Changemakers’ Handbook with Elena Bondareva

Why I Care

Almost two years ago, I published a piece called Why I Care. Change-maker’s Handbook (the book) came out in late 2023. I was starting to mine my twenty years of changemaking experience for patterns and lessons that may benefit others, interviewing practitioners, and shaping my PhD research. Re-reading this piece now, I am struck by how many of the themes that would later emerge in my research were already present within it — not as theory or findings, but as lived experience. Most of you would have never seen this essay, so I thought I would share it again. After the original piece, I’d like to tell you what I now see differently. _ _ _ Why I Care (2024) The baby in the photo, I was born and raised in Moscow. Now Russia, then the traumatically imploding Soviet Union and the West’s sandbox for crude experimentation in forging a democracy and a market economy from scratch. Unlike many other countries — including those of the former Soviet Union — Russia had no history of either. This was like teaching a child to swim by throwing them into the deep end: there was no muscle memory to trigger. Raised by two university professors and a veteran of one of WWII’s all-female front-line battalions, I witnessed what it meant to strip a society of its value system without meaningfully replacing it. Once-respected professionals, my mom and dad were now paid in towel fabric, plates, and promises because anybody who relied on the government was, well, instantaneously overboard without a life raft. Surgeons, police officers, and scientists were bartering on street corners. In shame, nobody was making eye contact. I was not yet seven when I — clad in layers that kept us somewhat warm via sheer bulk, not smarts — first held my parents’ spot in lines for bread, sugar, or butter in the pitch black of winter mornings. Those were, indeed, separate lines with none of the efficiency of Western food banks. As it relegated people to shuffling huddles, I looked Need in the eye before I could recognize its power over everybody in my world. It would be years before I understood the meaning of eating pancakes for dinner every night of the week. By the age of eleven or twelve, I was responsible for growing (often to be canned) our annual supply of vegetables, fruit, and berries during the summer. I still can’t throw food away. At school, we routinely sat for hours on end without teachers, who were forced out into the fickle market economy to make ends meet. There were no extracurricular activities. Playgrounds got dismembered for parts. All the parents were so preoccupied with surviving that as children, we were raising ourselves. I remember acknowledging that change was non-negotiable. Still, I knew in my gut that it need not callously decimate people’s lives. Before even hitting my teens, I remember the Moscow intersection where I first committed to finding better ways to do it; ways that did not pull the rug from under people’s feet; ways that protected the environment as well as human dignity; ways that reinvigorated rather than decimated; that unlocked possibility rather than entrenched despair. My postgraduate research at Cornell University allowed me to delve into broad-spectrum change, and I have not stopped since. I was in my 20s when, on a flight, I first wrote down my purpose, “To mobilize people to imagine and create realities far better than they have experienced.” Curiously, this has not changed for me. I don’t know if this is atypical. I accept that one’s purpose may change with time, and I wish we knew more about this; one of my standing invitation for social sciences research. Even if it took me years to see it clearly, my purpose has been my compass for over three decades. May I suggest that you have a lot to gain and nothing to lose by giving a go at distilling yours. Section 1 of my book, Change-maker’s Handbook [https://www.amazon.com/Change-makers-Handbook-Everything-meaningful-business/dp/B0CP8T4Z6F/ref=sr_1_1?crid=27J3JJ7GUB8J5&keywords=elena%20bondareva&qid=1701565531&sprefix=elena%20bondareva%2Caps%2C150&sr=8-1], focuses on purpose and can guide you. It may mean all the difference in the impact and contentment you experience as a changemaker, and I would love to hear from you whether it does! https://open.substack.com/pub/changemakershandbook/p/playlist-purpose-is-fuel-for-changemaking?r=1i4aw7&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web [https://open.substack.com/pub/changemakershandbook/p/playlist-purpose-is-fuel-for-changemaking?r=1i4aw7&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web] _ _ _ When I wrote this piece, I was trying to explain myself and my commitment to better equip changemakers for their vital work. Today, I find myself asking a different question. Not why I care but why some people repeatedly find themselves caring in this particular way. The distinguishing feature is not compassion. Many people are compassionate. It is not intelligence. It is not idealism. It is not even a desire to help. What keeps catching my attention is something more specific: an inability to fully look away once certain forms of harm, contradiction, or