BAM Institute of Civic Biodesign

Last week, we practiced seeing the system.

This week, we practiced something harder:
learning where not to act.

In civic life, effort is often treated as the highest virtue. We celebrate showing up, working harder, staying late, and pushing through resistance. And to be clear, effort matters. Communities don’t change without it.

But effort, by itself, is a blunt instrument.

One of the core lessons from systems thinking, articulated most clearly by Donella Meadows, is that not all actions are equal. Some interventions barely move the needle, no matter how much energy we pour into them. Others, applied carefully and patiently, can reshape outcomes for decades.

These are called leverage points: places in a system where a small shift can produce big, lasting change.

Week 2 of the Civic Studio was about learning how to recognize them, and just as importantly, how to resist the temptation to act where leverage is low.

The Leverage Trap: Why Good People Burn Out
If you’ve ever worked on a civic issue in Sioux Falls, housing, traffic, zoning, public safety, or neighborhood trust, you’ve likely experienced a familiar pattern:

People work hard.
They organize.
They advocate.
They propose fixes.

And the system absorbs the effort… and largely stays the same.

This is not because the people involved are naïve or ineffective. It’s because most civic effort is applied at low-leverage points, where systems are excellent at resisting change.

Donella Meadows warned about this decades ago:

“The least effective places to intervene in a system are also the most obvious.”

In other words, systems lure us into working where it feels like something should change, numbers, funding levels, enforcement, messaging, while protecting the deeper structures that actually shape outcomes.

This mismatch between effort and impact is one of the primary drivers of civic burnout.

read more:

Choosing Where to Intervene Why Effort Alone Isn’t Enough in Sioux Falls

Is half of your local government missing?

Whole-City Operating Model Addressing the missing half of our local government.

What If Rest Had a Geography?
….Reflections from the close of our Physical Wellness conversations

We just wrapped up our focus on physical wellness, and the final thread we pulled on was rest. Not sleep hygiene. Not productivity hacks. But deep, soul-level rest.

And it left us wondering something we can’t quite shake:

What if the ecology of a place is trying to teach us how to rest?

Here in Sioux Falls, we live with big skies, deep winters, powerful winds, and long arcs of prairie growth. What would it mean to actually listen to that?
• The prairie doesn’t rush. It burns, it rests, it roots.
• Bison don’t sprint. They turn into the storm, move slow, and graze together.
• Snakes and frogs brumate, resting for months without shame or urgency.
• Even the moon waxes and wanes. She builds. She lets go. Every 29 days.

But in our dominant culture, especially here in the Midwest, rest is often treated like failure. Or weakness. Or something you have to earn only after exhaustion.

We’re beginning to wonder if that’s not just unhealthy, it’s unnatural.

So here’s our open question to you:

What would it look like to root your sense of rest in the ecology around you?
Not in the calendar year. Not in the budget cycle. But in the rhythms of snow, dusk, fire, wind, root.

Is there a “rest map” hidden in this place that we’ve forgotten how to read?

We’d love to hear what your body already knows.

—The BAM Fellows

Introducing the Preservation Kitchen: Infrastructure for a More Resilient Food System

Let’s talk about carrots. Or beets. Or that giant bag of locally grown onions that never made it out of a cooler because there was no one around to peel them.

This happens all the time, quietly, behind the scenes of our food system. Farmers grow good food. Buyers (like schools or shelters) want good food. But what’s missing is the “middle.” The peeling. The washing. The chopping. The freezing. The logistics. The cold storage. The invisible labor and infrastructure that turns produce into something usable at scale.

This is where the Preservation Kitchen comes in.

We're building something new in Sioux Falls, a shared-use food processing facility housed at Union Gospel Mission Sioux Falls and supported by a USDA infrastructure grant. But more than a kitchen, it’s a response to structural gaps we’ve seen for years:

Farmers who can grow more than they can sell, because no one can handle it in bulk.

Schools and food pantries that want local food but can’t dice 80 pounds of carrots every morning.

Institutional kitchens with no space, no staff, and no time, even if the desire is there.

The Preservation Kitchen is designed to fill that “missing middle.” It’s a place where raw, locally grown produce can be washed, chopped, steamed, frozen, and packed into usable, foodservice-ready formats, all without each individual farmer or nonprofit having to build their own facility.

It’s not a place to bottle your sauce for resale. It’s not a rentable space for pop-up restaurants or start-up brands. (At least not under the current grant.)

But it is a place where:
A farmer could bring 200 lbs of carrots to be peeled and frozen for a school lunch program
Greens could be washed and bagged for a shelter kitchen to use that same day
Summer tomatoes could be turned into sauce-ready pulp for winter food bank meals

It’s slow infrastructure. Quiet infrastructure. But vital.

Here’s the bigger picture:

The Preservation Kitchen is not just about vegetables. It’s about resilience in a time of fragility. It’s about regional capacity when national supply chains are brittle. It’s about building public-use tools that help us care for one another more effectively, not just in crisis, but every day.

