The Long Tail of Community

When I started to think about Chris Anderson's book The Long Tail, I thought about the thousands of niches being created in philanthropy. In my post on that topic I posed the question "what is community to you?", I received responses that made me pause and reflect: "there is this long tail of community as well."

In our world --- Civil Society -- United Way---- we use the term community so often, yet it means different things to different individuals.

As individuals reflected on community, I heard comments such as:

• "It's a tug between feeling smaller and bigger at the same time!"
• "I have a strong point of view that it takes collective interests and "niche" interests"
• "From casual networks on myspace to global activist groups like the One Campaign: www.one.org, to local issues like the Clean Downtown Initiative: www.cleandowntown.org, each can represent our idea of community and geography as rapidly as your mouse can click."

The volume and velocity of change is creating a "wobbling affect" for us when we think about our lives in community. This idea of feeling smaller and bigger at the same time is a powerful one: navigating that spectrum is creating a unique challenge for individuals and institutions.

I think the comment by 'anonymous' in the Long Tail of Philanthropy blog is the right insight facing our work: "one just wonders if the relationships are all a bunch of fragmented "choirs" -- or if they will come together for common purpose. "

Where in your community do you see the "coming together for common purpose?"