unrealized possibility become visible. A tendency to keep asking: * Why is it like this? * Why do we accept this? * Could this work differently? * What would it take to change it? Those questions have followed me for most of my life. Increasingly, I wonder whether they have followed some of you as well. I’ve been working on something that explores that possibility. More soon. Changemakers’ Handbook is an audience-supported publication focused on professionalizing chaangemaking in a post-solutions world. Consider subscribing to join future live conversations and to access all posts. Are you a changemaker? https://open.substack.com/pub/changemakershandbook/p/how-to-spot-a-change-maker-signs?r=1i4aw7&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web [https://open.substack.com/pub/changemakershandbook/p/how-to-spot-a-change-maker-signs?r=1i4aw7&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web] Most are not changemakers https://open.substack.com/pub/changemakershandbook/p/most-people-are-not-changemakers?r=1i4aw7&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web [https://open.substack.com/pub/changemakershandbook/p/most-people-are-not-changemakers?r=1i4aw7&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web] What are changemakers for? https://open.substack.com/pub/changemakershandbook/p/what-are-changemakers-for?r=1i4aw7&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web [https://open.substack.com/pub/changemakershandbook/p/how-to-spot-a-change-maker-signs?r=1i4aw7&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web] Purpose as fuel for changemaking https://open.substack.com/pub/changemakershandbook/p/playlist-purpose-is-fuel-for-changemaking?r=1i4aw7&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web [https://open.substack.com/pub/changemakershandbook/p/playlist-purpose-is-fuel-for-changemaking?r=1i4aw7&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web] This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit changemakershandbook.substack.com/subscribe [https://changemakershandbook.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_2]

What are changemakers for?

I have repeatedly spoken and written about purpose. Across earlier posts, I have argued that purpose is fuel for changemaking; explored the idea that each of us possesses gifts, experiences, and motivations that point toward particular forms of contribution; and written about superpowers, mandates, and the strange experience of feeling repeatedly drawn toward work that is neither convenient nor obviously rewarded. Those ideas remain central to my thinking. Yet the deeper I go into this work, the more they seem to point toward another question entirely: What are changemakers for? This may sound obvious, odd, or both. We tend to think of changemakers as individuals with causes, ideas, wounds, gifts, convictions, and projects. We ask what drives them, what problems they are solving, and how we can help. All useful questions. But if changemakers are real — more than a corporate buzzword or aspirational LinkedIn identity, but as people predisposed toward transformation — then another question becomes unavoidable. Why do changemakers exist? Across countries, sectors, professions, ideologies, and generations, some people seem persistently drawn to changemaking. They notice problems others normalize. They imagine alternatives others dismiss. They struggle to disengage from harms they did not create. They continue engaging long after exhaustion, cynicism, self-interest, or social pressure would have persuaded many others to stop. Not all changemakers agree. Not all succeed. Not all are even pursuing the same future. Still, they are everywhere. What if societies require transformation in the same way they require continuity? What if human communities need people who are unusually sensitive to unrealized possibility? People who repeatedly question inevitability. People who become uncomfortable when preventable harm is normalized. People willing to move toward uncertainty in pursuit of a future that does not yet exist. Goodness knows we need them now. Perhaps we always have — whether anybody, changemakers included — recognized the function clearly or not. Human beings are astonishingly capable of normalizing the unbearable. We adapt to institutions that degrade us, incentives that distort reason, technologies that outpace our ethics, economies that drain us, and narratives that shrink our hopes. This capacity to adapt can protect us. But at times, it can also trap us. Changemakers, at their best, disrupt that trap. They are not the whole answer. They are not saviors. They are not automatically wise, ethical, effective, or right. But they may perform a necessary function inside human systems: noticing where reality no longer fits the frame, where harm has been normalized, where possibility has been declared impossible too soon. Studying changemakers reminds me of immune systems Healthy immune systems do not dominate the body. They detect threats, respond to harm, support repair, and help living organisms survive what might otherwise overwhelm them. Without an immune system, the body becomes dangerously