On her news page Sue Braiden made a comment that references what she calls the "no mechanics" structure of the Humanist Movement. She goes on to observe that:

One of the hardest things to avoid, no matter how well intended an effort may be, is the inevitable insertion of ego, and the slow creeping back to hierarchial command and control structures. I am always intrigued to come across models that attempt to avoid these habitual pitfalls, and especially where there's been some success along the way.

The Humanist Movement started in 1969 in Argentina and Chile, initially organizing politically and non-violently against the dictatorships in those two countries. The ultimate aim of our work is to humanize the earth, creating a world with the human being as the central value. We do this by creating small teams of no more than 20-30 that engage in both personal and social change (see also: the omidyar group of the same name)

By the end of the 70s many members had been deported back to their countries of origin and thus the worldwide expansion began. We now number nearly 1 million committed volunteers and over 3 million adherents, supporters and collaborators. We have no staff, no board of directors, no president, boss or chief and no headquarters.

Our structure might be described morphologically as a pyramid, but the connections between team members are as important as those between orientor (person forming the team) and team members, creating a strong network of volunteers. As soon as a member joins, she can form her own team, without any special prior training or knowledge necessary. It's all "on the job!"

To get back to Sue's observations about ego and command and control, there is nothing structurally stopping an orientor from exhibiting controlling behaviour on his team except that there's nothing to gain. There's no way to speak for the entire movement and no elections to install a single "leader." It's true that there's more responsibility when one orients a team that each has their own team that each has their own teams, but still the same number of primary relationships and nothing to gain by controlling the process. It's also not physically possible to micromanage when the levels start to climb (10 is easy, 100 maybe possible, 1000 doesn't seem very likely).

So, what does this network DO, you ask? Each team has a weekly meeting. The first half of the weekly meeting is focused on personal work, often starting with one of the 12 Principles of Valid Action with the idea that the process of liberation from suffering is possible through intention and human effort. The second part of the meeting is then dedicated to organizing our social projects, be they a community newspaper, an all-volunteer school or health clinic, or anything else that the team decides is an important issue in their community.

There are of course those that are not able to or do not want to participate in the weekly meetings. Their involvement could range from reading a newsletter once every 6 months to distributing copies of the community newspaper to volunteering to set up a website for a local group or a larger project to send in a monthly financial donation to finance local activities or travel to another country to many other options that I can't think of at the moment. All contributions (human effort more than anything, but also material resources) are welcome.

This morning, after reading Tom Munneke's blog, I actually blogged about the connection between omidyar.net (Pierre wrote:

"It is my hope that more and more people will discover their own power to make good things happen, and at the same time, discover what they have in common with others -- namely, a shared belief in the value and potential contribution and impact of every individual; and a desire to help others discover that power.")

and the humanist ideas that "we all have something to give."

I welcome comments, questions or requests for clarifications as well as expressions of interest in getting involved in what we're doing or in simply staying connected with what we're doing and sharing with us what you're doing. Thanks!