Our 2026 word of the year is the one thing we can’t afford to lose.

By Lenora Rand

Photo by Giulia Bertelli on Unsplash

Every January since 2020, Mylene and I have chosen a Word of the Year for our branding and marketing consultancy, SmallGood. Unlike the Word of the Year chosen by major dictionaries based on popularity (yes, Dictionary.com chose 6-7 as theirs…sigh), our word is a reflective practice. It helps us look back on the year we’ve lived through and points us toward a north star for the year ahead.

And unlike a New Year's Resolution, it's less a hammer over our heads and more a thought bubble, a challenge to ourselves, a call to self-examination, and an invitation to live with intention.

Over the years, the words we’ve chosen (or that have chosen us, perhaps) have been diverse: Antiracism, Openness, Compost, Unsettled, Powerful, Resist. Each one has pushed us, stretched us, and made us uncomfortable...in a good way.

This year, the word we’ve chosen for 2026 is Humanity.

Because let’s face it, 2025 was a year when it often seemed like inhumanity was winning. 

From personal data being seized to federal jobs and history being erased.

From students, researchers, public media, and nonprofits losing funding overnight to U.S. companies and institutions being bullied or bribed into silence or compliance.

From millions denied affordable healthcare to the wholesale rollback of environmental protections. 

From people being kidnapped and disappeared by masked federal agents because of the color of their skin to people being shot — and killed — for exercising their First Amendment rights.

And that’s just in this country. 

In Gaza, over 70,000 people have been killed since the war began, many of them women and children. And with USAID being decimated, conservative estimates say this has already resulted in over 600,000 deaths, two-thirds of them children.

Six hundred thousand deaths. Let’s sit with that for a moment.

2025 was also a year when artificial intelligence moved from novelty to near ubiquity, and we could no longer take for granted what makes us human.

We’ve all seen, sometimes with delight, sometimes with dismay, how machines can now do so much that once required humans, often faster and sometimes at a higher level.

We’ve seen AI revolutionize healthcare, win art awards, transform legal and medical research, and even generate music that became a #1 country music single. 

Infographic from The Observer

But AI is also displacing workers. It’s bad for the environment. And while many at the forefront of AI believe it has the potential to create jobs, democratize opportunity, and address climate issues, they have also warned that it could bring about "the end of humanity as we know it.”

Image from The New Yorker

So, as we move into 2026, holding on to what makes us truly human — our empathy, creativity, compassion, truth-telling, and our ability to connect deeply with one another — may be the most important daily practice we have.

But how do we actually do that?

Here are a few commitments we’re making for ourselves. Maybe they’ll resonate with you, too.

Look beyond the noise and the headlines.

The author Rebecca Solnit, in her book Hope in the Dark, reminds us that even in frightening times, when brutality feels overwhelming, there are equally strong forces of reason, care, and repair at work...if we choose to see them.

Jamie Davis for Revolution Workshop

We’ve seen the forces of care and repair at work through our clients. Like Revolution Workshop, which creates pathways to dignified and stable construction careers for people in under-resourced Chicago neighborhoods. Or Lawndale Christian Legal Center, which opened the Deer Community Justice Center to serve Chicago’s youth trapped in the quicksand of crime, poverty, and violence. And Near North Health, which continues to make quality healthcare accessible regardless of ZIP code or ability to pay. As well as through Bernie's Book Bank, which works to end illiteracy and transform futures by delivering free, high-quality books to the children who need them most.

It’s easy to miss quiet acts of compassion amid the cacophony of inhumanity that diminishes, dismisses, and destroys lives. But when we pay attention, it becomes clear: human kindness is still alive and still making a difference.  

Show up in solidarity. In whatever ways we can. 

Marching. Writing letters. Making phone calls. Boycotting. Volunteering. Videotaping truth. These acts matter because they remind us of something fundamental: being human is not a solo endeavor.

Grant Park, Chicago 2025

As Desmond Tutu said, “My humanity is caught up and bound up inextricably with yours.”

We saw that vividly across the US and in our hometown of Chicago this past year, when ICE raids swept through neighborhoods, arresting people without warrants and terrorizing communities. In response, neighbors organized. Rapid-response teams mobilized. People

"ran toward danger together" to warn and protect one another. Plastic whistles became a signal of radical empathy.

Artist and activist Olly Costello described it this way: 

When the raids hit, and I see my community out

en masse, I feel myself transformed by the bravery, innovation, and determination of my neighbors to keep each other safe and defend our shared belonging.

Showing up for each other is crucial in preserving our humanity. There is no more forceful way to say “Your humanity matters. My humanity matters. Our humanity matters.”

Uplift human beings doing human things.

In a time when AI seems to be everywhere, capable of doing more than seems humanly possible, it’s easy to feel like human beings are becoming passé.

This past year, Lenora discovered Suno, an AI music platform that can generate a song in seconds. Most are forgettable. Occasionally, they’re amazing. One night, she played a few for musician friends. They were impressed…and deeply depressed. It made them question the value of what they could do on their own, what they’d been doing their whole lives.

We felt that some of that same tension writing this piece. It took hours of research, conversation, and revisions, and it was often agonizing (as all creative projects can be). ChatGPT could have produced its version much faster. With a lot less angst.  Why didn’t we let it? 

The thinking, research, and choices made about the words were valuable to us as people who want to learn and grow. We wanted this to reflect our voices, our weaknesses, our strengths. We wanted this to be steeped in our questions and our hard-won answers.

Generative AI is getting better every day. But sometimes it’s just “AI slop.” (AI slop was Merriam-Webster's 2025 Word of the Year, by the way.)

So we’re committing to using AI thoughtfully and humanely: supporting ethical platforms, ensuring artists are fairly compensated when AI “learns” from their work, and advocating for AI that is safe, non-discriminatory, and healthy for all.

We’re also doubling down on supporting human creativity by buying art from local artists, attending live music events, and even hosting them.

Mylene and her son, at the Mt. Joy concert, Chicago 2025

To preserve our humanity, we’ll support humans doing human things with our money, our time, and our respect.

Don’t go numb. Don’t give up hope. 

There were moments this year when we felt powerless, tempted to tune out, stay quiet, and wait for someone else to fix things.

Rest and self-care matter. But history shows that numbing out as a long-term strategy opens the door to the worst of human behavior.

As Martin Luther King Jr. wrote from a Birmingham jail:

The greatest tragedy was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people.

Complacency is the enemy of humanity. But community is where hope lives.

Recently, at a house concert Lenora hosted, about 35 people gathered on a cold winter night to hear music. Many were strangers when they arrived. By the end, they all felt more connected, more whole, more hopeful.

Matthew Black at the Rand's house concert, Asheville, 2026

At one point, Matthew Black, the folk musician we had gathered to hear, invited everyone to sing along on the chorus of one of his songs. “We carry on, we carry on…” and people sang...with resolve, with joy, with all their hearts. James Baldwin’s words, “We are still each other’s only hope,” never felt more true than they did in that moment.

As the voices filled the room, it also felt like an unequivocal confirmation of our choice of "humanity" as our Word of the Year. The music we were making together wasn’t perfect, certainly, but it sure wasn’t slop. And it definitely wasn’t nothing.

So yes, in 2026, we choose humanity.

And we’re holding onto it...for dear life.

Will you join us?

Photo by Samuel Regan-Asante on Unsplash