vulnerable. With an overactive or misdirected one, the body can self-sabotage. This feels increasingly useful to me as a metaphor for changemakers. A society without changemakers would likely struggle to adapt. A society composed entirely of changemakers would likely implode. The work, then, is not to romanticize changemakers. Nor is it to dilute, silence, or punish them for picking at what others would rather leave alone. The work is to understand what function they perform, what conditions allow that function to become regenerative rather than destructive, and what kinds of support, ethics, relationships, competencies, and institutions might help changemakers serve transformation well. This matters because changemakers are often treated as anomalies. Too disruptive. Too intense. Too idealistic. Too impatient. Too difficult. Too unwilling to accept “that’s just how things are.” Sometimes, all of that is fair. Yet perhaps some of what makes changemakers difficult is inseparable from what makes them useful. The person who cannot stop asking whether the system is solving the wrong problem may prevent pseudo-consensus. The person who balks at existing constraints may chip away until unrealized possibility comes into view. The person who feels responsible for harms they did not create may help an entire society take responsibility. Without changemakers, many necessary transformations may never happen. Purpose, in this sense, is not only personal. It is ecological. The question is not simply, What gives my life meaning? It may also be, What kind of contribution does the world seem to need of me? Changemakers’ contribution seems to be helping systems change before their failures become irreversible. What if that is their function? And if changemakers perform a function within transformation, the next question follows naturally: Do all changemakers play the same role? I no longer think they do. And that realization may prove just as important as discovering changemakers themselves. References: https://changemakershandbook.substack.com/p/how-to-spot-a-change-maker-signs [https://changemakershandbook.substack.com/p/how-to-spot-a-change-maker-signs] https://changemakershandbook.substack.com/p/playlist-purpose-is-fuel-for-changemaking [https://changemakershandbook.substack.com/p/playlist-purpose-is-fuel-for-changemaking] https://changemakershandbook.substack.com/p/most-people-are-not-changemakers [https://changemakershandbook.substack.com/p/most-people-are-not-changemakers] Changemakers’ Handbook is an audience-supported publication focused on professionalizing changemaking in a post-solutions world. Consider subscribing to join future live conversations and to access all posts. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit changemakershandbook.substack.com/subscribe [https://changemakershandbook.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_2]

Most people are not changemakers

Modern “change” culture may create an impression that those oriented toward continuity, care, craft, mastery, preservation, relationship, beauty, stability, or stewardship are somehow less vital — or even less committed to humanity’s future — than those oriented toward disruption and reinvention. I do not believe this for a second. In fact, the more I practice changemaking, the more reverence I feel for people whose primary contribution to the world may not be transformation at all. My last post introduced the 6 attributes of changemakers. Now, I turn to the people whose contributions let changemakers do their thing. Theirs is not secondary work. It is civilization. I am increasingly aware that my changemaking has been made possible by countless people who are probably not changemakers themselves. The teachers who honed my potential. The people who ensured my scholarships were credited correctly to my university tuition accounts. Those who made sure I ate something wholesome. The friends who tethered me back to reality when I became a hot air balloon buoyed too far upward by causes and ideas. I owe everything I have accomplished — and likely much of what I still will — to people who built the roads I travel on, ensured fresh water and air, grew my food, tended to my health, and created art that kept weaving me back into humanity while I wrestled with how it might need to change. What studying changemakers has shown me * Changemaking is real. Not merely as a buzzword or aspirational personal brand, but as a recognizable practice of transformation. * Some individuals — I refer to them as changemakers — appear uniquely predisposed toward changemaking. They persistently ask: Why is it like this? Why do we accept this? Could this work differently? What would it take to change it? Goodness knows we need people willing to question inevitability, challenge harmful systems, imagine and build alternatives, and continue long after exhaustion, cynicism, self-interest, or social pressure would convince many others to stop. For more, see my last post: https://changemakershandbook.substack.com/p/how-to-spot-a-change-maker-signs [https://changemakershandbook.substack.com/p/how-to-spot-a-change-maker-signs] * Our future equally depends on