When I think about issues within our society today, the one that sticks out to me most is the division between people. Beloved is a community that works to dissolve some of this disunity. Beloved takes the command of loving our neighbors seriously, as they make constant efforts to educate themselves on issues and find ways for their congregation to help. Along with this, there is a strict understanding across the Beloved community that people will be treated with anything other than love and respect.
Yet, for Beloved’s efforts to be successful, there must be willing participants who are dedicated to doing this work. Getting people to participate is an issue many communities across the world, but this issue is especially prevalent in a society where time is viewed as money and there is a sometimes-natural expectation of reward from an investment of this time. When studying volunteer participation in Beloved, the focus point became getting community members at Beloved to not only want to become engaged in volunteer work, but strategies to keep them connected and engaged for years to come. To do this, I have focused on the design of volunteer gatherings in Beloved, the language in these gatherings, and the leadership in these gatherings.
In brainstorming ideas for Beloved, I have been able to find a lot of connections through Getting to Maybe. One concept that has been particularly useful is the idea of a complex problem rather than a complicated. This has helped me think deeper into what the real issues in encouraging volunteer engagement may be. Another concept that has been particularly useful in approaching these issues is the Stockdale paradox. Knowing that I am not expected to find perfect solutions to these problems gave me a lot of peace for this project. It also motivated me to see that there is always room to grow. These lessons are undoubtedly going to be helpful in whatever career I land in for the future. Doing this research for Beloved has helped validate my feelings that I want to fight for whatever community I am in, whether it’s through lobbying or the types of cases I take on if I end up being a lawyer.