This document summarizes the findings of a dissertation on faith-based cross-sector social partnerships. It includes: - The research questions focused on understanding the ideal vision of these partnerships and how compassionate communitas supports that vision. - Details on the methodology, which integrated stories, photographs, and interviews to examine themes of compassionate communitas. - Key findings that the ideal vision involved collaborative, loving relationships to support people's well-being, and compassionate communitas supported this vision by providing a way to address suffering through relationship. - Systems integration showed how stories and visions depicted meeting needs with love to promote thriving.

1. Storied Systems Design Findings
about Faith-Based Cross-Sector
Social Partnerships (CSSPs)
By Dr. Dena Michele Rosko
May 17, 2018

2. Dissertation Title
Storied Systems Design for Faith-Based Cross-
Sector Social Partnerships via Organizational
Compassion & Anthropological Communitas

3. Plan of Procedures

4. Who
• 5 adult participants plus the researcher from a local faith-based
cross-sector social partnership (CSSP).
• Faith-based CSSPs include people in society, such as
churches, government, and neighbors, who come together to
solve a social problem, such as lack of shelter, resources, food,
or companionship (see Selsky & Parker, 2005, 2010).

5. What
This research wove together stories + ideals about the faith-based
CSSP to learn how participants expressed their ideal + reality of
partnership of the future via compassionate communitas.

6. How
• Systems Method: Integrated seven reflective stories + 27
photographs by the researcher via Denning’s (2005) typology for
organizational storycrafting with interviews from five participants’
visions of the ideal partnership + society of the future.
• Systems Analysis: Searched the stories/photographs + ideal visions
for the presence of compassionate communitas.

7. Where
Conducted interviews with five adult participants from a local faith-based
CSSP on-site at various organizations with permission granted in a site
permission letter dated December 6, 2016.

8. When
I collected data of interviews after ethics approval from the university’s
Internal Review Board (IRB) during Spring semester 2017. I wrote
reflective short stories during April 2016. I photographed images
during volunteer work from 2012-2016. I created the
stories/photographs prior to creating the systems integration.

9. Methodology

10. Guiding Research Question
What is the ideal vision of a faith-based Cross-Sector Social
Partnership for people who support this type of health system?

11. Sub-Research Question
To what extent does compassionate communitas support the vision of
faith-based Cross-Sector Social Partnerships?

12. Dimensions of
Compassionate Communitas from
the Academic Literature
• Collective responding
• Noticing suffering
• Empathy
• Action to alleviate suffering
• Communicating concern
• Sensecrafting
• Ostracism as Marginalization
• Transitional experience
• Transforming to complex
wholeness

13. Findings

14. Answering the Research Questions
• The ideal vision of faith-based CSSP involved partnering as safe and
loving collaborative relationships to support the fullness of faith + life for
the thriving and flourishing of all people.
• This thriving needs each person of the faith-based CSSP to
share/receive gifts to support each others’ basic needs with safe love
for healthy relating and flourishing for all.

15. Answering Research Questions (cont.)
• Compassionate communitas supported the vision of faith-based CSSPs
by providing a relational way to align services by responding to the
suffering that the faith-based CSSP encountered.
• Participant visions emphasized healthy relating via boundaries, meeting
of basic human needs to self-actualize by safe companionship + love
for flourishing + peace for all.
• Researcher stories + photographs supported compassionate
communitas by illustrating how I connected my identity as a Christian,
wife, mother, + volunteer of the faith-based CSSP. Themes involved
leading others, joy, relief, a hug at the beach, friendship, validation of
my vocation + motherhood, + yearning for spiritual family.

16. Systems Integration
• Stories revealed connections with spiritual kin to offset the sense of
isolation that I experienced during post-graduate work + in-between my
transition to motherhood + church family.
• Participant visions revealed safe + loving relating to share holistic
solutions together, + to call civic society to benefit people’s fullness of
life, faith, + personhood as people give/receive “gifts at the table.”
• This two-way influence showed possibilities of how an ideal partnership
functions as a health system of spiritual connection + love in response
to how people ostracize others via structures + resources.

