POWER

Power Project is an MJN research effort to create a library of tactics and examples for how organizations design governance methods, contracts, and norms embodying MJN's four characteristics of justice. With support in 2023 from SUMA Net Impact at Columbia University, we're developing short case studies and revising our own philosophies as we learn.

“All struggles Are essentially power struggles. Who will rule, Who will lead, Who will define, refine, confine, design, Who will dominate. All struggles Are essentially power struggles, And most are no more intellectual than two rams knocking their heads together."

― Octavia E. Butler, Parable of the Sower, Chapter 9
“When you get these jobs you have been so brilliantly trained for, just remember that your real job is that if you are free, you need to free somebody else. If you have some power, then your job is to empower somebody else. This is not just a grab-bag candy game.”

—Toni Morrison
“It is certain, in any case, that ignorance, allied with power, is the most ferocious enemy justice can have.”

― James Baldwin
"Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will."

---Frederick Douglass
“It’s not about supplication, it’s about power. It’s not about asking, it’s about demanding. It’s not about convincing those who are currently in power, it’s about changing the very face of power itself.”

—Kimberlé Crenshaw, activist and professor at UCLA and Columbia University
“Power, not reason, is the new currency of this Court's decisionmaking.”

— Thurgood Marshall warning in 1991, in his final dissenting Supreme Court opinion

WHY

Read our theory of change

In most human systems, power is consolidated in the hands of a small — usually wealthy — group that designs the system to align with their values and self-interests. Whether deliberately or unintentionally, systems skew against people who have less structural power. As we asked ourselves how we could practice justice every day, we realized that status quo system norms actively work against our understanding of justice. They couple wealth and power alongside bias, undo democracy, and favor consolidated power in leadership structures.

All of these things pile up to tilt structural power towards a small group of increasingly wealthy people who don't just shape nonprofits, foundations, and corporations; they sway our governments, policies, and voting rights.

Norms can be changed! But we have to practice new norms consciously and consistently before they can start to become implied and fade into the background. And many organizations are showing us that it is possible. It often involves shaping systems or processes of decision making, compensation, budgeting, health insurance, and relationship. And importantly, these kinds of structural changes could be applied to all kinds of organizations, regardless of their mission, sector, or tax structure.

As a cross pollinator, MJN is excited to gather ideas in one place so we ourselves can embody change and help others along the way.

WORKING DEFINITIONS

Systems

The way in which contracts, pledges, & norms — and methods of decision- making shaping them — determine how groups make decisions, coordinate, and co-operate.

Power

The ability to get what you want or achieve an outcome that reflects your interests, hopes, and values.

Structural Power

Ways in which systems constrain or foster the ability of individuals and groups to get what they want.

Personal Power

Our beliefs about our own power. No person/system can tell us what our personal power is. But outside forces affect our perceptions.

Voice

The ability to express what you want in your own way.

COMPONENTS

Describe

What is power? And what problems are evident in the dynamics of power in organizational systems today? We’re clarifying what we mean by power to help keep our research focused on what supports justice and illuminate shared and different meanings.
Catalog

What specific system innovations, like contract designs and governance methods, distribute power in ways that better serve justice? We're starting by looking at models for decoupling wealth & power, recognizing our draft characteristics of justice are inter-related.
Share & Embody

By applying what we learn in MJN, we’ll create a feedback loop between learning and doing while hopefully helping others evolve, too. Examples being applied today include collective compensation structures similar to worker self-directed nonprofits.