Our work is guided by a single question:
What is required of us to serve the public good?
Public servants are not doing okay. The people who keep our democracy running—congressional staffers, civil servants, advocates, organizers, and researchers—are exhausted and undervalued. Many entered public interest work out of a deep sense of purpose but now face burnout and moral injury. Washington, D.C. runs on a relentless pace that leaves little room for reflection or renewal. The result is a system sustained by people who are themselves running on empty.
For decades, public and nonprofit management has taught us to prize efficiency above all else. Success is measured by outputs and savings rather than by the flourishing of people or the promotion of the common good. This technocratic mindset has crowded out moral imagination and reduced public service to a performance metric. It has created a culture that treats human beings as instruments of productivity instead of as citizens engaged in the shared work of democratic governance.
Public service has become unsustainable not because people care less, but because the systems and norms around them fail to nourish the people doing the work. Ecumenical Commons exists to work towards a world where public service is fundamentally reimagined.
Our Guideposts
Formation
To serve the public well, we must cultivate the heart, mind, spirit, and body together. Formation is the ongoing work of becoming more whole. It begins with discerning one’s vocation: the particular way each of us is called to contribute to the common good, and learning how to sustain that calling over time.
Authenticity
Public servants are often required to perform stoicism and certainty. We create spaces where people can bring their whole selves. Our communities honor the full spectrum of experience, making space for joy and celebration, but also for grief, doubt, and rest.
Pluralism
Truth unfolds through many traditions, perspectives, and experiences. We cultivate ecumenical spaces of respectful disagreement and shared seeking. We draw wisdom from spiritual, academic, and artistic traditions alike, recognizing that no single ideology or institution has a monopoly on insight.
Prefiguration
We don’t sacrifice our values in the present for the promise of a better future. We prototype the world we want to see here and now through small-scale experiments such as shared meals, thoughtful dialogues, and collaborative work. We reject the burnout model of social change that works frantically for rest and justice but never embodies them.
Presence
Deep transformation happens when we show up in person. We’re tired of being on Zoom or sitting through another conference panel. We gather face-to-face to share food, drink, and conversation, knowing that physical presence and shared experience still matter in a digital age.