Author: dsoulgen
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Place-Based Leadership: The Practice That Brings a Place to Life
🌱 Introduction There is a lot of strong thinking in the sector right now about place-based approaches, place strategies, social cohesion, participation, community development and systems change. Across policy and practice, the language of “place” is far more common than it was even a few years ago. The term place-based leadership is also already in…
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More Than a Building: Reflections from Deniliquin on recovery, participation, and doing things the right way
Sometimes, you travel to a town to scope the activation of a youth hub, and instead, you arrive in a community still in shock.When I arrived in Deniliquin for the first visit to explore the activation of a youth hub, the town was responding to the devastating fire that had severely damaged the local high…
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Beyond Titles: Leadership as Belonging, Stewardship and Self-Regulation
Why sustainable systems require regulated leaders and participatory cultures. We need to rethink leadership.Not as position.Not as management.Not as corporate authority.But as the capacity to shape human systems in ways that are life-giving.In communities, movements, councils, neighbourhoods, and organisations, leadership is not about control. It is about what we are creating together. It is about…
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The Art of Acolhimento – A Story of Radical Inclusion
I often think about how much discrimination, rejection, and exclusion hurt.Most of us don’t need convincing. We’ve felt it – not being chosen, not belonging, being judged before being known. Those experiences don’t just sit in the mind. They live in the body. But for a long time, I didn’t have language for the opposite.After…
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From Heroes to Hosts – Why Facilitation Is the Work of Our Time
I woke up at 3am the other night with a strong feeling that wouldn’t let me go.Facilitation matters. Not as a technique. Not as a role or job title. But as something essential for the moment we’re living in.It matters because the world is facing problems that can’t be solved by experts alone. Climate and…
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The Art of “Pestering”: A Love Letter to Community Builders
There’s an aspect of community building that rarely gets named – let alone celebrated. It’s the quiet, persistent work of inviting people, again and again, even when responses are slow, energy is low, or enthusiasm feels uncertain. I sometimes jokingly call it the art of pestering. Not the kind that pressures or coerces, but the…
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🌿 The Real Value of Asset-Based Community Development Training
Why Councils and Community Organisations Keep Calling for ABCD Across councils, youth services, libraries, placemaking teams, neighbourhood centres, and community organisations, one theme has become clear over the last decade: we need approaches that move beyond deficit-based thinking and activate the strengths already present in our communities. That’s where Asset-Based Community Development (ABCD) training continues…
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How to Naturally Turn Any Project into Asset-Based Community Development (ABCD) – Without Forcing It
So many of us work inside systems – councils, NGOs, services, schools, health, and community programs – where projects already come with agendas, KPIs, timelines, templates, and reporting frameworks. And yet… beneath the forms and frameworks, there is something deeply human:✨ People who care✨ Communities with gifts✨ Stories wanting to be heard✨ Possibilities waiting to…
Soulgen 