Practicing Community

What does it take for people to participate fully in their communities? How can professionals in human-serving roles cultivate democratic, inclusive forms of community building and civic action.

Sylvia Gale, executive director of the Bonner Center for Civic Engagement, recently addressed these important questions for an audience in Helsinki, Finland.

Her visit to Finland was a culmination of work which began in 2023 when she was a Mid-Career Professional Development Grantee with the Fulbright Finland Foundation and was hosted by the Deaconess Foundation in an immersive study of professional practices for cultivating civic action.

Gale spent most of her time in three community centers or "D-stations" which the Deaconess Foundation operates across Helsinki. D-stations function as neighborhood meeting spaces where activities are organized by residents themselves with support from Deaconess Foundation staff.

"As I listened, observed, and participated in the D-stations, and reflected with the network of staff and volunteers who steward what happens there, I began to see consistent patterns, ways of working and being that actively supported the organization’s mission towards civic action," Gale said.  "I came to think of these patterns as the 'practice of community,' and I began to document the specific, repeated practices I saw in play across the D-stations and by multiple staff."

Her research led to a report, published by the Deaconess Foundation in November 2025, documenting five strategies for inclusive community-building and democratic engagement, Practicing Community, Cultivating Democracy: Lessons from Professional Power Shifters.

"The five practices Sylvia noticed are needed to keep the dialogue going. Their value is in sharing power, showing up human, building trust and inclusion and allowing dreaming," reflected Laura Hakoköngäs and Taru Tuomola, two of Gale’s co-hosts at the Deaconess Foundation and stewards of the Foundation’s civic action approach. "This is what D-stations have to offer. We see this more clearly thanks to Sylvia."

Gale has presented on the research multiple times in the U.S. and in Finland, including the recent presentations celebrating the launch of the report in Helsinki. 

"These audiences of Finnish and U.S. students, professors, and professional staff have confirmed the value of the work," Gale said. "It fills a critical and timely gap, offering a hopeful and yet also pragmatic approach through which people working in human-serving, human-interacting professions of multiple kinds can act within our existing roles to cultivate inclusive and participatory communities – which is a precondition to a flourishing democracy."