This guide is intended to help you write a short one-paragraph description, an overview of your residential intentional community. This would be your “elevator pitch” mostly used for marketing purposes. For example, the Team Up page where you can post a group description allows 100 words. A condensed IC description will help outsiders quickly understand the overall community type and mission for a quick evaluation of whether or not they should look more closely at how they may or may not be a good fit. Below are suggestions for the type of content we hope you will include in your nutshell version of your IC description.

Community Type

Your planned IC might be described as more than one community type, or you may be considering a few types. For detailed descriptions, see the Community Types pages.

Affordable Housing

• Resource-sharing commune
• Tiny homes community
• Student house share
• Shared housing in metropolitan area

Family-focused

• Single-parent shared housing
• Multi-family shared house
• Cohousing: private residences around shared space

Nomadic or Time-flexible Stays

• Expat residential communities
• RV or mobile home parks
• Van life co-travelers
• Trial run: Join a household

Shared Cultural Values

• Spiritual commune
• Neighborhood mutual aid or resource-sharing group
• BIPOC culture-focused commune 
• LGBTQ+ commune

Self-sufficiency & Sustainability

• Small farm or ranch
• Ecovillage or urban agrihood
• Off-grid commune
• Disaster prep shared cabin

Care and Social Safety Net

• Housing or shelter for a vulnerable group
• Shelter for homeless
• Medical risk bubble
• Senior cohousing

Community as a Work Team

• Retreat or event hosting as a community
• Recreation venture teams as a community
• Artist collective & live/work space      
• Activist commune & shared work       

Population Served

If you are considering or have decided on a service-based IC, note what population(s) you intend to serve.

Population(s) Served

• Animal rescue
• Physical disability
• Learning disability
• Low income families with children
• Low income 2SLGBTQIA+
• Low income ethnic or racial minority
• Refugee resettlement
• Low income elderly
• Low income with high medical risk
• Chronically homeless
• Mild to moderate mental illness
• Mental illness involving delusion or dementia
• Addiction recovery
• Escaped from sex trafficking
• Runaway or homeless minors
• Aged out foster teens
• In-system foster kids
• Gang-involved youth
• Ex convicts

Housing Type

Some of these decisions will only be applicable to certain types of shared housing or shared buildings. Also, if you community is large and will contain different housing clusters, each might have their own preferences for some of the following topics.

Residential proximity: 

• Our members will be (or are) roommates (shared bedrooms)
• Our members will be (or are) house mates (separate bedrooms, shared kitchen)
• Our IC will have (or has) separate units (separate apartments but some shared common areas with shared resources)
• Our IC will have (or has) shared land (separate houses possibly with some shared buildings)
• Our group is a neighborhood mutual aid project or “cooperative housing cluster” (shared resources, houses aren’t adjacent)

Ownership type available to new members: 

• Rent our shared housing or shared land
• Rent-to-own with shared housing or shared land
• Co-operative (buy into collectively owned separate houses or apartments)
• Join with us for a land purchase to subdivide, hold shares, or hold “tenancy in common”
• Join our established IC to learn and possibly stay long term
• Rent a room as a trial run

Reasons for shared housing:

• Ecological sustainability to reduce carbon footprint
• Lower cost of living
• Sharing resources (spaces, equipment, tools, vehicles, gardens)
• Sharing meals and chores
• Helping each other with childcare
• Having social interaction while limiting the amount of influence or interaction with society
• Having a “chosen family” to share good times and support each other thru hard times
• Friendship and sharing activities
• Traveling frequently and wanting a home base that’s maintained

Location

Describe the place you currently live if you already acquired a property. Describe the location options your group has narrowed down to, by nation, region, city, or county/province.

Population density: Describe where you would be able and interested to live, such as urban, suburban or exurban, small town, rural, remote, nomadic

Preferred regions: Canada, Hawaii-Aleutian Islands, Alaska, Pacific Coast U.S., Rocky Mountain U.S., Upper Midwest U.S., Northeast U.S., Southeast U.S., Southwest U.S., Outside U.S. & Canada (be specific about favored locations or any that your group has agreed aren’t a realistic option)

If you don’t already have a definite site in mind or already in negotiation for purchase, what regions have your group members agreed you would be able and interested to live? To maintain a consistent definition of U.S. regions, please refer to this map: https://www.usawelcome.net/explore/good-to-know/general-info/the-regions-of-the-united-states.htm 

Size and Growth Plans

Current number of members:

Ideal number of members:

Phase of IC completion: “forming leadership team,” “looking for property,” “located property,” or “on property,” or “on property but still seeking members” (if on property and not seeking members, list on ic.org/directory only, and not on ICmatch.org)

Governance Process

State this in one word or phrase, such as “consensus with majority vote as a backup for time-limited decisions.” You could choose from the options located in the governance agreements. Decision-making process is a crucial point that potential members want to know about, but you don’t need to go into detail here. The governance documents should be available for potential members to review.

