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New Dream, formerly recognized as The Center for a New American Dream, is a non-profit organization dedicated to empowering individuals, communities, and organizations to adopt consumption practices that enhance well-being for both people and the planet. [1]
The organization collaborates with individuals and communities to address the commercialization of culture, promote community involvement, and preserve natural resources. New Dream advocates against the adverse impacts of commercialism and excessive consumption, aiming to shift societal norms surrounding consumption and consumer behavior. They support individuals and communities striving for lifestyle changes and collective actions. New Dream's overarching objective is to foster behavioral change, shift attitudes, and reshape social norms to decrease consumption, strengthen community ties, and enhance overall well-being.
The organization emphasizes sustainability and the promotion of non-material values. One of New Dream's objectives is to encourage a cultural shift away from a focus on accumulation towards prioritizing what holds significance. While individuals determine their own priorities, New Dream suggests emphasizing aspects such as time, nature, family, community, fairness, and enjoyment over material possessions. The organization's informal slogan is "More Fun, Less Stuff."
In essence, New Dream aims to foster a vision of life that transcends overconsumption, disposable habits, and constant marketing. It offers resources to assist families, individuals, educators, and advocates in curbing consumerism both personally and within society at large.
New Dream operates within three main program areas:
SoKind Registry: This initiative offers an "alternative gift registry" platform, enabling users to create registries or wishlists emphasizing enjoyable experiences, quality time with loved ones, and contributions towards meaningful causes. [2]
Kids & Commercialism: This program provides practical advice for fostering non-commercial environments and activities for children, empowering individuals to enact lasting positive changes in the lives of the children they care for. [3]
Simplify the Holidays: New Dream promotes a focus on "more of what matters" during the holiday season by offering creative gift suggestions and simplification strategies. The aim is to help individuals prioritize meaningful connections and joy over stress, excess, and expenditure. [4]
Founded in 1997, the Center for a New American Dream initiated a significant national dialogue on materialism, achieving balance in life, and the often overlooked consequences of a society characterized by high consumption. Its distinctive emphasis on the connections between consumption patterns, environmental impact, and overall well-being set it apart from other environmental and social justice organizations. The center ceased operations in September 2020.
In 2017, the Center for a New American Dream underwent a strategic reorganization and rebranding effort aimed at enhancing program efficiency and aligning with the evolving needs of its expanding audience. The organization adopted the name New Dream and currently operates as a Joint Plan of Work Partner of Virginia Organizing, a tax-exempt organization that accepts donations on behalf of New Dream.
On September 30, 2020, New Dream announced its closure as an independent nonprofit organization. However, it continues to collaborate with various community partners despite discontinuing its standalone operations. New Dream had been active for nearly 25 years prior to its closure. [5]
The organization proposed that American-style consumerism and the pursuit of the "American Dream" have contributed significantly to the normalization of high-consumption lifestyles. The name update reflects the organization's broader mission to assist individuals and communities globally in reducing consumerism and materialism.
Empowerment is the degree of autonomy and self-determination in people and in communities. This enables them to represent their interests in a responsible and self-determined way, acting on their own authority. It is the process of becoming stronger and more confident, especially in controlling one's life and claiming one's rights. Empowerment as action refers both to the process of self-empowerment and to professional support of people, which enables them to overcome their sense of powerlessness and lack of influence, and to recognize and use their resources.
Consumerism is a social and economic order in which the aspirations of many individuals include the acquisition of goods and services beyond those necessary for survival or traditional displays of status. It emerged in Western Europe before the Industrial Revolution and became widespread around 1900. In economics, consumerism refers to policies that emphasize consumption. It is the consideration that the free choice of consumers should strongly orient the choice by manufacturers of what is produced and how, and therefore orient the economic organization of a society. Consumerism has been criticized by both individuals who choose other ways of participating in the economy and environmentalists concerned about its impact on the planet. Experts often assert that consumerism has physical limits, such as growth imperative and overconsumption, which have larger impacts on the environment. This includes direct effects like overexploitation of natural resources or large amounts of waste from disposable goods and significant effects like climate change. Similarly, some research and criticism focuses on the sociological effects of consumerism, such as reinforcement of class barriers and creation of inequalities.
Simple living refers to practices that promote simplicity in one's lifestyle. Common practices of simple living include reducing the number of possessions one owns, depending less on technology and services, and spending less money. In addition to such external changes, simple living also reflects a person's mindset and values. Simple living practices can be seen in history, religion, art, and economics.
In social behavior, downshifting is a trend where individuals adopt simpler lives from what critics call the "rat race".
