In 2017, I released a book that I thought a few people would read. Emergent Strategy: Shaping Change, Changing Worlds has gone further than expected. It has reached organizers, activists, facilitators, artists, designers, people of all races and class backgrounds, here in the US and all over the world.

For those not familiar, Emergent Strategy is the way we make moves toward justice and liberation in right relationship with each other and the planet, in right relationship with change, and by learning from the great teacher of nature.

In the wake of the book, I have been invited by foundations to give trainings and talks on Emergent Strategy, and I am hearing that major movement donors and program officers are using it. As I listen to how different funders are interpreting the work, I am realizing that some people are getting excited about Emergent Strategy and beginning to use the language but are missing or misinterpreting the core lessons.

I empathize—it’s an exciting and massive set of ideas to grapple with—I get humbled regularly. So in the spirit of loving correction, in support of activists and organizers who need their work nurtured and amplified, I thought I’d write this piece to funders looking to experiment with and/or align with Emergent Strategy, and uplift some of the models I see working.

Common Misconceptions About Emergent Strategy

“Anything goes! Emergent Strategy, right?” In the past few months, I have been in conversations with funders and donors who spoke of processes that were particularly messy or chaotic in ways that impacted movement workers, and they shrugged and blamed Emergent Strategy. Emergent Strategy isn’t an invitation to be messy across class lines or power differences. It isn’t a way of speaking about general chaos. That moves us away from right relationship. Emergent Strategy is about nonlinear, adaptive, intentional change. What we want is interdependence, where resources can flow in a decentralized way from inequality toward justice.

“Work for free/possible money!” I have been invited into multiple funding processes in which the expectation was that I would provide a significant amount of time in a “collective” funding process, or a cohort. In a couple of the processes, the money we were working toward had not been secured yet. In each process, there were people with wealth organizing the effort, with good intentions but not understanding how much work they were asking for. I have to say that it’s exceedingly rare that processes sparked by funders are actually easy or aligned with the processes organizers/organizations would plan for themselves.

Read the full article about Emergent Strategy in philanthropy by adrienne maree brown at Nonprofit Quarterly.