17. Systems Integration (cont.)
• The photographs framed the faith-based CSSP as a limen with its work
in-between the ecosystems of nature, government, + other structures to
support quality of life + the advent of hope.
• Contrary to the framing of the study, the photographs depicted the faith-
based CSSP as a limen nested in an ecosystem of nature, + less
depicted the faith-based CSSP as a symptom of modern organizing.
• The visions showed passion to transcend a dysfunctional response by
meeting basic needs with love for thriving of all. The stories showed
that I expressed the opportunity to integrate faith as vocation + family.

18. Image of the Ideal Partnership
• The image of the quilt (Figure 21) more than any other sketched an
image of the ideal partnership. The Last Supper quilt displayed the
disciples coming together around a table as a last time of gathering
together. The quilt, as a rectangle, yet soft, + sewn together with
salvaged scraps discarded as no other use, suggests an unexpected
model of partnering that supports the integration of stories + visions for
meeting basic needs with safe love. This quilt handmade for creature
comfort provides practical + sustaining warmth passed down for future
generations. The quilt gifts a work of art worthy of display + admiration.

19. Image of the Ideal Partnership (cont.)
Figure 21. Fundraising gala: The Last Supper quilt.

20. Retrospective

21. Limitations  Benefits
• Small participant size  Rich detail of interviews/stories/photographs
• My choice of compassionate communitas  Model for systems
integration (“analysis”) to confirm assumptions as a spectrum
• Integrated method of stories/photographs  Storied attempt to
Idealized Systems Design not yet articulated in research
• Esoteric / unclear  Intuitive, creative, complex, passion

22. Conclusions

23. Conclusions
• Findings illustrated how compassionate communitas showed up for
people who contributed to a local faith-based CSSP. Compassionate
communitas bridged over ostracism toward healing together.
• Not yet articulated in the literature, compassion needs communitas
and vice-versa for society to heal suffering, and transcend dysfunction
of ostracism to support the work of faith-based CSSPs.
• Organizational systems can expand inquiry of a health systems model
to address needs with love amid turbulence of society today.

24. Appendix

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References

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References

29. Table 1
Compassionate communitas dimensions and themes in the findings
Dimension Themes
Collective responding Companionship
Relationship
Hospitality
Partnership
Noticing suffering Need thriving
Need supportive relationships
Need resources
Desire shared values
Yearning love and stability
Need as a situational spectrum (no “magic bullet”)
Empathy Give self fully to the work (starts with self)
Boundaries (healthy relating/mirroring)
Emotions as a spectrum (vs. good or bad/all or nothing)
Emotions prove heart in engagement
Imagining the suffering of others (“it could happen to me”)
Action to alleviate suffering Community leadership painting visions at local level
Local partnering with various sectors
More funding
Cross-sector collaboration/trust
Healthy regional environments
Shared space to come together/civic engagement
Sharing stories
Affectionate gestures
Give/receive gifts
Events/Rituals
Publicity/Celebration of successes

30. Table 1
Compassionate communitas dimensions and themes in the findings (cont.)
Dimension Themes
Communicating concern Speak truth in love
Storycrafting
Humility to listen
Communicate to understand
Prayer to discern
Heed vocational call
Trust in partners
Include sufferers in conversations
Sensecrafting Love via relationship with God and each other
Spirituality of embodied beings
Big existential question(s)
Prayer
Faith in practice/discipline
Outside traditional walls
Nature as an ecosystem
Storycrafting
Transitional experience From me to we
Just start
Local action
Leaders who listen
Leaders who visualize the vision
Value partnering
Respect sacrifice of liberty
Empower sufferers

31. Table 1
Compassionate communitas dimensions and themes in the findings (cont.)
Dimension Themes
Transforming to complex wholeness From fear and shame to love in action
Curiosity about civic possibilities
Engage youth to learn and steward civic solutions
Start/s with me
Give/receive gifts
Friendship from shared suffering and successes
Safe relationship how we heal
Do the work with lightness and joy
Let the work finish (vs. force)
Relief from safe passage
Public celebration of successes
Participant Five described how people care for each other as doing so "under the umbrella of
love" for "healthy survival" as a priority because "we are born to connect... belong... and relate."
Participant Two brought up love, "Truly, if you're coming from that place of love of neighbor, you
thrive on loving on your neighbor. And when you see them thrive, you are self-actualized. You
are in that positive place we all want to be, which some people call heaven on Earth."