The Common Good Has an Address

Most of the headlines that keep us up at night have one thing in common: they don’t reside in Washington or on cable news. They live down the street at an address close to home.

If you lead any initiative in your small or mid-sized community, such as a church, a business, a foundation, or a neighborhood association, you already know this. The pain points are local and complex: schools that struggle, families stretched thin, public safety that feels fragile, nonprofits battling a cycle of futility, and trust in short supply.

In conversations with leaders, they often ask, “Where do we even start?” My answer is kind of boring and even anti-climactic: start small, even hyper-local.

I’ve learned that many civic challenges aren’t simply technical problems to be solved; they’re relationally complex problems to be bridged. People who don’t know each other won’t intuitively trust each other, and people who don’t trust each other can’t build together.

Policies and budgets matter, but relationships are where the rubber truly meets the road

So, here’s a modest playbook I’ve witnessed move the needle toward the common good.

1) Show up where the problem lives
Proximity changes the conversation, even the tone of your voice. When you sit in the waiting room, walk the block, tour the school, or listen in the church foyer after a community meeting, the edges of your certainty soften and your compassion sharpens. You start to see people, not categories. Seeing actual faces can change the way you approach your community’s challenges.

2) Lead with wonder, not quick answers
Before you pitch a solution, ask good questions. “Why does this keep happening here?” “Who’s already working on it?” “What’s the story behind the numbers?”

Wonder is disruptive in the best possible way. It slows the impulse to quick solutions and hastens the hard work of developing understanding.

3) Understand the difference between outrage and urgency
There is a lot of outrage in our world. Hear me carefully: much of it is justified, especially where true injustices are perpetuated. Rage can’t be sustained for long periods. Rage will eventually wear you out, leaving you either ready to escalate to violence or to walk away numb and indifferent.

I am convinced that people do still respond to urgency.

Communities move to act when they sense a sincere “now.” How can you help your community see that a problem is urgent? There is a kind of outrage that appears to be performative and doesn’t move people to action.

Clear-headed urgency can mobilize broad participation. If fourth graders can’t read, say it plainly and urgently. If overdose deaths are climbing, say it clearly so that real urgency is heard.

4) Build unlikely tables
If your strategy can be executed by your friends and people who think and vote like you, is it too small? Why not think about expanding the diversity of your table? Pull in people with lived experience, street credibility, institutional power, and technical expertise. There is real power in being creative in designing our problem-solving tables. Ask a police chief and a Black pastor to co-host a listening session. Invite a business owner and a social worker to strategize together. Unlikely tables will help you generate solutions that might be surprising.

5) Stay long enough to matter
Every neighborhood I’ve worked in has seen waves of short-term energy crash and recede. The community remembers. Longevity is like currency; spend it on small promises kept over and over again. “We’ll be here next year” sounds more believable after you've been there for a full year.

6) Trade credit for outcomes
Progress accelerates when leaders stop counting mentions and start counting families helped, kids reading on grade level, and violent incidents prevented. If the win requires your logo to be smaller, shrink it. The work glows more brightly as our egos fade.

7) Plan like a reputable operator, speak like a trusted neighbor
Stakeholders deserve a credible plan: structure, leadership, funding, measurement. But the community deserves plain language and a visible presence. Share a dashboard with donors; share a meal with residents. Do both.

Let me be candid: this approach is slower than a press release and less glamorous than a gala. It is also how trust grows. And trust, that kind of quiet, cumulative, boring trust is the engine of the common good.

If you’re ready to move from theory to action, here are two tiny next steps that won’t overwhelm your calendar:

• Host one cross-boundary coffee. Two people who need each other but rarely meet. Keep the agenda simple: “What’s one thing you wish the rest of us understood?” Listen more than you talk. Capture one next action.

• Practice one act of incarnational proximity. Attend the meeting you usually skip. Visit the program you help fund. Ask a front-line leader, “What’s the bottleneck you face every Tuesday?” Then work to help remove it.

Small towns and mid-sized metros are beautifully positioned for this work. We’re big enough to have big-city problems and small enough that a handful of committed leaders can tilt the story. Not overnight. Over time.

So let’s choose the slow, stubborn path: show up, ask better questions, build unlikely tables, and keep coming back. The common good has an address. Meet it there.