The Call for Compassion in Our Communities
- Jo Maloney
- Sep 1, 2025
- 2 min read
A few months ago, I wrote about the importance of cultivating compassionate learning communities. At the time, my focus was on how compassion shapes the environments that supports education wellbeing. Yet recently, I’ve been reflecting on how deeply our broader communities also need compassion—perhaps now more than ever.
Compassion is more than a kind gesture; it’s the recognition of our shared humanity. As Brené Brown reminds us, compassion is fuelled by understanding and accepting that every one of us carries both strength and struggle. None of us are immune to pain, hardship, or uncertainty. Compassion is not about fixing another person or seeing ourselves as “better than.” It’s about standing together in the beauty and the burden of being human.
Kindness and compassion are qualities we often talk about, and it’s easy to agree we need more of them. Research supports this truth, but so too does our lived experience. Each of us has felt the healing power of being truly listened to, supported, or understood in a difficult moment. These heart-centred responses create space for hope, connection, and resilience to flourish.
Within organisations, compassion has a ripple effect. It allows individuals and groups to cooperate, flourish, and thrive. By cultivating kindness and compassion, we also crowd out hatred and hostility—the two simply cannot coexist in the same space. Compassion is not a single act but an ongoing, multifaceted process:
It begins with noticing another’s suffering.
It grows into empathetic concern.
It calls forth courage and wisdom to respond with care.
Sometimes compassion means taking immediate action—offering reassurance, friendship, or practical support. At other times, the most powerful act of compassion is listening—holding space for another person’s story and pain. And sometimes, wisdom requires us to acknowledge our own limits and practice self-compassion, ensuring we don’t deplete ourselves as we care for others.
The benefits of compassion are profound. In organisations, it strengthens engagement, loyalty, and the quality of service. In education, it leads to stronger relationships and better learning, development, and wellbeing outcomes. In life, compassion fuels prosocial behaviours—empathy, forgiveness, and kindness—that strengthen the very fabric of our communities.
We even know from science that kind acts increase human connection, trigger reciprocity, and release oxytocin—the hormone that fosters trust and belonging. In other words, compassion doesn’t just change how we feel; it changes how we function together.
As we look at the world around us—with its challenges, divisions, and uncertainties—the call for compassion feels urgent. We each have the capacity to cultivate it, in our families, our workplaces, and our communities. Compassion is not a soft ideal. It is a necessary practice that helps us to thrive—together.
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