The World Is Burning—Does the YES! Approach Still Matter?

Reprinted from the YES! Magazine website: A Final Word on What We Hoped for when we founded YES! and What Comes Next

Sarah van Gelder, Founding Editor of YES! Magazine

Note: The YES! approach was developed in the early years over many conversations with board, staff, contributors, advisors, and through a series of retreats we held called “The State of the Possible.” I want to fully acknowledge how many people’s wisdom and experience contributed to developing this approach. Each would have a different nuance on how the YES! approach is best described and how it was practiced. I don’t claim to speak for others, just my own understanding based on the first two decades while I was executive editor.

When news arrived on May 7, 2025, that YES! would be closing, I felt shock and sadness at the end of an organization I led as founding editor and at the loss to the progressive media world. But the outpouring of social media comments lifted my spirits, reminding me of the impact YES! had on so many people—some who started reading the magazine as young people, others seasoned activists who were introduced to work that inspired them to creative new approaches.

The responses got me wondering: Are there parts of YES! that can have continued life? While the current staff and board are doing heroic work to transition the organization and keep the archives available (see below for details on a new home for the YES! archive!), I want to offer something else—a look behind the scenes at the theory and practice of change we explored during YES!’s founding years and the first two decades, when I had the honor of serving as executive editor.

And I want to consider where the YES! approach fits, if at all, during the current rise of fascism. As I worked on this essay, I came to believe that these times call us, with even more urgency, to adapt and evolve the approach we developed at YES! in many different forms.

The Secret Sauce

People often asked about the “secret sauce” that made YES! Magazine what it was. Because of its exuberant name (including the exclamation point!), some believed our purpose was simply to make people feel good—to counter the doom and gloom in much of the news. Some labeled YES! as “feel good” journalism.

While we did hope to lift people’s spirits, we emphatically did not want to encourage complacency or offer journalistic antidepressants. Instead, we wanted to encourage readers’ active engagement in change by exploring realistic possibilities for a more beautiful world and by encouraging readers to take practical steps toward transformation.

Our starting point was clear: The world as structured harms working families, people of color, the poor, middle class, and future generations, while exhausting the natural world’s life and vitality.

Many believe our current system is the inevitable outcome of human evolution. But the exploitation of extractive capitalism, white supremacy, and patriarchy shatters relationships among people, undervalues individuals (especially people of color and other marginalized groups) and communities, exploits nature, and concentrates wealth and power in the hands of a few at the expense of everyone else.

Our question was this: If this destructive world order is failing us, what might replace it? Who is creating beautiful alternatives, liberated spaces, generative art and technology, economic forms that liberate creativity and cooperation, and better ways of life? What models from around the world, especially from Indigenous communities, can inspire us?

If this destructive world order is failing us, what might replace it? … What models from around the world, especially from Indigenous communities, can inspire us?

We wanted to be rigorous about real solutions. Well-intentioned acts aren’t real solutions unless they address the underlying structures—corporate capitalism, extractive treatment of people and nature, white supremacy, patriarchy, and other systems that keep groups oppressed.

Weaving New Stories

One way to approach these questions is to take a critical look at the dominant worldview that people today rely on to make sense of our world and to explore emerging worldviews. A worldview is the set of beliefs most people accept without question. But, given the many ways the dominant worldview is failing people, we were looking for a new story about how we might live together on this finite planet.

Where could such a story come from? No single individual can dream it up, and we emphatically did not set out to create that story at YES! Instead, we set out to report on new stories of human possibility that are unfolding everywhere, woven from multiple experiences, from courageous visionaries, activists and community builders, and from diverse cultures—ancient and emerging. Making these stories visible could help bring to light the emergence of a new story.

We also reported on practical ways to make the changes in keeping with these emerging worldviews, especially lifting up community-scale stories, seeking out ordinary people who brought passion, imagination, and integrity to their work. We modeled approaches to change accessible to everyone that created possible avenues to transformation.

We always looked for ways to nourish our readers’ souls, realizing that all of us deserve healing and a chance to grow in wisdom and connection. We believed in unleashing our readers’ radical imagination and supporting their right and capacity to make change so that our society—rather than serving a few at the expense of everyone else—works for all.

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We always looked for ways to nourish our readers’ souls, realizing that all of us deserve healing and a chance to grow in wisdom and connection. 

Learning from History, Centering Excluded Voices

Understanding our current moment required understanding how we got here. Each of us inherited an unbroken chain of ancestral love and support, but also a legacy of trauma—slavery, massacres, land theft, colonialism, and shattered communities. And we inherited a dominant economic system and culture that treats humans and the natural world as resources to be exploited.

This history set in motion the huge disparities of wealth and power between those descended from Europeans and those from elsewhere, those descended from the ownership classes and working and landless classes, and between women and men, and it undermined our relationship with the natural world.

From the beginning, YES! prioritized excluded voices and stories, especially highlighting leadership by women, people of color, and Indigenous people. We sought practices that addressed historic harms while showing what reparation looks like and how a world based on justice might function.

