As in a 1930s Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland movie, a small group of people can just “start-up” in a local barn or an abandoned office building, small manufacturing plant, or vacant Main Street store. This starter mentality and dynamics may have something to do with community size. During the final project seminar of our Emerging and Senior Sage leader interviewers, it was widely acknowledged that Nevada County is “not so large that you can’t get things done, and not so small that you can’t get things done.” “Small is big,” and even a slight bit of isolation seems to generate a significant level of arts activity. This is undoubtedly true of other areas of community life. What a wonderful setting in which to provide professional coaching.
Many Senior Sage leaders are engaged in some form of governance, such as the chambers of commerce or nonprofit boards. In most instances, their involvements seem to be driven by a commitment to environmental, fiscal, or cultural sustainability. Senior Sage leaders are not so much interested in controlling their community as they are in expanding effective discourse; for example, how to get more disadvantaged people involved in community governance, how to nourish cultural life, how to create conditions for new businesses to flourish and strengthen the economy. While the term “island” doesn’t get used or discussed very often, the Senior Sage leaders of Grass Valley and Nevada City recognize that they live in “an island” community. And as with all such communities, the islanders have to do most everything themselves without much help coming from the outside.
Social Welfare: Western Nevada County has a large number of nonprofit social welfare agencies—ranging from Habitat for Humanity to Women of Worth, from agencies that address the needs of babies to food co-ops, from service to people with drug habits to those who are homeless and those who have been abused. These agencies depend on the volunteer work done by Senior Sage leaders and others in the community who “give from their heart,” expecting and receiving no financial compensation. Professional coaching “on behalf of the greater good” thrives in such a setting.
Some of this “heart” results from the unique relationship that exists between the county volunteer organizations and the government agencies that serve these communities—particularly the Nevada County Health and Human Service Agency. The former director had a unique philosophy about the role his agency should play in the community: he believed that nonprofit organizations should provide as many community services as they possibly can, and that county government’s job is to make this happen as often as is practicable. This has not always been the way of Nevada County government; as is the case with so many county, state, and federal agencies, there was a long-held and pervasive view that government agencies should assume sole or at least primary responsibility for human services.
Of course, there is more to the story than just collaborative relationships between the community’s government and nonprofit sectors. In many ways, as we noted previously, the culture of Grass Valley and Nevada City contributes to what Alexis de Tocqueville (and later Robert Bellah and his colleagues) called “habits of the heart” (de Tocqueville, 2000/1835; Bellah et al, 1985) This is particularly the case among its Senior Sage leaders. As Hillary Clinton (2006) wrote about children needing to be raised by a village, perhaps seniors are most able to find a calling when they live in communities that have both heart and place value on the lives of everyone there.
Many Senior Sage leaders came to Western Nevada County from other communities in California or other regions of the United States. To a person they note how remarkable it is that Grass Valley and Nevada City are able to respond rapidly to individuals and families who are in crisis—and how flexible and often entrepreneurial nonprofit organizations can be in making this happen.