Post Fordism is a term used to describe the growth of new production methods defined by flexible production, the individualization of labor relations and fragmentation of markets into distinct segments, after the demise of Fordist production. It was widely advocated by French Marxist economists and American labor economists in the 1970s and 1980s. Definitions of the nature and scope of post-Fordism vary considerably and are a matter of debate among scholars.
Economic materialism can be described as either a personal attitude that attaches importance to acquiring and consuming material goods or as a logistical analysis of how physical resources are shaped into consumable products.
Community psychology is concerned with the community as the unit of study. This contrasts with most psychology which focuses on the individual. Community psychology also studies the community as a context for the individuals within it, and the relationships of the individual to communities and society. Community psychologists seek to understand the functioning of the community, including the quality of life of persons within groups, organizations and institutions, communities, and society. They aim to enhance the quality of life through collaborative research and action.
Youth empowerment is a process where children and young people are encouraged to take charge of their lives. They do this by addressing their situation and then take action in order to improve their access to resources and transform their consciousness through their beliefs, values, and attitudes. Youth empowerment aims to improve quality of life. Youth empowerment is achieved through participation in youth empowerment programs. However scholars argue that children's rights implementation should go beyond learning about formal rights and procedures to give birth to a concrete experience of rights. There are numerous models that youth empowerment programs use that help youth achieve empowerment. A variety of youth empowerment initiatives are underway around the world. These programs can be through non-profit organizations, government organizations, schools or private organizations.
Juliet B. Schor is an American economist and Sociology Professor at Boston College. She has studied trends in working time, consumerism, the relationship between work and family, women's issues and economic inequality, and concerns about climate change in the environment. From 2010 to 2017, she studied the sharing economy under a large research project funded by the MacArthur Foundation. She is currently working on a project titled "The Algorithmic Workplace" with a grant from the National Science Foundation.
Frugality is the quality of being frugal, sparing, thrifty, prudent, or economical in the consumption of resources such as food, time or money, and avoiding waste, lavishness or extravagance.
Anti-consumerism is a sociopolitical ideology. It has been defined as "intentionally and meaningfully excluding or cutting goods from one's consumption routine or reusing once-acquired goods with the goal of avoiding consumption". The ideology is opposed to consumerism, being a social and economic order in which the aspirations of many individuals include the acquisition of goods and services beyond those necessary for survival or traditional displays of status.
Tim Kasser is an American psychologist and book author known for his work on materialism and well-being.
The recovery model, recovery approach or psychological recovery is an approach to mental disorder or substance dependence that emphasizes and supports a person's potential for recovery. Recovery is generally seen in this model as a personal journey rather than a set outcome, and one that may involve developing hope, a secure base and sense of self, supportive relationships, empowerment, social inclusion, coping skills, and meaning. Recovery sees symptoms as a continuum of the norm rather than an aberration and rejects sane-insane dichotomy.
Youth engagement is the sentiment young people feel towards a particular person, activity, place or outcome. It has been a focus of youth development, public policy and social change movements for at least forty years. According to a Cornell University program, "Youth engagement is one of the buzzwords in the youth development field. Similar terms are youth voice, youth involvement, youth participation, and youth in governance."
Sustainable consumption is the use of products and services in ways that minimizes impacts on the environment.
Sustainable consumer behavior is the sub-discipline of consumer behavior that studies why and how consumers do or do not incorporate sustainability priorities into their consumption behavior. It studies the products that consumers select, how those products are used, and how they are disposed of in pursuit of consumers' sustainability goals.
Theories of consumption have been a part of the field of sociology since its earliest days, dating back, at least implicitly, to the work of Karl Marx in the mid-to-late nineteenth century. Sociologists view consumption as central to everyday life, identity and social order. Many sociologists associate it with social class, identity, group membership, age and stratification as it plays a huge part in modernity. Thorstein Veblen's (1899) The Theory of the Leisure Class is generally seen as the first major theoretical work to take consumption as its primary focus. Despite these early roots, research on consumption began in earnest in the second half of the twentieth century in Europe, especially Great Britain. Interest in the topic among mainstream US sociologists was much slower to develop and it is still not a focal concern of many American sociologists. Efforts are currently underway to form a section in the American Sociological Association devoted to the study of consumption.
Social workers employ education as a tool in client and community interactions. These educational exchanges are not always explicit, but are the foundation of how social workers acquire knowledge from their service participants and how they can contribute to information delivery and skill development.
Guilt-free consumption (GFC) is a pattern of consumption based on the minimization of the sense of guilt which consumers incur when purchasing products or commercial services.
