I’ve written a bit before about the aspiration to create a “Culture of Life Center” in Philadelphia.

There are at least a half dozen pro-life nonprofits and social enterprises in the Greater Philadelphia area, but they’re dispersed and disconnected. There are no operational economies of scale, and people who are all part of a similar cultural movement aren’t connecting as often or as meaningfully as they should. A central Culture of Life Center would be an experimental step toward solving that problem.

Elodie Larousse wrote recently on the “effect of leadership on community” in the context of coworking spaces. The takeaway is that a coworking space can’t just be a facility with a manager. It requires a leader, and for any Culture of Life Center, which would likely be run by the Pro-Life Union of Greater Philadelphia, that means adding another responsibility onto our Executive Director’s plate, or finding a creative way to meet the need for conscious, intentional community-building in such a space.

Simply working near other people, however similar, isn’t likely to make an impact.