What if moving through emotion together was the most powerful thing a change maker could do?

Network of Empathy was founded in 2025 by a small team who had spent years working at the intersection of systems change, community building, and emotional intelligence — and kept seeing the same thing: change makers burning out, working in isolation, carrying grief that had nowhere to go.

We believed something different was possible. Not a programme that told change makers how to be more resilient, but a community that recognised the structural conditions they were working in and built genuine infrastructure in response.

We registered as a German Verein — a membership-based non-profit — because the legal structure needed to match the values. Our members are co-owners. That is not a metaphor.

The body and nervous system

At this level, we draw on somatic, trauma-informed, and neurobiological traditions that recognise the body as a site of knowledge and a precondition for sustained action. We understand that change makers cannot think their way to resilience — the nervous system must be resourced, and unprocessed stress and disconnection must be acknowledged. Thinkers such as Stephen Porges (polyvagal theory) and Gabor Maté (trauma, compassion, and the mind-body connection) inform this dimension of our work, alongside a wider field of somatic and embodied practice.

The relational and collective

Here we draw on traditions that understand change as inherently relational — emerging through the quality of connection between people, the health of groups, and the dynamics of communities and movements. This includes systemic and relational coaching approaches, frameworks for processing collective grief and ecological distress, and theories of how change propagates through living systems via trust, emergence, and shared rhythm. Joanna Macy (the Work That Reconnects), adrienne maree brown (emergent strategy), and the broader field of systemic coaching are among the voices that shape our thinking at this level.

The systemic and planetary

At the broadest level, we draw on frameworks for understanding complexity, interdependence, and the conditions under which living systems thrive or collapse. This includes systems thinking, regenerative design, and ecological philosophy — traditions that orient us toward working with natural systems rather than against them, restoring rather than extracting, and acting with awareness of the long arc of change. These frameworks help us hold the planetary dimension of the work without being overwhelmed by it.

We begin with care

For ourselves, for each other, and for the environments we are part of. Care is not an afterthought but the foundation for everything we do, ensuring the well-being of people and communities as we work toward change.

We center connection

As the bedrock of empathy and transformation. This means engaging with openness and generosity, listening deeply, and recognizing that we are all part of a wider web of relationships. Only then are we able to foster the communities that sustain us and build the relationships that drive collective action.

We honor experience

As a vital source of wisdom, healing, and direction. Storytelling is at the heart of our approach—not just as a way of sharing knowledge, but as a way of producing it collectively.

We ground our work in justice

Because we believe that authentic connection and collective care require the recognition of and response to the interconnected systems of power and privilege that shape our lived experiences. Our work is therefore informed by intersectionality and decoloniality.