Fix Me Up Quickly

Before he became one of the world’s leading thinkers on community service and philanthropy, John Brothers was a young community organizer trying to make change from the inside out. Raised in abject poverty, surrounded by food and housing insecurity, addiction, gun violence, and the deep wounds of generational trauma, he knew the sting of being “helped” by well-meaning outsiders who had no idea what lasting support really looked like. He didn’t want one-off charity—he wanted change at the core. He wanted his community to take charge of its own destiny.

In Fix Me Up Quickly, Brothers traces how those early experiences shaped a career devoted to transforming the way philanthropy and social services work. Drawing on decades of collaboration with communities across the country, he shares hard-won lessons about what truly drives progress—not quick fixes or top-down interventions, but the patient, trust-building work of listening, learning, and taking action together.

In the tradition of Barbara Ehrenreich and Jonathan Kozol, and grounded in a remarkable story of personal resilience, Fix Me Up Quickly is a change-maker’s handbook for anyone who looks at government or big business and thinks, Nobody ever does anything. It’s for people who see problems in their neighborhood and want to know where to begin. As Brothers reminds us, communities know their needs best—and real change begins when we finally listen.