Like any good recipe, stone soup is best made from ingredients that grow locally. As we described in our article in the National Civic Review, one northeast Colorado community found within itself the resources it needed to address mental health crises. Many other communities have similar stories. Though unique in their own ways, these stories help to illustrate the basic steps in the common recipe they share.
Step 1 – Feel the Hunger
In the stone soup fable, the catalyst for overcoming the status quo of scarcity is the common experience of hunger. Although food scarcity may be the most literal source of hunger, it can also arise from many other needs. In communities, hunger is often expressed as pain, despair, anger, and trauma. People tend to focus on the immediate thing they need but do not have, be that money, safety, or certainty. Although these emotions are heavy, they also contain the energy that will be needed to enact change. For this reason, collaborative leaders know to welcome expressions of hunger, for despite their negative charge, they are a signal and provide the opportunity for a disparate group of stakeholders to coalesce into what we call a group of purpose—a group whose shared goals transcend and yet include their individual interests. Instead of having to give something up to succeed, as is the case in zero-sum situations, stone soup moments allow people to bring their unique selves to the process while still becoming part of something larger together.
In northeast Colorado, Jeannie Ritter’s willingness to listen drew out a flood of painful stories of mental health needs in the state. Though overwhelming, those stories also created a clear demand for change that helped align the different interests of individual actors toward a compelling vision of the future. Often a commitment to what we want lies hidden in complaints about what we lack. Naming our common hunger can activate and align these latent commitments, shifting the focus from zero-sum conflicts to positive sum opportunities and creating a new We out of an old Us and Them.
Step 2 – Convene the Cooks
While the idea for change sometimes comes from a single individual, to take root it must eventually inspire shared leadership. Establishing a team of diverse and dedicated collaborators sets in motion the chain reaction of commitment needed to sustain change over time. This entails a delicate balance of staying small enough to get things done but large enough to attract resources and being unified enough to stay coherent but diverse enough to remain credible to the broader community.
The case of “Envision Chaffee County” exemplifies the importance of convening a core team of cooks. Home to 14 of Colorado’s 54 iconic 14,000-foot peaks, Chaffee County attracts more visitors and would-be residents than its small-town infrastructure can support. To help ensure that the explosion in population did not tear the community apart, resident Cindy Williams and County Commissioner Greg Felt assembled a leadership team of co-conspirators to develop a vision big enough to be inclusive of many voices but focused enough to make difficult decisions. They knew they would need the buy-in of local governments, ranchers, business owners, and environmentalists—not all of whom saw eye to eye. So, they strategically approached respected leaders in each of those areas to join a steering committee, which ultimately gathered the input of 2,000 residents to create a shared community vision that balanced needs for open space, economic vitality for ranchers, and a sustainable environment even with rising population.1
Step – 3 – Create the Container
A solid container is essential. Convening a diverse group around a complex issue is likely to set off sparks, so it is essential to build a container strong enough to withstand the conflict in the search for common ground. Like the pot in which soup is made, the container for a collaborative process is an intentional space for group members to add their ideas, perspectives, and feelings to the emerging collective understanding. Containers are the norms, expectations, routines, and assumptions that hold the group together and support their positive interaction. Containers grow stronger as the process evolves and as the group’s awareness moves through the phases of politeness, conflict, dialogue, and ideally co-creation. Without a strong container, public processes quickly devolve into frustration, anger, finger pointing or shouting matches among competing interests. But a strong container makes it possible to consider divergent views and hold them together to create something more than the sum of its parts.
[Insert image: Fulton_Greenbelt] The civic leaders of Kingsport, Tennessee, understood this as they sought to bring to life the vision of transforming Reedy Creek from a dangerous, trash-filled blight into a greenbelt that connected the entire city. Rather than using a top-down model of expert-driven and government-led action to access the necessary pieces of privately owned parcels of land through eminent domain, they chose to create a container for informed community dialogue and planning in the form of the Kingsport Greenbelt Committee. The Greenbelt Committee was a group of citizens, supported by the city, charged with finding ways to reconcile the competing interests of different community members within a shared vision of a vibrant greenbelt. This clear charge, intentional structure, and facilitated support enabled the community to come together to transform individual pieces of private property lying in a flood plain into a public good that enriched not only the community’s well-being but, in some instances, also increased individual property values.
Step 4 – Control the Temperature
A key part of cooking is getting the temperature right. Too little heat and the ingredients won’t blend. Too much heat and they burn. The same is true in group processes. Research demonstrates that what separates well-intentioned but failed collective efforts from those that truly make a difference is the degree to which members of the group generate commitment in the form of willingness to contribute their energy to the group. Like heat in a saucepan that releases the juices and flavors of the individual ingredients into a common mélange, commitment expressed within a group draws forth a cascade of contributions from members that reinforce upward spirals of collaboration. When each member trusts that they will receive a positive return on their investment—of time, effort, resources, vulnerability, etc.—the friction of collaboration is reduced and the efficiency of collective action increases.
But as anyone who has taken part in collaborative processes will attest, sometimes a productive simmer can boil over, leaving everyone feeling burned. For this reason, it is equally important to cool things down by slowing the process of communication to emphasize more listening than talking, and balance inquiry with advocacy. Successful stone soup makers identify when things are moving too slowly and need some additional heat, and when things are boiling over and need some cooling off.
