Rest, purpose, and why we must pay attention now
This year has been, honestly, a lot.
Across the social impact sector we have seen funding shifts, changing priorities, and new demands on teams and organisations. It can feel like everything is asking us to do more with less, to produce now and worry about sustainability later. When the pace picks up and the pressure becomes constant, it is easy to lose sight of the reason we started this work.
At Sunflower we have a small practice that helps us resist that rush. Every month our team holds a Learning Lab. It is an internal space designed to promote team bonding, stay connected to what is happening in the sector, and give us a moment to think both creatively and logically. These sessions are for us to read, test ideas, and reflect together so our client work benefits from a clearer, calmer perspective.
In August, our Learning Lab centred on Tricia Hersey and The Nap Ministry, a movement that reframes rest as a form of resistance, particularly for communities living in systems built on overwork and urgency. Hersey asks us to imagine a different rhythm, one where rest, reflection, and slowness are not indulgences but essential acts of strategy and survival. Her website is here and a useful introduction is the podcast episode titled “Rest Is Resistance.”
One line from her work has stayed with me:
What this means for our work
That sentence landed because it reflects what we see across our clients and partners. Organisations, teams, and leaders are under pressure to communicate and to respond immediately, even when strategy, capacity, or clarity are not in place. The result is often noise rather than impact. We end up expending finite energy on short-term outputs that do not move the mission forward.
So I have been asking myself and our team this: what would it look like to centre rest and reflection as part of how we work, not just as an occasional luxury? How would our communications change if we chose clarity over constant output, and purpose over urgency? For me, these are not soft questions. They are practical ones about sustainability, creativity, and integrity.
Small practice, big effects
When we make space to slow down, several things shift. We see better strategies emerge. We make clearer choices about what to prioritise. We bring more humanity into our language and storytelling. We also preserve the long-term health of people doing the work. That matters because sustainable communications and meaningful impact are not built on exhaustion.
Our Learning Labs are one small model for how teams can do this. We do not solve funding problems in an hour of conversation, but we do create a culture in which reflection and care are an accepted part of our practice. That culture changes how we advise clients, how we design campaigns, and how we show up to lead.
Questions I keep returning to
If you are thinking about this alongside me, here are a few prompts I keep returning to in our work and in conversations with partners:
When has urgency derailed intention in a project, and what might have changed if we had slowed down?
What internal or external pressures push teams into constant output mode?
How might we model a new rhythm for communications that values clarity and capacity while remaining responsive?
How do we challenge urgency gently when it harms strategy, without removing needed responsiveness?
An invitation to continue this conversation
The reason I am writing this now is simple. With sector-wide shifts, including the recent USAID funding changes and other pressures organisations are facing, the need to hold on to purpose and to create sustainable ways of working feels urgent. We need more spaces to pause, reflect, and imagine what sustainable communications could look like in practice.
If this resonates, I will be continuing the conversation at a Sunflower Roundtable on Wednesday, September 10 at 11 AM PT / 12 PM MT / 2 PM ET. We will be joined by Emiliano Iturriaga, cofounder of Rutopía in Mexico, who will share how his team has built resilience while supporting community-based tourism, and Joyce Kamande, cofounder of Safi Organics in Kenya, who will reflect on staying rooted in purpose while scaling solutions for farmers in rural communities.
Together, we will explore what resilience looks like for social impact leaders navigating uncertainty and pressure. If you would like to join, please register here.
