Then and Now

Almost overnight, Covid-19 has confronted us with an entirely new social reality. Many of us are settling into our homes, retreating as the urgency of our company’s latest product launch or upcoming deal slowly fades into the background of this global crisis. All around us, we see our systems failing: a government that is lagging several steps behind the pandemic, a healthcare system that cannot care for all people proactively, an economy that is letting thousands of people fall without a net.

And yet—the seams of our social fabric have never been so visible. Our garbage collectors, grocery store workers, nurses, teachers, farmworkers, truck

drivers, housekeepers, cooks, deliverymen, janitors, writers, yoga teachers, and countless others who previously seemed to occupy the sidelines of our lives are now front and center, continuing to nurture us and hold our world together as the rest of us shelter.

And yet—we are reckoning with our interdependencies in an entirely new light. Our long-ingrained individualist selves are beginning to understand with greater depth that individual wellbeing is collective wellbeing. We are holding communities around the world in our hearts, caring for our elders, and supporting our neighbors. We are relearning what it means to take collective action, to care for the greater good.

And yet—we are returning to our deeper purposes. We are peeling away the layers of our 9-5 office routine and remembering who we are beyond the blur of daily life. We are resting, we are reflecting, we are reconnecting. We are even laughing. We are living in new ways.

And yet—the planet is healing. The skies in China are blue again, the air a little easier to breathe as coal consumption falls. The water flowing through the canals of Venice is clearer than it has been in decades, home once again to tiny fish. People around the planet are rediscovering nature, taking time in our solitude to be present in something bigger than us all.

What if we got curious and learned from this space? What if we used it as an opportunity to reimagine and recreate?  

We at Collective Capital Philanthropy invite you to pause. To consider what it might look like to build a new way that captures the best of this present moment, with all of its hope, pain, and care. What if everything we wanted is already here?

Collective Capital Philanthropy is offering consulting and strategy support to funders (individual and institutional) who are developing Coronavirus response strategies and reimagining philanthropy’s possibilities to transform our world. Learn more here.