the people whose contributions take entirely different forms. I have become equally convinced that changemakers depend on people oriented toward many other equally vital forms of human contribution. * Importantly, changemakers do not have exclusive dibs on creating change. Nor does it mean that changemakers cannot care deeply about continuity, ethics, beauty, relationship, or stewardship. The more I study changemakers, the more I think of them as something like a society’s immune system. At their best, changemakers help societies detect harm, aim higher, adapt, and regenerate. At their worst, they are destabilizing, reckless, and destructive. Weak immune systems are dangerous, but so are overactive ones. Left entirely to themselves, changemakers might redesign civilization incessantly. Some of those redesigns would be extraordinary. Some would be catastrophic. All would be exhausting. Human flourishing has probably always depended on many different forms of devotion existing alongside one another. Which may be one reason changemakers need not only to hone their own strengths, but to cherish the countless contributions that keep us alive, connected, nourished, honest, safe, or sane long enough to do our thing at all. A future worth building takes both Perhaps maturity — especially for changemakers — involves finally recognizing that people who do not share our particular fixation on transformation are not necessarily barriers to the future we want. They may be part of the reason we survive long enough to build it. Are you a changemaker? I have been building a survey (stay tuned) to help explore that question, based on six recurring attributes my research increasingly points toward, to better understand one particular orientation toward change — and how it exists alongside many other equally vital forms of human contribution. _ _ _ Changemakers’ Handbook is an audience-supported publication focused on professionalizing changemaking in a post-solutions world. Consider subscribing to join future live conversations and to access all posts. Image credit: Eleanor Smith [https://pixabay.com/users/elephantsoup-35028633/?utm_source=link-attribution&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=image&utm_content=8608983] from Pixabay [https://pixabay.com//?utm_source=link-attribution&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=image&utm_content=8608983] This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit changemakershandbook.substack.com/subscribe [https://changemakershandbook.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_2]

Are you a changemaker? Signs, habits, and habitat of the people who can’t seem to leave the world alone

Have you ever wondered if something is wrong with you? If you feel responsible for problems you did not create, see possibilities others miss, and find it difficult to stay passive in the face of systemic harm, you may be a changemaker. Not in the influencer sense or as branding, but as your orientation toward transformation. And changemakers may be among society’s most important — and least supported — resources. Across more than 20 years of research and practice in transformation across six continents, I have observed that some people appear consistently drawn toward systemic change efforts regardless of sector, profession, ideology, or geography. While their personalities vary dramatically, they can be strikingly similar in how they relate to responsibility, uncertainty, systems, and action. Importantly, predispositions are not the same as competencies. Predispositions may explain why some people repeatedly engage in changemaking. Competencies determine how effective they are. My current research suggests that changemakers frequently exhibit six recurring predispositions: The signs 1. Responsibility beyond causation Changemakers often experience unresolved social, institutional, or environmental harm as psychologically difficult to ignore — even when they did not personally create the problem. Many describe that once they become aware of systemic harm, they “cannot look away.” Guilt for all that goes unresolved is the surest tell you’ve spotted a changemaker in the wild. 2. Possibility orientation Changemakers see possibilities others miss. They glimpse plausible futures where today’s impossibilities become ordinary reality. They imagine scenarios in which today’s harms, constraints, and institutional logic no longer hold — and often detect pathways others dismiss as unrealistic, premature, or impossible. 3. Expanded scope of concern Changemakers often struggle to “stay in their lane” when systemic problems affect communities, ecosystems, or future generations. Such problems feel like their responsibility regardless of institutional, professional, and social boundaries. This does not necessarily reflect rebellion. Rather, many instinctively recognize that complex problems cross such boundaries. 4. Agency orientation Passive observation rarely feels like an option. Even when risks are substantial and success uncertain, changemakers often feel compelled to intervene rather than remain spectators. 