Let's get Connectioning
Connection Engine launches as Connectioning. Updates, new apps, a directory, and much more!
This week starts the first of our weekly publication and action cycles! Here’s what you can look forward to each week:
Mondays: Monday’s Action: Connect, plus Features, Community Updates, and our Featured Writer this week.
Tuesdays: Tuesday’s Action: Share and our Featured Story of the week.
Wednesdays: Wednesday’s Action: Act focuses on specific actions to take to go from idea to reality, plus our Action Guide and App Roudup for the week.
Thursdays: Thursday’s Action: Level Up (learn wellbeing economy and community wealth principles and skills), plus Wellbeing Economy News highlights from around the world.
Fridays: Friday’s Action: Ground. Basically, we’re gonna encourage you to touch grass today and over the weekend. Also: Local Roundup for one new city a week!
So, without further ado, here’s Monday’s action.
Monday’s Action: Connect
If you never connect you’ll never know.
A few months ago I made a Tiktok video that encouraged people to send that text or make that phone call if they want to start something in their community.
I never expected anything to come of it, but a few days later I received a message from someone who had seen the video and finally decided to contact the neighbor she had been meaning to for quite a while.
Guess what?
The neighbor had been wanting to contact her for six months.
She said they were now planning on getting together over coffee to discuss.
All because one of them was brave enough to reach out first.
Is there someone you’re thinking of reaching out to but haven’t? Here’s your permission to do so today.
Make the call.
Join the club.
Go to the event.
Contact the local business center.
Whatever you want to do, it happens because of the connections we make and the actions we take over time that compound. So start today.
Need help with that first convo? Our Conversation Guide can help. Need an idea of what you want to work on when you do get together? Check out these guides:
Globally Applicable: Shareable
US Based: Local Futures Action Guide
UK based: My Community
Feature: A New Economy Documentary
I can’t believe this was released weeks ago and took this long to get to me! This is incredible news for the wellbeing economy movement. (Yes, New Economy is just another word for that.) Already at over 240k views, you check it out on Youtube for free: A New Economy - Inside the Quiet Revolution You’re Not Hearing About
Thoughts on this? It only highlights a fraction of what’s going on, but to me it’s just great news that it’s getting so many views. The more people know about this, the more can get involved and help us build!
Updates This Week
Name Change
We’ve had a slight name modification: Connection Engine is now Connectioning. This is a bit less of a mouthful and more in line with our regenerative (rather than mechanical) principles, and sounds more active, which makes sense given we’re inspiring each other — and the world — to act!
Mission Circle
Thank you for your patience while we’ve been gathering everything together in the background. Very grateful for all the hard work
has put into the project, being by my side since March and helping keep everything on track.Before we can carry on though, we need 6-10 people for our Mission Circle, which means meeting weekly, taking on a role and getting things done to lay the foundation to build out community supports, cohorts and workshops, and incubation for wellbeing economy and community wealth initiatives, social enterprises, and co-ops. If you are one of those people, please reach out or let us know in the Connectioning Substack Chat.
Discord
Special thanks to
, , and for reviving the Discord. It’s a little quiet still right now, but we’re getting very close to being able to host weekly Q&A and Community Calls. What time and time zones would work best for y’all? Let me know in the comments.Courses
Other things we’re working on: courses and pay-what-you-can digital products for getting started. Have suggestions for what you need in this department? What should we price an intro course at? What do you need help with? Please drop suggestions in the comments.
Wiki
Now available is the Wellbeing Economy / Community Wealth Wiki, which is a work in progress but will be refined over time as a single source of truth for the hundreds of movements out there creating this.
The Faros Project
I have also launched The Faros Project. This is specifically for other people who are working on getting wellbeing economy stories to go viral so people catch on to the idea and this becomes the new normal.
We share our work together on a collective data dashboard and meet regularly to refine our message and share results. If you are interested and serious about that, subscribe and instructions for joining will be in the welcome email. Join here.
Featured Writer
This week we're highlighting Mike Jones, the systems analyst turned community builder behind Resilient Tomorrow.
With over two decades of experience identifying vulnerabilities at startups and major corporations, Mike has turned his expertise toward building systems that serve communities rather than extract from them.
His newsletter has gained significant traction, with his most popular post "7 Steps to Quietly Exit a System That Wants You Dependent" reaching nearly 1,000 readers.
But Mike isn't just writing about resilience—he's building it.
He's currently developing a neighborhood sharing app that will allow people to share tools, resources, and skills with their immediate neighbors, creating local networks of mutual aid while reducing waste and building relationships. (If you have 3-4 people locally and want to try this now btw — hit Mike up!)
The app embodies Mike's core philosophy: that true wealth isn't what you own, but what you can access through community. His writing strikes a balance between systems critique and practical solutions, offering readers actionable steps toward greater self-reliance while building stronger local connections—exactly the kind of transformation-focused approach that aligns with wellbeing economy principles.
Give him a subscribe at Resilient Tomorrow.
There are so many great leaders, writers, and educators within this movement with Substack newsletters. Here, we highlight our favourite writers and their articles each week. Have someone to nominate? Let us know in the comments.
And that wraps it up for Monday! As always, would love to see your feedback and suggestions in the comments. Let me know what you want us to cover next and see you tomorrow for our story of the week: RedHen App — Shop with Local Farms. Pickup, Delivery, or Shipped. All with One App!
xoxo
J. Friday
Connectioning is a collaborative media project. For more on me, follow on my personal newsletter at The Saving the World Strategy Guide, where I share the story of going from homeless to global community wealth influencer.
Quick Links
Wellbeing Economy Wiki (Just started this. Let me know if anything doesn’t work!)
Prompt for Finding Wellbeing Economy Initiatives in Your Area (not perfect, but a great place to start until the Wiki is more comprehensive!)
Comments
Have a writer or article to nominate? A wellbeing economy or community wealth story or resource to share? A question that’s not covered in our Wellbeing Economy FAQs? Anything else? Please let us know in the comments!
"The neighbor had been wanting to contact her for six months" -> this basically just happened in my neighborhood. All of the neighbors on the block had been wanting to host something in the park nearby so we get to know our neighbors. We've been talking about it for months. Then an unknown neighbor, outside of our cluster that no one knew, went around dropping flyers on everyone's door with a time & place. And everyone showed up, and it was amazing!
We all wanted it, but someone had to start it.
I love this..and I have so many questions. I am trying to understand how this new economy model would be able to deal with things like: electricity, water, the prison system, and also, the fact that there is an unequal distribution of wealth and resources in terms of the geological placement of diverse communities and the fact that some communities do not have the economic capabilities that others do........ Perhaps someone has thought of all that...I am fairly new to this way of thinking... As an example, would the community in the area of a prison be responsible for the people inside it? Would we just let them all out? and how would we pay for their needs using this new economy model. Also...healthcare....or any part of what is/was our infrastructure..... Also... a community that can pool more economic resources is going to do better than ones in impoverished areas. ... It seems that if we want a society that functions according to "well being" that there is a lot we need to consider. Just putting this out there for thought.