In our early days, our staff was predominantly made up of white women, and we had much to learn about racial justice. Guided by our board, contributors, and an increasingly diverse staff, we prioritized voices of people of color and people from diverse cultures. We built strong relationships with Native writers, and some of us became active allies of the Suquamish Tribe—whose ancestral land we shared—and that relationship continues today.

This approach helped us break out of the dysfunctional dominant-culture worldview, and bring in fresh approaches and solutions across cultures and from the margins of society.

Respecting Readers as Change Agents

Our theory of change focused on encouraging ordinary people’s active engagement. We put readers at the center as people who are—or could become—leaders, visionaries, and creatives. We treated them as people with agency and dignity, avoiding condescension or jargon that few could access.

We encouraged the hard work of personal transformation by drawing on wisdom traditions and research about the science of human development. But we kept in mind a truth that was often missing from the self-help genre: our liberation as individuals is tied to the liberation of all life.

In our coverage, we recognized that people learn differently—some through stories, others through abstract reasoning, art, music, or how-to guides. Some want immediate action steps while others want to understand how their work fits into a multigenerational change process. We celebrated all forms of contribution and all styles of learning and engagement.

At the same time, we put a high value on humility, always respecting our readers and looking for grace in our own shortcomings and seeking opportunities to learn and grow.

Looking Back Over Three Decades

Over the three decades of YES!, each of us who were involved would have our own stories. For me, highlights included our coverage of social movements that challenged corporate capitalism and lifting up cooperative and sustainable economic alternatives. I was transformed by the weeks I spent at Standing Rock reporting on the work of water protectors from dozens of tribes and by what I learned editing issues of the magazine on the prison-industrial complex and restorative justice alternatives.

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I was transformed by the weeks I spent at Standing Rock reporting on the work of water protectors from dozens of tribes and by what I learned editing issues of the magazine on the prison-industrial complex and restorative justice alternatives.

Traveling the country on the journey that resulted in The Revolution Where You Live (Berrett-Koehler), I was awed by people creating beautiful alternatives in rust-belt cities, Indian reservations, coal country, and other areas abandoned by corporate capitalism.

The best part was meeting extraordinary people—some famous, many more who, without fanfare, brought their passion, smarts, and hard work to making change in their communities and workplaces. These people gave me confidence that a better world is possible.

Why This Approach Matters More Than Ever

I write at a time when vulnerable communities are being surveilled and harassed, basic services are slashed, and our global climate emergency is undeniable. While mainstream political institutions fail to meet the moment, people everywhere are organizing, resisting, and reimagining.

Ending YES! amidst the nihilism of the Trump regime might suggest our efforts failed. But I’d argue that this disastrous time is a sign that — as we and others predicted — the status quo could not hold. Instead of struggling to return to the neoliberalism represented by the Biden Administration, we are called to go even further into creating a new story by building deeper connections to each other and to Mother Earth, resisting fascism and extractive corporations, opening up our imaginations, creating beautiful alternatives, and exploring multiple paths forward.

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Ending YES! amidst the nihilism of the Trump regime might suggest our efforts failed. But I’d argue that this disastrous time is a sign that — as we and others predicted — the status quo could not hold.

Fascism thrives when people give up hope and become isolated and fearful. Staying connected and building supportive communities is just what we need to get us through this dark time. We need courage, and we need to see courage modeled by others. More than ever, we need to see models of more just, compassionate, and sustainable possibilities at all levels of society, while we join with others to build power for change.

The Trump regime’s corrupt authoritarian policies are causing irreparable harm to all facets of society and to our global relationships.

We can’t go back, but we do have choices about how we rebuild. We can rebuild based on equity, sustainability, belonging, and community. We can recreate our economy so it serves all people while restoring ecological resilience.

We can encourage people to unleash their creative, wild, radical imagination—to dream about the sort of world they want for their communities and their children, to reach out to others, and to dare to build that world.

The Way Forward

The visionaries and practitioners featured in YES! explored what was possible then, and much of what they contributed suggests ways forward now. Articles originally published in YES! were placed in the Creative Commons — we encouraged their widespread distribution and re-use. There is great news about the future of those resources.

Thanks to the efforts of the current staff and board, the entire digital archive of YES! will now live on through Truthout, a like-minded independent news organization that will serve as the new steward of our digital content—ensuring ongoing access to nearly three decades of visionary journalism.

Winston Churchill said, “Never let a good crisis go to waste.” This is a crisis of global proportions that neither MAGA-style nationalism nor neoliberal centrism can fix. But we the people can—by making bold choices in our communities and joining together to exercise our collective power.

At YES!, we never spoke of certainties about the future — only about possibilities. But possibilities are powerful magnets, drawing us to the hard but deeply rewarding work of creating a world together where people and the planet come first.

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At YES!, we never spoke of certainties about the future — only about possibilities. But possibilities are powerful magnets, drawing us to the hard but deeply rewarding work of creating a world together where people and the planet come first.

The YES! approach offers a framework for this work: lifting up stories of people creating beautiful alternatives, connecting their efforts, unpacking the elements of success, and helping readers imagine and build the world we need. Whether through new media organizations, grassroots storytelling efforts, or whatever comes next, this approach remains not just relevant—but essential.

The creative energy of change is everywhere. Our job is to find it, share it, and weave it into the new stories our world desperately needs.