5. High tolerance for uncertainty Transformation is uncertain, nonlinear, and difficult to control. Changemakers often continue acting despite ambiguity, delayed feedback, contradiction, and incomplete information. Many also learn to navigate tensions that cannot be fully resolved: hope alongside realism, action alongside humility, strategy alongside adaptation. 6. Systems sensitivity Changemakers frequently perceive relationships that others experience as separate. They notice patterns, interdependencies, contradictions, incentives, and unintended consequences across social, technological, institutional, economic, and ecological systems. Long before formal systems thinking language enters the picture, many changemakers appear instinctively attentive to interconnectedness across problems, interventions, and outcomes. WARNING: If you — or someone you know — consistently exhibits these signs, you may be a changemaker. This makes you part of one of society’s most important — and structurally under-supported — populations. Ecological function Our work — remaking the world for the better — sure is cut out for us. For centuries, changemaking happened through improvision. Consequently, its impact has been haphazard. The unlikely upside of nearly assured self-destruction. An incidental byproduct rather than an outcome of intentional effort. Thankfully, changemakers are adaptable, creative, versatile, relentless, and many. Misunderstood, under-equipped, chronically unsupported, occasionally vilivied — and somehow still showing up. Imagine what becomes possible once we stop treating changemaking as accidental heroism and start treating it as a human capability worthy of cultivation. The dangers As changemakers, we navigate major fault lines. * Loneliness. Many changemakers — and I have asked hundreds worldwide — feel alone. When most people can’t understand why we care — why you carry the weight of the world on your shoulders — it can be isolating. * Shame. If guilt is brutal, shame is cruel. Unlike guilt, which at least picks on behavior, shame concludes that you — at your core — are no good. Dr. Brené Brown [https://brenebrown.com] is a leading social researcher on this topic, and I would be honored to apply her findings to the change-maker community. * Burnout. How do we call it a day if the world is still on fire? How can we give ourselves permission to watch Netflix if [insert entrenched systemic problem] persists? For changemakers, overwhelm is commonplace. If unchecked, it is debilitating and leads to depletion. * Anxiety and depression. Anxiety may, at times, be the only rational response to awareness. Who can blame us for despair when our efforts to shift entrenched systems so often feel painfully inadequate? Feeling “othered” only compounds the experience. * Other sacrifices. We forego expected milestones in favor of work we cannot quite justify but seem incapable of abandoning. We don’t fully understand the value changemakers create for society — or the cost many quietly pay to do so. The perks Hands down, there are easier ways to make a living and to craft a respectable life. And yet. Yes, there are upsides to being a changemaker! * Meaning. Remember all those studies correlating meaning with wellbeing. Changemakers tend to outperform on those metrics. * Impact. Changemakers are usually several existential steps ahead of those who find exercises like, What would you like people to say at your funeral? confounding.   * Community. The biggest reason I recommit, every day, to this work is the people it puts in my life. On the harder days, it is the unbearable thought of losing fellowship with other changemakers that pushes me to keep figuring out how to live — and thrive — as one. Do I get a choice whether to be a changemaker? I honestly don’t know. I doubt you ever knelt before your god and asked them to show you all the horrid, shameful things about this world — and then make you feel personally vested in making them right. And yet you do. And so do I. Twice, I tried to ignore my wiring. To “pray away the changemaker” because I would, damn it, be content charting a path that prioritized “number one” (aka, me) and maybe donate or share when I had extra. According to sources close to the experiment, I was miserable to be around. And that’s with the true torment masked as best I could. It may well be in our nature to dare to change the world. A power less ours to possess than to direct. While we may not choose changemaker predispositions, we do choose how to navigate this world. How to direct our energy. How to cultivate our capabilities. How to make the difference that is ours to make. And whether we manage to do so with joy in our hearts. That is what this Substack is about. What changemakers need Expect detailed posts and leading science on topics like: * Self-awareness. If what I’ve shared resonates, we’re going deeper. * Community. You are not alone! This community (Changemakers’ Handbook) already reaches across 44 countries. Engage. And let me know if I can help directly. * Self care. We cannot build a better world by destroying ourselves in the process. * Tools. Chemists, geneticists, architects, florists, physiotherapists, and pet groomers all begin with shared