You probably won’t see the logo on a shelf. But you might taste it in a school lunch tray. Or in a meal served at a shelter. Or in the quiet relief of a farmer who finally has a pathway for what would have gone to waste.

We’re grateful to be doing this with the support of the USDA’s Resilient Food Systems Infrastructure (RFSI) program, a rare investment in public food processing capacity. But this is just the beginning. It will take all of us, farmers, buyers, nonprofits, educators, and community members, to design and sustain something this ambitious.

So if you're a grower, a food access partner, a teacher, a curious neighbor, or just someone who wants to be part of building the food system between the food systems, let’s talk.

The Preservation Kitchen is coming. And with it, a little more structure in a world that often feels like it’s running on duct tape and hope.

Let’s preserve more than food. Let’s preserve possibility.

We spend a lot of time asking people about themselves. We let them speak in their own language and describe what matters to them in their own terms. This last Friday we got to participate in free Friday with . It was a blast. Here are some of the responses we got from a public input board.

What do you want to see in your community?

Dear friends and neighbors,

What a day.

We’re so grateful to everyone who came out to walk, rest, reflect, and share time on Karol’s Prairie. Our little 45 acres is slowly coming into its own, guided by wind, hoof, and fire. Thanks to our cows (and their surprisingly effective mowing), the picnic area and hiking paths were more accessible than ever this year.

About 50 of you joined us, making space for deep conversation and easy reconnection. Around half walked the 1-mile loop and visited all six stations, each one inviting a different way to see the land:

The Wellhead, where restoration begins with water.

The Fallen Cottonwood, still teaching us after it fell.

The Dugout, a reminder that not all legacies age well.

The Badger Hole, where unseen lives make the surface possible.

The Missing Branch, carried by the flood, rested where water left it.

The Burned Triangles, where fire coaxed sleeping seeds back to life.

We’ve left the stations up in case you’d like to return or bring someone new along for the walk.

We were moved (and honestly, overwhelmed) by how many neighbors offered fieldstone and cattle panels to help us build the gabion walls for our entrance. If you still have stone or panels to share, feel free to drop them just inside the south side of the gate, or let us know where to pick them up. We’re also looking for larger timber, old power poles, or barn beams, for future benches and signage.

And if you haven’t yet seen the cut steel sign on 449th Street at the gate, stop by sometime. It will be permanently mounted to the gabion wall, serving as a marker for something growing, not just a built structure.

Thank you for walking with us on the prairie and in this shared work of restoration.
We hope to see you next year, on the second Saturday in June. Until then, may you continue to ask big questions… and listen closely to the land.

With gratitude and prairie dust,


Clinton Brown
Karol’s Prairie Stewardship Team

Family Field Day 2025 — BAM Institute of Civic Biodesign Dear friends and neighbors, What a day. We’re so grateful to everyone who came out to walk, rest, reflect, and share time on Karol’s Prairie. Our little 45 acres is slowly coming into its own, guided by wind, hoof, and fire. Thanks to our cows (and their surprisingly effective mowing), the picni...

Why BAM Teaches Financial Wellness (and What It Has to Do with Changing the World)

At BAM, we teach Financial Wellness not because we want students to chase wealth, but because we want them to reclaim it.

Too many of us grew up absorbing unspoken beliefs about money: that it’s scarce, that more is always better, that your worth is tied to your earnings, and that being “good with money” means individual success at any cost. These ideas don’t just shape personal budgets; they shape policy, design, and injustice at scale.

So we approach financial wellness differently.

We invite our Fellows to unlearn inherited scarcity narratives and reconnect with a deeper truth, one that authors like Lynne Twist articulate beautifully in The Soul of Money: "What you appreciate appreciates." That is, money is not just currency—it’s a reflection of your values, your relationships, your fears, and your hopes. When you center sufficiency over accumulation, money becomes a tool, not for separation, but for connection.

In our financial wellness module, we ask:

What values guide the way you earn, spend, and give?

How do our personal money stories reflect or resist systemic extraction?

How might we build regenerative civic economies, where wealth flows, heals, and returns?

We believe this work matters because our Fellows are not just students. You are future policymakers, designers, healers, educators, and organizers. And the way you understand money will shape the systems you help steward. Whether you’re launching a food sovereignty project, negotiating a city budget, or teaching your kids about dignity, you carry this new relationship into the world.

With this understanding, we hope our Fellows will:

Recognize and dismantle scarcity-based thinking, in themselves and in institutions.

Lead with financial transparency, courage, and community accountability.

Create civic and economic systems that center wellbeing, reciprocity, and sufficiency.

Redefine prosperity, not by how much they accumulate, but by how many are flourishing.

Because ultimately, financial wellness isn’t about having more.
It’s about knowing what is enough and building a world where everyone has access to it.

Why Environmental Wellness Matters — From Personal Spaces to Civic Places

At the BAM Institute of Civic Biodesign, we study Environmental Wellness not just as a personal practice, but as a civic responsibility and design competency.

