What Does It Mean to Thrive Together?
In a time when it’s easy to feel overwhelmed by division or disconnection, one question quietly opens new possibilities: What would it look like for all people and places to thrive—together?
The Thriving Together US Initiative is rooted in that question. It’s not a single organization, campaign, or ideology. It’s a growing ecosystem of people and groups who are building the civic and community conditions that make well-being possible—for everyone, without exception.
This Substack is one of the ways we’re stitching that ecosystem together.
A Civic Home for a Bigger “We”
The Thriving Together US Substack is meant to be a shared space for:
Movement connection — spotlighting the work of local hubs, national networks, and movement builders advancing the Thriving Together ethos.
Innovation diffusion — helping ideas that are working in one place get seen and shared by others.
Personal alignment — offering readers a way to reflect, plug in, and take a stand for a future built on shared belonging and stewardship.
As Becky Payne of the Rippel Foundation shared in a recent gathering:
"This initiative provides a community where you can take some hope, take some possibility from—knowing you're joining with people who, in our collective, are touching all of the things that need to be tended to right now."
This isn’t about building a new organization. It’s about growing a sense of shared purpose that’s already spreading across the country—through neighborhoods, coalitions, collaboratives, congregations, and unlikely partnerships.
A Movement That’s Already in Motion
We’re often asked: Is this really a movement? The answer is yes—but like many movements, it’s not easy to see at first.
“I’m completely convinced that there is real movement,” says Bobby Milstein of the Rippel Foundation. “It’s just very hard for people to perceive that movement because we don’t have the apparatus to surface those stories and share them.”
That’s one thing this Substack will help do. Whether you’re brand new to this space or already leading work on the ground, we hope you’ll find stories here that affirm, inspire, and connect you.
Building Forward, Not Looking Back
We don’t pretend this is easy work. We’re living through real democratic and social breakdowns. But we’re not here to dwell on decline—we’re here to build what comes next.
As John Saunders reminded us recently, quoting Peter Block:
"We don’t have what we need to reconstruct the past. We have everything we need to construct a different future."
That’s the spirit behind Thriving Together: hopeful, grounded, forward-looking. A citizen-led effort to reweave civic life, not from scratch, but from the shared values and commitments that still live in every place across this country.
We hope you’ll join us in that work.
This post is part of our “Thriving Together” starter series:
✅ What Does It Mean to Thrive Together? (You’re here.)
Each piece explores a different doorway into the movement—read one or all, in any order.