tools, competencies, and professional language. Changemakers got… well, mostly vibes. Unacceptable. Because the more time I spend in this field, the more convinced I become that changemaking should not remain dependent on improvisation alone. As we attempt to navigate civilizational-scale transformation, we should probably stop expecting changemakers to improvise their way through it unsupported. Building infrastructure for changemakers If you’ve wondered why you — or someone you’ve spotted in the wild — are the way you are… Well. Now you know a little more. * I wrote Change-maker’s Handbook [https://www.changemakershandbook.com] (2023) to distill my professional, personal, and research experience into a practical roadmap for impact. https://www.amazon.com/Change-makers-Handbook-Everything-meaningful-business/dp/B0CP8T4Z6F/ref=sr_1_1?crid=27J3JJ7GUB8J5&keywords=elena%20bondareva&qid=1701565531&sprefix=elena%20bondareva%2Caps%2C150&sr=8-1 [https://www.amazon.com/Change-makers-Handbook-Everything-meaningful-business/dp/B0CP8T4Z6F/ref=sr_1_1?crid=27J3JJ7GUB8J5&keywords=elena%20bondareva&qid=1701565531&sprefix=elena%20bondareva%2Caps%2C150&sr=8-1] * My current PhD research is producing what I sometimes call the “periodic table” of changemaking: a framework that defines the predispositions, roles, competencies, tensions, dynamics, and building blocks of transformation. * My consulting and coaching practice, Vivit [http://www.VivitWorldwide.com], helps changemakers and organizations launch, navigate, and scale transformational initiatives. www.Vivitworldwide.com. * I am increasingly exploring group-based support, learning, and developmental spaces. * And this publication exists to help changemakers feel recognized, less alone, better equipped, and more capable of sustaining meaningful contribution over time. https://changemakershandbook.substack.com/about [https://changemakershandbook.substack.com/about] Are you actually a changemaker? I’m currently building something else: a global survey designed to answer this important question. Not aspirationally. Not professionally. Structurally. In your wiring. If this post piqued your interest, keep an eye out! * * * Changemakers’ Handbook is an audience-supported publication focused on professionalizing changemaking in a post-solutions world. Consider subscribing to join future live conversations and to access all posts. Image credit: Pat_Photographies This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit changemakershandbook.substack.com/subscribe [https://changemakershandbook.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_2]

To all who choose to mother the world

Mother’s Day (this Sunday in some countries) makes me think about one of the most powerful forces on earth: Care that is on tap without being requested. The willingness to notice before someone asks. To make space before another needs to expand beyond politeness. To ensure a soft landing before someone breaks. To create the conditions for another human being to process, heal, gather themselves, or become. A mother does this. A mother interrupts the ruthless passage of time. She cocoons, soothes, and mends. She is the magic that darns frayed threads, tends to false starts, and sees a beautiful pattern before you can. As long as we subscribe to a shared humanity, each of us can mother. This doesn’t diminish the profound labour, sacrifice, or love of biological mothers — especially those raising young ones. If anything, it reveals how extraordinary mothering truly is if we recognize and bow to it instantly. I am forever grateful to have been mothered by women, men, and non-binary people extraordinary enough to offer me unconditional care. By friends, mentors, intimate partners, colleagues, elders, and people who quietly extended such love with no guarantee of return. People who created a cocoon around possibility when the world demanded speed, performance, certainty, or resilience on command. Biological mothers deserve profound honour for the magnitude of what they carry and give. Hands down. No questions asked. Perhaps mothering is one of the few forces that consistently pushes against the brutalizing logic of the world — the insistence that worth must always be earned before one is loved. Maybe this is one of the great invisible infrastructures of human life: people choosing, over and over again, to hold open the conditions under which another person can be and become. The world survives not only because people build, compete, produce, or achieve — but because somewhere, someone keeps tending what is fragile so that it might thrive before it disappears. I am increasingly convinced that civilizations survive because somewhere, someone keeps choosing to mother the world. Happy Mothers’ Day, my darling community! Changemakers’ Handbook is an audience-supported publication focused on professionalizing changemaking in a post-solutions world. Consider subscribing to join future live conversations and to access all posts. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit changemakershandbook.substack.com/subscribe [https://changemakershandbook.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_2]