A person holding up a ruler to measure a plant.

Relationality Lab

We help people
who nurture relationships
that drive change
prove that their work has impact.

Picture of a plant with roots in the shape of a heart

Our Story


Relationality Lab was founded out of a deep frustration with the way that relational work is often rendered invisible and under resourced.

In the midst of a global loneliness crisis we need this work more than ever: to create connection and care, to strengthen democracies across the globe, and to grow movements capable of addressing the climate crisis and systemic inequity.

We work towards a future where people who do the work of relationship are recognized and resourced for the value that they create. To get there, we help institutions understand and invest in relational outcomes.

What We Do


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Movement Strategy

How might your organization strategically invest in relationship? Who might you invite into relationship and how might you prepare for unpredictable but strategically relevant results? Is your organization already part of larger movements that share your values? How might participating in them further your mission?
Coming Soon
A person arranging chairs at a table.

Relational Operations

Once you know who you want to invite into relationship how do you create the conditions for those relationships to flourish? This requires an ecology of relational containers: large tentpole events interspersed with smaller more frequent gatherings. How do you build a robust ecology with limited resources?
Coming Soon
A person holding a ruler next to a plant.

Relational Data Practice

Once you’ve invested time and resources in building relationship how do you understand the impact of your work? How do you prove that impact to external stakeholders such as funders? How might we collect data about relational outcomes if those outcomes matter but cannot be predicted or controlled?
Learn More
Book cover for Relationality: How Moving from Transactional to Transformational Relationships Can Reshape Our Lonely World

Upcoming Book


Relationality is a book for anyone who has ever struggled with an institution that fails to recognize the importance of building and maintaining relationships. From social movement history to queer conceptions of family to the scientific properties of relational systems, Relationality explores how we create the conditions for relationship. This work is often invisible to people and institutions who are used to surviving through transaction. By pulling back that veil of invisibility we can profoundly transform our world for the better.

Pre-order Now


Team


A headshot of a white man in his 40s

David Jay
Founder

David’s movement roots begin in St. Louis, Missouri, where he practiced racial justice and LGBTQ+ organizing in high school. At the age of 18 he founded Asexuality.org, the world’s first major community of people identifying on the asexual spectrum, and began a career at the intersection of relational organizing and technology. He has contributed to software projects supporting post-publication scientific peer review, relational organizing in political campaigns, online brave spaces for LGBTQ+ young people, and comment systems at major news publications. Until recently he served as the Chief Mobilization Officer at the Center for Humane Technology, using relational tactics to bring together tech workers, policymakers, and survivors of harm to bring about systemic reform in the tech industry.

For over a decade, David has explored ways to combine established approaches in complex systems science, information theory, and evolutionary theory to address novel challenges in the study of relational systems in social movements. David holds a BA in Sociology and Physics from Wesleyan University and an MBA in Sustainable Business from the Presidio Graduate School.

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