What’s Love Got to Do With It?

(Illustration by Marcos Chin) 

Welcome to this series, which centers the voices of some of our esteemed partners in this journey with Urban Strategies Inc. (USI), a nearly 50-year-old “think and do tank.” USI is a national nonprofit leader and a growing force for change that partners with children, families, and communities to cocreate a better world.

If we were to ask you, “What’s love got to do with it?” would you default to the Tina Turner classic or ponder a rhetorical question? At USI, love is how we measure success. Rather than a fuzzy word or fleeting sentiment, love is what drives our work. We see ourselves as engineers of opportunity, building on what local communities know they need to become stable and thrive. With that result in mind, we broker public-private strategies to elevate and scale the best approaches for all. To love a community and its people means believing that transformation is possible and abundance is achievable, and refusing to settle for anything less than liberation.

Facing hardship and opportunity withheld, love steadies us. Love grounds us in what is genuine and unshakable. Howard Thurman once wrote about “the sound of the genuine.” We believe that sound is love: a deep, abiding love for community and the divine spark in all of us.

We ask you, reader: Who are you? Do you hear the genuine in your spirit? Is it alive in your soul? How do you love? Is it present in the work you do for the betterment of our shared humanity?

Each of us carries a calling, and with it a responsibility to uplift the most marginalized and create systems that repair but also reimagine. Love demands this—and rewards us. How are you deploying your love? How are you weaving together skills and courage to shape a society where everyone thrives?

The following writings by health avengers, financial social justice leaders, elected officials, philanthropists, and community residents explore the promise of abundant transformation rooted in love. They ask what our society could be if we all leaned into love as a strategy. Without love—for ourselves and one another—we risk losing the soul of our great society.

At USI, we believe love is a value but also a practice that calls us to stand with communities, reimagine systems, and build pathways toward liberation. We invite you to join us on this journey of love-centered transformation. What greater calling is there than loving boldly, building abundantly, and ensuring that every community has the chance to flourish? The present and future are ours—will you join us?

Read more stories by Donovan C. Duncan.