We see how this particular kind of chef’s wisdom can play out with the case of Tulsa, Oklahoma. The Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921 inspired noted historian and Tulsa native, John Hope Franklin, who devoted his career to ensuring that African American history was included in the telling of America’s story. He documented that history, including the massacre which engulfed his hometown during his childhood. His work inspired two of his former students from Duke University and two community leaders—a group who became known as the ‘Franklin Four’—to envision a memorial to the massacre. After years of advocacy, the legislature appropriated resources to build it, and construction began.
However, halfway through, the legislature, without formal comment, withdrew its support. The Franklin Four and their allies looked everywhere they could think of for support to restart the project. Eventually, they came to realize that they needed to broaden their coalition and that doing so would require a wider purpose than memorializing the massacre. Reconciliation, they realized, was a project that everyone could share. They shifted their vision from the past to the future, away from grief and toward hope. The idea of a reconciliation park and center captured the community’s imagination in a way that quickly drew the support they needed to restart and finish the project. The John Hope Franklin Reconciliation Park and Center now stands as a concrete example that hope, respect, and shared understanding can emerge from the ashes of our darkest moments. Theirs is a story about finding the right temperature. When the pot cooled, these leaders understood they needed to adapt their vision to warm things up again.
Step – 5 Add the Ingredients
The magic of the Stone Soup story is that instead of making soup out of readily available ingredients, the act of making soup together produces the needed ingredients. The villagers only saw what they had when there was a pot on the fire inviting them to contribute to something larger than themselves. A carrot or a potato in a cupboard does not feel like a significant asset on its own, but once a soup is on, their value becomes clear. This is equally true in community collaboration. People may only recognize resources they already possess when a specific opportunity appears that reveals the resource as a missing ingredient in a collective endeavor. Shared commitment to a collective goal then becomes a
basin of attraction, drawing in additional resources over time as more people want to be part of something that is achieving results.
As we have already seen, community members in northeast Colorado shifted their focus from the money they lacked to the resources they possessed once they understood the larger problem they were trying to solve—reducing the number of police transports for mental health crises—was actually a series of smaller problems for which they had adequate solutions. The residents of Kingsport voluntarily contributed access to their private property when they saw how much a public park would add value to the whole community. In each case, the net value of each person’s assets increased when they understood how they took on value within a shared community project.
The John Hope Franklin Center for Reconciliation has created a space to “turn tragedy into triumph” not only by highlighting the story of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre, but by highlighting the many assets of the historically Black community of Greenwood both past and present, and by providing ways for white community members to move beyond guilt and shame to find ways to offer their own contributions to racial healing. In all these cases, community leaders did more than combine the community’s known assets; they helped their communities see that they had more in them than they first believed.
Step – 6 Taste and Season
Some recipes have a defined set of ingredients, carefully measured in proportion to each other, which must be combined and cooked in precise steps. Stone soup is different. Each new ingredient changes the overall mix, so the blend of flavors needs constant balancing and adjusting. A good chef keeps spices at the ready to adjust as needed, and encourages the other cooks gathered around the pot to make their own contributions.
Unlike simple problems that have a known solution, problems like mental health crises, environmental degradation, and racial reckoning require complex, adaptive solutions. These solutions must be adjusted to address unintended consequences and emergent needs. Today’s solution, developed by the current group of leaders, might lose energy over time as new people join the effort who see less appeal in the previously created solution. This requires a renewal of the effort and the addition of new resources.
Envision Chaffee County understood this as they launched their initial effort, creating a report card to track their progress that they continue to routinely update as new data becomes available. Indicators that are moving in a positive direction receive As, indicators that show some to no progress get Bs, Cs, and Ds, and areas of concern or decline get Fs. The bi-annual community-wide review of progress helps refocus attention and catalyze new action, as well as point out gaps that need to be secured and/or could be met by available resources people might have overlooked. This adaptive, reflective process has enabled Envision Chaffee County to continue to achieve results and to become a model for other regional efforts.
Step 7 – Celebrate the Feast
The Stone Soup fable ends with a community feast, where everyone who has contributed comes together to celebrate their delicious, collective creation. A village that once defined itself by what they lacked is now celebrating all they have. Even more, they realize the real celebration is not just the passing meal, but their growing confidence in their ability to solve any problem: “We shall never go hungry, now that we know how to make soup from stones.”
Given the size of the challenges we face, it is often difficult for communities to even notice if they have achieved impact, let alone take time to celebrate the progress they make. Goals can feel endlessly far away, receding from view with each effort, forcing us to look at what remains to be done rather than what has been accomplished. It is essential to take time to celebrate, invite new people in, recommit to the original purpose, and make changes as needed. This also gives new partners incentives to contribute, thus refueling the effort.
Every year, the John Hope Franklin Center for Reconciliation holds two key events. One is a Dinner of Reconciliation that allows the community to remember the past and take stock of their progress toward a vision of transforming society’s divisions into social harmony. The other is a national symposium that brings scholars, activists, and interested community members to keep the vision of the Center alive and to recommit to the ongoing work of racial healing. In Kingsport, the Greenbelt is not just a popular place for recreation, but a symbol of the community’s spirit and a source of pride. Year after year, the most common request to the city’s Department of Recreation are requests from different parts of the city to have better access to the Greenbelt. The network of community support that built the Greenbelt continues to grow and expand. The Greenbelt itself is a physical reminder of the reality that this is a community that knows how to make soup from stones.
