking ‘opportunity.’ But, no. The place did get dismantled like the person said, though I think they had an extension or something. What did they do? Who were they? What ‘impact’ did they make? I’m sure someone somewhere will have answers, but off the cuff, having gone there at least 20 times, me, as a bystander…. I have no idea.
What they did or why it was important. People leave when their time isup, so there is no… history. Or if they stay, they change jobs a lot and you can’t keep up. Is this NGO life? Is this how it is? I can understand why people have been critical. I also see people are actually dying as a direct result of aid cuts, according to news sources and one person who I heard from directly before she left, who worked in global health.
What is impact, really?
While all this is happening, the streets where I live change about on the weekly. I sat opposite some wrecking going on, in the pouring rain. I was like, ‘Huh. There we are, the taking-down part.’ There was always the sound somewhere of construction. We had heard a lot of it, in the boom of the housing stuff, where people came with lots to invest in throwing up condos. Everyone talks about now how it is ‘oversupplied.’ I’m not sure. I was, like I said, sort of just hanging out, blogging and writing my books. My small and yet very important stories, for me, and a few people who know me, and some strangers who read them, too. (Thank you.)
I thought about ‘impact’ a lot when I was on my trip, back home to the US. This summer was my first trip back in 13 years. I thought hard about what I had been ‘doing’ very far away, for all this time. I had been, well, you know… reprogramming. I had been distancing from the culture that was there, that was so very, very unnatural to me being someone who likes to relax, laugh, play, have fun, and make space for that, while also doing things that grow us. This requires things to have some stick-around-ability, and while that is, um, not happening in some ways, where I am (changing urban scene, changing ownerships, changing hands, changing groups of people who share my languages of English and Japanese), and changing me, too, the thing that has happened is that some things stayed the same. This blog is still here. There are the same people I came here with, right here, and we are changed, but also, there has been sustained change and growth comes from that. From staying the course and learning, but also, even though it might not look like a giganti building with flashy screens and computers and stuff, I like our studio. I like the way Design Kompany is still very much what it always was, at the start, in the 90s. Original and honest and trying things, and earnest and playful and fun.
World likes to package and sell ‘commodities’ and ‘join this now’, I like to keep it simple. Small. Slow-build, and invite-only, small circles. And manageable projects, that are opportunities. These are all places for all of us to find out how to better communicate. With our teams, with ourselves. With the wider world.
Too much talk about things and what about the real experience
What is ‘impact?’ Is it getting a fancy thing going for three years? Is it having a recurring conversaiotn in the cloud with cool, smart people? Is it building a book or series? Is it knowing who you are? Is it something else? What is it? Were you aware of the damage you may have inadvertently caused, while focued on your vision? The externalities, the lost homes, the sidelined voices, the unaware-but-plundering-and-blundering un-thought-through ‘master plan?’
I think it has to do with that old saying about how people don’t remember what you did, they remember how you made them feel. I think ‘impact’ is a way of existing in the world, that leaves more pepople glad they met you, than not. They like that they talked with you. They say so. You remember each other.
A life of memories of ‘impactful’ conversations. Maybe that’s one way to think about it. Maybe just being, with our kindness and our empathy, is ‘impact’ that matters more now, than ever before.