Hello Friends,

The beginning of a year invites reflection before action.

At Compassionate Atlanta, January is a month of listening, alignment, and care. This is the season when our team gathers for a retreat, tends to year end responsibilities, applies for new grants, and thoughtfully plans the programs and partnerships that will carry us through the year ahead.

This quieter, intentional work matters.

It shapes how we show up, how we lead, and how we steward the trust placed in us by our communities.

We believe compassionate leadership begins with attention. Attention to ourselves. Attention to one another. Attention to the systems and neighborhoods we serve.

Before we move outward, we pause inward.
Before we build, we ask what is truly needed.
Before decisions are made, we ask who is missing from the table.

January reminds us that how we begin shapes what becomes possible.

As we step into 2026, we are also naming our guiding call for the year ahead:

This is our tagline, our moniker, our guiding compass for 2026.

Compassion is not a feeling we sit with quietly, or a word we reach for only when it is convenient. Compassion is something we practice. Something we embody. Something we activate every day, in our lives, our work, and our civic spaces.

For more than a decade, Compassionate Atlanta has been transforming care into action by centering compassion as a civic practice. Our work recognizes that health, dignity, equity, and belonging are deeply connected to the conditions in which people are born, live, learn, work, worship, and age.

As Karen Armstrong reminds us, a compassionate city is often an uncomfortable city.

• Uncomfortable when neighbors are hungry or unhoused.
• Uncomfortable when opportunity is uneven.
• Uncomfortable when justice and care are not shared equitably.

We lean into that discomfort because real change lives there.

Through education, collaboration, and civic engagement, our programs support self compassion, community connection, compassionate placemaking, systems change, and compassion that reaches beyond Atlanta through our statewide partnerships.

From CompassionCon to Re Storying Dignity, from leadership development to community storytelling, our work is rooted in shared power and the belief that no one should be left behind.

As we begin this year together, we invite you into reflection alongside us.

What does compassionate leadership look like in your own life, work, or community in 2026?

Thank you for being part of this movement. Your presence, partnership, and support make this work possible.

With heart and gratitude,

The Compassionate Atlanta Team

P.S. Partners, please submit your flyers for your events to iyabo@compassionateatl.org.

 Call to Action:

Reply to this email with one word that names how you want to lead in 2026. Thanks!

Thank you to Compassionate Atlanta Board Member Catherine Murithi who attended an awards event by our partner HWPL. Leanne and Iyabo were honored to be two of the “100 DeKalb Leaders for Peace & Community” at this year’s Year-End Family Cultural Festival in Stonecrest. Thank you Cate, you are an awesome board member and it is a joy to work with you. Thank you HWPL - You Rock!!! 😇

Compassionate Atlanta is a nonprofit 501(c) organization with a mission to educate, engage, inspire and empower Greater Atlanta to spread compassionate action.

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