The four pillars of prosocial infrastructure
Consent, Permission, Care, and Curiosity
Our founding “test” club is wrapping up today after eight hopeful weeks! I wanted to share a few things we witnessed and learned in the process. Here’s what we tried together:
Shares were held until they found resonance – a significant finding was that this “quiet escrow” system worked! Roughly half of the connections came from offers meeting needs, the rest from dream overlaps. About half of the connections emerged organically, without prompts. The others came after some visibility – digest emails and proactive connections by the steward.
The core rhythm we prototyped – reflection, sharing, signals, connection, reflection – played out in beautiful ways. Our weekly digest served as a “slow feed” and we reliably saw a bump in club activity – a group hug around the people who shared through the digest.
We haven’t yet fully tested the “searches” concept, but we saw glimpses of how powerful it could be – for meaningful club growth as well as facilitating even more connections. We’ll be building this out with other clubs and communities soon.
This experience has informed a framework for prosocial infrastructure. I’ll offer the following as pillars, practices, and design guidelines for creating prosocial protocols and culture.
Consent
Nothing should happen without it.
It’s how we build trust and feel safe together.
The door to honest participation, not coerced performance.
Permission
To show up. To ask. To offer. To dream.
Shared agreement that we’re trying something.
Permissive infrastructure is gentle. It says: let’s take a chance on one another and pay attention to how it feels.
Care
The reason to show up. The first experience and why we follow up.
The center of our social economy.
A relational way of seeing, holding, telling new stories about ourselves and others.
Curiosity
A natural skill we can relearn through practice.
The surest path to deeper connections.
A cousin to understanding and action.
This is what we’ll be building with – it’s our prosocial stack. It’s also a compass as we navigate and relate within complex ecosystems. I hope they can inform how we design and build things together as well as the experiences themselves.
Thank you for reading, caring, and being curious about the intersection of theory and practice. As always, I’d love to hear your feedback! How might you apply these principles in your daily life and work? What other, unspoken pillars enable prosocial experiences?