In our syllabus for Module 1: Foundations of Self, Environmental Wellness is framed as the ability to assess, improve, and sustain the environments we occupy—starting with our own living spaces. Why begin here? Because the micro reflects the macro.

When we learn to care for a room, a home, or a garden, we’re also learning:

How to evaluate space for functionality, sustainability, and human well-being.

How to implement changes that improve quality of life.

How to reflect on the relationships between people, space, and systems.

These are the same design-thinking skills that civic leaders, community organizers, and environmental advocates use when shaping parks, neighborhoods, transportation systems, and cities.

From Self to Scale
We take inspiration from Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer, blending Indigenous wisdom with scientific and civic knowledge. The work asks:

What might the natural world teach us about reciprocity, design, and belonging?

In practicing Environmental Wellness, students learn:

Organizational strategies and sustainable living practices.

Environmental psychology—understanding how space influences behavior, emotion, and resilience.

Documentation and reflection to iterate on designs and measure impact.

By applying these principles first at home, students build the adaptive skills and design literacy necessary for larger-scale problem-solving in community development, sustainability efforts, and public health initiatives.

Why This Matters for Civic Life
Environmental wellness at scale touches every major civic issue:

Housing design and quality.

Urban planning and access to green space.

Climate adaptation and disaster resilience.

Mental health outcomes are linked to environmental conditions.

Sustainable use of public resources.

Students who develop Environmental Wellness skills in our program are being equipped not just to improve their own lives—but to contribute to more resilient, equitable, and human-centered civic spaces.

Questions for Civic Biodesigners:
How do the spaces we design influence community health and belonging?

What small-scale environmental changes can lead to large-scale cultural shifts?

How can personal sustainability practices translate into civic leadership and policy?

At every scale, wellness is design. And design is civic.
That’s why Environmental Wellness is not just a private concern—it’s a public one.

The Blind Spot in Our Cultural DNA
When most Americans see an open lot, a stretch of prairie, or even a quiet urban field, a nearly automatic thought takes hold:

“This space needs to be developed.”

This reflex seems natural, but it’s not.
It’s a product of our cultural DNA, shaped by centuries of ideas about land, value, and progress.

And it’s become one of the most powerful — and dangerous — forces shaping the trajectory of our cities and towns.

The Empty Land Illusion: Why We See Undeveloped Spaces as Wasted — and How to Change That The Blind Spot in Our Cultural DNA

Beyond Borders: Reclaiming the Geographies That Can Help Us Survive — and Thrive

Where Are You From?

It’s a question we’ve all answered thousands of times.

We reply with countries, states, or cities.
Some of us answer with cultural markers like “the Midwest,” “Appalachia,” or “the Bay Area.”
Others might reference their favorite sports team’s region or the university they attended.

But what if I told you that the geographies we most often use to describe “where we’re from” are almost entirely symbolic — and often disconnected from the actual systems that shape our daily lives, wellness, and survival?

As the world changes beneath our feet — from climate disruptions to economic shifts to new patterns of migration — the old, inherited boundaries we’ve leaned on for identity are offering us less and less coherence.

If you’ve felt that dissonance, you’re not alone.

Beyond Borders: Reclaiming the Geographies That Can Help Us Survive — and Thrive Where Are You From?

Earth Day Reflection from BAM: What If the Earth Isn’t “Out There”?

This Earth Day, we’re asking a different kind of question:

What if “saving the Earth” isn’t about fixing something outside of us, but about healing the systems we’re already part of—within us, between us, and all around us?

In Civic Biodesign, we don’t see the planet as a backdrop. We see it as a living system we’re deeply entangled with. Our neighborhoods, our public spaces, our relationships, our city policies—they’re not separate from “nature.” They’re extensions of it.

When we talk about climate resilience, we’re also talking about emotional resilience. When we regenerate soil, we’re also regenerating trust.

So today, we invite you to reflect not just on how to reduce your impact—but how to increase your interconnection.
• Can we design our civic systems to mimic the adaptability of ecosystems?
• Can we cultivate communities that function like resilient forests—diverse, interdependent, and constantly learning?
• What feedback loops in our lives and communities are leading to burnout, depletion, or fragmentation? And what new ones might lead to regeneration?

This Earth Day, let’s shift the narrative: from control to cooperation, from extraction to reciprocity, from silos to symbiosis.

Because the most radical thing we can do for the Earth… might just be to remember that we are it.

This is Outcome-Centered Systems Mapping. A structured exercise in mapping a civic system based on the outcomes it reliably produces, rather than the goals it claims to pursue.

Using the transcript from the recent meeting where the Sioux Falls Regional Mayors met up to talk about issues and opportunities. We took the time to map out what a system would have to look like to produce that meeting. Because the current system produced that meeting. We are not making a judgment, but instead imagining what it would be like to create a SimCity where that meeting was the outcome of success. What would have to be true?

System Design: “Civic Continuity Under Constraint” Introduction: Why Map a System for What It Really Does