Conspirators for the Nonprofit Revolution

What would nonprofit work look and feel like if the way we worked together created the belonging we want to make possible in our communities?

In this episode of Conspirators for the Nonprofit Revolution, Jessica Aviva talks with creative connector and social entrepreneur Jeanette Langston about compassionate belonging, meaningful connection, and organizational structures that can support or undermine both.

Jeanette shares her experience founding and leading Social Tinkering, a Vermont nonprofit dedicated to human connection, and the decision to dissolve the organization when funding and capacity constraints made its work unsustainable. Together, they explore what happens when emerging ideas don’t fit philanthropic categories, why experimentation needs resources, and how ending an organization can allow its purpose to take new forms.

Drawing on those lessons and her work through Social Roots Studio, Jeanette offers practical ways to cultivate connection in everyday nonprofit life: moving at the speed of trust, approaching one another with curiosity, making room for mistakes and repair, and translating organizational values into daily practice. The conversation also explores leadership loneliness, peer support, shared leadership, and possibilities for organizing our work around human needs.

This episode is an invitation to reconsider how we relate, fund, lead, and collaborate, showing what becomes possible when people create space to be fully human together.

💗 Connect with Jeanette Langston

• 🌐 Explore Social Roots Studio
• 💬 Connect with Jeanette on LinkedIn

💗 Connect with host Jessica Aviva

• 🌐 Explore The Fruition Coalition
• 💬 Connect with Jessica on LinkedIn
• 🌻 Get lifetime access to The Garden Party for a Flourishing World, The Garden Shed, and The Beehive for a one-time payment of $499 (through 12/31/26).
• 🎨 Get your free copy of The Nonprofit Play Book!

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