Why Focus on
Thriving Together?
This vision is what anchors the growing movement to thrive together that is taking hold across the U.S.
Our best hope for lasting, equitable system change is to organize action around a shared, measurable goal: all people and places thriving together—no exceptions. Thriving means creating communities where everyone has the vital conditions they need to participate, prosper, and reach their full potential. It’s both a deeply human experience and a measurable outcome.
The Role of Shared Stewardship
Achieving this vision relies on stewards—people, organizations, and networks working together to strengthen the conditions everyone needs to thrive, starting with those struggling the most. Stewards come from every walk of life and sector, united by a commitment to co-create equitable, thriving communities in partnership with others.
Stewards focus on expanding vital conditions like health and safety, humane housing, and belonging and civic muscle. The vital conditions framework focuses on a small but comprehensive set of conditions that all people depend on to reach their full potential for health and well-being. These interconnected conditions form the foundation for everyone’s well-being and potential.
Stewardship is a practice that can be learned and shared. It is rooted in love, healing, and moving beyond siloes and requires us to shed harmful practices and embrace collaborative, just ways of thinking and acting. This includes reckoning with our histories, centering the long-neglected wisdom of marginalized groups and indigenous cultures, and orienting our social change efforts around what will best serve future generations.
The Movement to Thrive Together
The movement to thrive together is a growing effort to expand vital conditions across the U.S. through shared stewardship. This movement works within and across all vital conditions, fostering the interdependence, broad scale alignment, and collective responsibility that is needed to create a world where everyone thrives.
This isn’t quick or easy work—it demands shifting mindsets, moving beyond divisions, and replacing outdated, siloed ways of working. By prioritizing justice, shared purpose, and mutual well-being, we can dismantle divisive, short-term thinking and exclusionary systems that perpetuate inequity. This is the work of shared stewardship—it’s how we will navigate toward a shared future in which everyone thrives.
Our Call to Action
The movement to thrive together requires a shift in how we approach social change—locally, regionally, and nationally. A groundswell of changemakers is already embracing shared stewardship and making important gains. The transformational change necessary to support thriving for all people in all places can only happen through the alignment and hard work of many people working together through shared stewardship. It cannot be achieved by any group or institution working in isolation. Our systems can shift toward just, healing practices that encourage connection and interdependence, but only if we inspire all kinds of people—including those who have been sidelined and largely untapped—to steward these changes.
Supporting Stewards
To make this vision a reality, we must support and work alongside stewards to:
- Look beyond small-scale programs to discern broader patterns of who is thriving or struggling;
- Embrace the practices of shared stewardship as a practical way to build love, healing, well-being, and justice;
- Shift systems to expand the vital conditions that we all need to prosper and reach our full potential;
- Move from siloed approaches to interdependence and understanding their work within the broader context of long-term, transformational change.
This work holds the promise of a better future—a thriving nation where all people and places are part of the story.
