Power in Action:
Practical Ideas to Harness
Your Unique Power
Dr. Rebecca Cisek
Chief Impact Officer
Bainum Family Foundation
“Power corresponds
to the ability not
just to act, but to act
in concert.”
- Hannah Arendt
Understanding
our Unique
Roles
Social Justice Ecosystem
Social Change Ecosystem
Social Change Ecosystem
Ecosystem-Guide-April-2022.pdf
Deepa Iyer, Building Movement
Project. SM, © 2020 Deepa Iyer.
All rights reserved. All prior licenses
revoked.
Weavers: I see the through-lines of connectivity between people, places, organizations,
ideas, and movements.
Experimenters: I innovate, pioneer, and invent. I take risks and course-correct as needed.
Eco Frontline Responders: I address community crises by marshaling and organizing
System resources, networks, and messages.
Roles & Visionaries: I imagine and generate our boldest possibilities, hopes and dreams, and
Descriptions remind us of our direction.
Builders: I develop, organize, and implement ideas, practices, people, and resources in
service of a collective vision.
Caregivers: I nurture and nourish the people around me by creating and sustaining a
community of care, joy, and connection.
Disruptors: I take uncomfortable and risky actions to shake up the status quo, to raise
awareness, and to build power. Healers: I recognize and tend to the generational and
current traumas caused by oppressive systems, institutions, policies, and practices.
Storytellers: I craft and share our community stories, cultures, experiences, histories, and
possibilities through art, music, media, and movement.
Guides: I teach, counsel, and advise, using my gifts of well-earned discernment
and wisdom.
Power and
Influence
Manifestations of Power and Spheres of Influence
Policy, Media, Virtual
Structural Power
Institutions (Work, Church,
volunteer orgs, etc.)
Institutional Power
Community, Extended
Network
Social Power Family, Immediate
Friends
Individual
Individual Power
Source: Racial Equity Tools
Connecting
and Applying
These
Concepts
Ecosystem Role Practical Ideas for Action Level of Power
Weavers Connect friends, share ideas and connections on social media and in Social
conversation, engage in coalition efforts, organize folks via group texts
Experimenters Identify new ways of mobilizing your network, volunteer for a leadership Social, Institutional
position at a community org
Frontline Putting These
Volunteer, Ideas
coordinate donations, into
donate, contactAction
legislators Social
Responders
Visionaries Run for office, engage in coalitions Institutional, Structural
Builders Engage or lead grassroots organizing efforts, run for office, collect items Social, Institutional,
for community members Structural
Caregivers Volunteer at a nonprofit, spend time with friends who are struggling, Individual, Social
babysit for a parent or other care giver who needs a break
Disrupters Use your voice on social media, attend protests, call your government Social, Institutional,
representatives, run for office Structural
Healers Listen to friends, volunteer at a crisis response center Social
Storytellers Use various media to elevate people’s stories, use 1:1 conversations to Social, Institutional
shift minds and hearts
Guides Listen to friends, teach children, train, coach and mentor Social, Institutional
Across All Roles
Level of Power Practical Ideas for Action
Personal Sleep, exercise, meditate/pray, moderate intake of information, find moments of
joy, educate yourself and share learnings with others, identify your own areas
of bias and blind spots.
Social Set and maintain boundaries with people, places and things that aren’t healthy
for you.
Spend more time with the folks who do.
Institutional / Structural Think about your professional talents. Where can you influence within your org
and sector. Who else can benefit from your skills?
VOTE. Consider where you shop and where you won’t.
The future
doesn’t just
happen to you.
You create it
with the
decisions you
make today.
- Trista Harris
