The Power of Collective Care

Mutual Aid as a Path to Belonging, Liberation, and What’s Next

We’re living in a time of overlapping crises—pandemics, climate collapse, systemic violence, and the relentless churn of inequality. In moments like these, many of us instinctively turn to institutions for support, only to find that the systems we’ve been taught to trust aren’t just inadequate—they often deepen the very harm they claim to address. So the question becomes: Where do we turn when the safety nets have holes too big to ignore? And what then becomes our path forward?

"We take care of each other, not because it’s fashionable or profitable, but because it’s human."

For me, the answer lives in the quiet, steady power of mutual aid—a practice and a promise that we take care of each other, not because it’s fashionable or profitable, but because it’s human. Dean Spade’s work shines a necessary light on this path, clearly articulating the principles of mutual aid and naming what many of us have long known in our bones: that real change comes not from top-down charity or performative policy, but from people showing up for one another with consistency, clarity, and courage.

Mutual aid isn’t charity. It’s collective coordination to meet each other’s needs—and it begins with a clear-eyed recognition that our current systems are either broken or were never designed for all of us in the first place. Mutual aid is born not of pity, but of solidarity. Not from saviorism, but from shared struggle.

Mutual Aid Through History

Throughout history, mutual aid has been the unglamorous engine behind every major social movement. It’s been the rides offered during the Montgomery Bus Boycott, the free breakfasts served by the Black Panthers, the water left in the desert for migrants crossing borders. It’s the collective care and everyday courage that emerge when people refuse to wait for permission to act.

Mutual aid doesn’t ask, “Who deserves help?” It simply asks, “What do you need, and how can we meet that need together?”

Contrast that with charity—the dominant model in many institutional and nonprofit spaces. Charity, more often than not, upholds power imbalances. It centers donors instead of communities. It defines “help” in ways that often reinforce the very injustices it claims to solve. Charity tends to be conditional, hierarchical, and transactional. It asks people in need to prove their worthiness, while insulating those in power from true accountability.

Too often, even well-intentioned nonprofits mirror the same oppressive dynamics they seek to disrupt. I’ve seen it firsthand—organizations caught in cycles of competition, scarcity, and control. Good people burned out by internal politics while external harm rolls on. This isn’t an indictment of those doing the work, but of the systems shaping the work itself.

A Different Approach: Relational and Responsive

Mutual aid, on the other hand, is messy, decentralized, and deeply human. It invites us to step out of transactional roles and into relational ones. It honors the wisdom of those most impacted. It teaches us how to collaborate across difference, share power, and move through conflict with intention, not avoidance.

“In mutual aid, we don’t wait for credentials to care—we just do it. Together.”

And yes, it’s hard work. It asks us to unlearn deeply embedded narratives about hierarchy, merit, and overwork. But in return, it offers something radical: the chance to remember ourselves as capable, connected, and powerful in ways no institution can confer. It is in the doing—packing food boxes, making protest signs, sitting in circle, offering rides, watching someone’s child so they can rest—that we rediscover our agency and our shared belonging.

These aren’t abstract ideals. They’re living practices. Mutual aid networks have saved lives where governments failed. From the Young Lords collecting garbage when the city wouldn’t, to Occupy Sandy mobilizing faster than FEMA, to Hong Kong protestors organizing pandemic responses before their government acted—mutual aid shows up where systems collapse. It shows us what’s possible when care becomes resistance.

During the 2020 uprisings against anti-Black violence, mutual aid rose up in real time—bail funds, medical support, food, shelter—all held together not by professionals, but by neighbors, friends, and strangers turned kin. It wasn’t perfect. It wasn’t always efficient. But it was real. And it reminded us: we are not alone.

Building a World of Care

If we want to build a world where everyone has what they need, we can’t only protest what’s broken. We must practice what’s possible. That means building systems of care and connection now, not someday. It means grounding our work in shared leadership, radical hospitality, and the dignity of all.

Mutual aid is more than a tactic—it’s a way of being. It teaches us how to show up, stay curious, navigate difference, and repair harm. It calls us to resist scarcity and embrace a culture of enough. It reminds us that liberation is not a solo act, but a collective one.

Of course, this work comes with challenges. Like all human systems, mutual aid efforts are vulnerable to power imbalances, burnout, and mission drift. But we can meet those challenges by rooting ourselves in our values—practicing transparency, setting boundaries anchored in care, building trust, and making space for new people to co-lead and co-dream.

This isn’t the work of heroes. It’s the work of neighbors. Friends. Elders. Youth. Co-conspirators. It’s what happens when we stop asking for permission to care and start practicing it anyway. Every meal cooked, every ride offered, every voice lifted—these are the seeds of the world we’re building. Not for some distant future—but right now.

The invitation is clear: Come closer. Plug in. Offer what you have. Receive what you need. Take the risk of belonging to each other.

Mutual aid is how we make our way forward. It’s how we remember that we are not here to dominate or extract—but to love, to lead, to play, and to belong. Together.