In 1981, we created the Empowerment Workshop to explore this question: How do you empower people to grow and realize their full potential? We wanted to shift the focus of personal development from healing the past and fixing problems to focusing on what we want for our lives, our communities, and our organizations—and how to achieve it. Enabling people to envision their dreams and bring them to fruition was the heart of the approach we called empowerment. The term empowerment was new in the vernacular of transformation, as was our approach.
Over the years, what evolved was an extraordinary learning community that became a global empowerment laboratory. We wrote the first edition of this book to share this research. The writing process brought further refinement to our model, and the book’s success as a best seller attracted even more people to our trainings. Along the way, we became master practitioners of personal growth facilitation.
We continued to evolve our empowerment work by adapting the model and methodology to other initiatives. Included among these was the First Earth Run (see the Epilogue.) Its success was further confirmation of the efficacy of our empowerment tools.
Building on this growing body of knowledge and experience in large-system transformation, I (David) applied my empowerment expertise to large organizations and cities wishing to create behavior change. The versatility of the empowerment tools enabled me to address issues ranging from talent development, culture change, and corporate social engagement, to low-carbon lifestyles, livable neighborhoods, and sustainable communities. Based on this research I have written many books on these subjects, including my most recent, Social Change 2.0: A Blueprint for Reinventing Our World.
I (Gail) applied the empowerment methodology to developing an advanced training program that integrated spiritual growth with social and ecological responsibility. This training became a model for engaged spirituality, balancing inner development with outer service. Based on this work, I wrote The Rhythm of Compassion:
Caring for Self, Connecting with Society, and Circle of Compassion, a book of meditations. My most recent book Returning to My Mother’s House: Taking Back the Wisdom of the Feminine, explores women’s empowerment.
The results from our research, writing, and practice—a robust and rigorously tested transformational model—have stood the test of time. While we were now recognized worldwide as leading authorities on empowerment and our work had gained widespread recognition, we realized there was a next level. It was to create an in-depth program for the mastery of empowerment and transformative social change. To accomplish this, in 2001 we created the Empowerment Institute Certification Program. Since then, our institute has attracted a remarkable group of cutting-edge change agents and social entrepreneurs from all over the planet, dedicated to empowering people and transforming our world—one person, community, and organization at a time. The empowerment impulse we had spent the last three decades bringing into the world had now matured into its full potential.
To learn about the Empowerment Institute or our other training programs, visit www.empowermenttraining.com. To learn about the application of empowerment to organizational and societal change, visit www.empowermentinstitute.net and www.socialchange2.com.