Gandhi famously said that “you must be the change you wish to see in the world.” Few people embody that idea as well as Jerome Threlkeld, a young activist and community leader from Flint, Michigan.

In a city reeling from the collapse of the American auto industry, Jerome is a champion of hope and possibility. He works with church groups, neighborhood associations, after school programs, youth groups and others to build trust, stimulate dialogue, and strengthen people’s capacity to participate and make their voices heard.

The struggle, he says, is to turn people’s anger and hopelessness into a strength — to help them draw on their deepest inner resources to work for a better tomorrow. He sees himself not as a thermometer, but as a thermostat.

“A thermometer reads the temperature in a room,” he tells me. “But a thermostat can change it. It can cool it down or heat it up. I see myself as a thermostat, someone whose purpose it is to change the atmosphere wherever I happen to be.”

Jerome understands that leaders, at their best, elevate and inspire. Their purpose is to create opportunities for their people to succeed, not only for themselves, but for their organizations and communities.

Some 1,000 people came together in Canberra, Australia, over the weekend for a free-spirited “ideas summit” — a gathering of experts, activists, politicians, and celebrities aimed at soliciting innovative ideas to strengthen Australia’s future.

Over the course of two days, some 8,000 ideas were submitted. By the end of the weekend, the number had been narrowed down to 40. The proposals focused on addressing environmental sustainability, strengthening civil society, and generally promoting the common good. They included ideas for:

• A preventative health agency to be funded by a junk-food tax 
• Providing incentives to lure Australians to work in rural communities
• Delivering fresh fruit to schools once a week
• Making Australia the “greenest” economy in the world by 2020

The ideas summit — the first of what is hoped will become an annual event in Australia — is a beautiful example of how to encourage new ideas and innovative thinking.

Too often we expect bright ideas to emerge from corporate boardrooms, from forward-thinking political figures, or from the latest management books when, in fact, they tend to come from the grassroots. What we need are better ways to harness those ideas — by creating a context for conversations around pressing problems, helping people network, and ensuring that good ideas are given a propert hearing and some exposure in the media.

The Australians have shown that this isn’t an elusive ideal, but a smart and practical way of working for a better tomorrow.

Read more:

• Australia 2020 — Official website
• Australia ‘Ideas Summit’ Yields Wide-Ranging Proposals — From Huffington Post

Over the past six months, I’ve been talking with civic leaders from across the country about what it means to build community. The process has challenged some of my preconceptions. Community is not something you can build, they tell me. It’s a quality that has to be brought forward and actualized, in the same way a sculptor reveals a statue by chipping and hewing at the marble. Switching metaphors is important, they insist, because it’s only when we abandon the idea of “building” in favor of “sculpting” that we can see community where it already exists. You have to foster what’s already there, not attempt to create something from nothing. That’s the essential starting point for bringing about change and making a difference.