World We Dare to Imagine Pitch

The Compassion Collective for Creating a Kinder World Through Human Connection

I see too many issues in our world that arise from selfishness and a lack of compassion: economic inequality that worsens daily, discrimination, invalidation of any experience that is not one’s own, unhealthy work environments, the list goes on. I believe there are very few true narcissists in the world which leads me to the conclusion that the remaining selfish people lack compassion. Why does this happen? It’s a learned behavior. Most people who grow up to be this way were not loved and cared about deeply as children, and were never shown compassion in their own lives.

I’m passionate about generating more compassion in the world because it will contribute to tangible change against racial, socioeconomic, and gender injustice. Additionally, compassion has no downside. If we all took the time to consider what other people were going through before speaking or acting, the world we live in would be much kinder and easier to live in. In the last year I’ve worked on several teams whose success I can attribute to mutual respect and sympathy for what was happening in each person’s life at the time. Without that we would’ve spent our time together arguing and blaming and creating frustration instead of supporting and thriving and creating something great.

The simplified version of The Compassion Collective’s plan is as follows. Create a network for individuals who don’t feel seen or heard in similar aspects of their lives to connect. It’s easy to have compassion for people similar to you. Then volunteer facilitators would merge networks on the opposite sides of a relationship through guided conversation: managers with employees, breadwinners with stay at home parents, etc. Invariably, people will hold on to their own opinions and beliefs, but the exposure to a supportive, accepting, and authentic environment could at the very least plant the seed for a wider range of compassion. I think we can all agree how good it feels when someone truly understands you and makes decisions with your wellbeing in mind; the more people that experience this themselves, the more likely we are to create global citizens that do this for others. Another facet of the Collective is to rent billboards to display messages like “Pass it on” and “Be the reason someone feels heard today” to subtly evoke our mission.

Anima Mundi should invest in The Compassion Collective because it is a unique organization that will benefit all. With more compassion, the citizens of our world can lead richer, more fulfilling, more connected lives. What’s the downside of investing in that?