Contribution Model

Without going into detail, it will help to define your financial and/or work contribution expectations.

• Members need to contribute to property purchase and ongoing maintenance costs.
• Members need to contribute to monthly rental and utilities.
• Members need to participate in income-producing functions of the community
• Members need to contribute to cleaning and upkeep chores

Links to Group Documents

If you’re part of a group showing in the Team Up page at ICmatch, or at ic.org, include in your group description a link to your founders’ documents.

Team Up page: Create a 100-word founders’ group description that links your group members’ ICmatch profiles.

ic.org listing: Groups with an intended or established location are encouraged to visit the Foundation for Intentional Communities website. There you can make a free page describing your forming community. It’s connected to the map at IC.org/directory, which helps if you have a general location decided on. There you can post your membership requirements and other important decisions.

Classified ads: If you have funding for it, consider posting in the classified ads with the Foundation for Intentional Community.

What is your planned cohesion-building strategy? You need a plan for this. Waiting for it to happen naturally, that might not work out. Groups need fun times, celebrations, and ceremonies for rebonding. This is true for all groups that try to retain a sense of unity, whether at the family, workplace, or national level. The memories of good times motivate members to stick with the challenge when it comes time for conflict resolution and consensus-building.

Understanding Personality

Although most groups will welcome a wide variety of personalities and the different skills and role preferences that come with them, yet these differences can create a sense of distance. Understanding other’s strengths can foster appreciation and help with role assignments that allow each to shine. A small remotely located group may find that outgoing types don’t find enuf social stimulation in the community. On the contrary, groups that regularly host events may find that extreme introverts don’t last long because of the constant demand of meeting new people, being consistently sociable, and remaining available to assist guests. One way to accommodate introverts would be to deliberately assign them to behind-the-scenes roles. See our page explaining how personality plays out in intentional community, based on the Big 5 and the MBTI. 

Meetings for Emotional Sharing and Open Communication

We foster close and/or harmonious interpersonal relationships in the following ways: …

• We have regular opportunities to encourage all to share their feelings.
• We have regular mandated “group work” to resolve conflicts as they arise.
• All are required to share feelings in a group setting so we can maintain harmonious relationships, but your sharing can be brief.
• Our community has obligatory group work where we are expected to help resolve disputes.
• We allow relationships to develop naturally, rather than planning team building exercises or mandated group circles.

• We check in with each other’s comfort with physical touch (a good article about consent culture).

Our group work processes summary page details several available options for group processes, many of which focus on sharing of experience and interpersonal connection. If your group has decided on a type of group format you prefer, it would be helpful to mention that in your IC description.

Do you have plans for meeting the following preferences and needs?

• • Guidance: A mentor or counselor to check in with monthly might help your group gain proficiency in a variety of techniques.

• • Emotional sharing: Many communities deeply believe in the importance of listening to each other, but find that they can’t get thru the management meetings if they allow the “feelings” part to continually derail the discussion of practical matters. Many ICs manage this tension by having one weekly meeting for practical decisions and a separate one for interpersonal discussion and conflict resolution. This may extend to emotional processing. Alternatively, emotional processing and other personal growth work may be a function that the members are requested to seek as a paid service.

• • Holding of personal or interpersonal challenges: This will give members a time for sharing info or concerns that are important to discuss, but they could derail the progress of practical functions if they became the focus during a business meeting.Ceremony and celebration: Celebrations of meeting a group goal or milestone, or religious observance, are important for cohesion.

• • Ceremony and celebration: Celebrations of meeting a group goal or milestone, or religious observance, are important for cohesion.

Activities for Fun and Bonding

Note what your group intends to prioritize as group entertainment. It’s important to have group activities for fun and bonding. Will you have a group library? Shared movie subscriptions? Are you close to outdoor recreation opportunities?

• • Play: Outings for fun are an important way to foster good relationships in the group. These can be scheduled on a regular basis. This could be a sport or favorite activity that members bond around.

• • Service: This is some kind of giving back, ideally an in-person monthly project, but could include kiva or other microcredit lending.

• • Collective chores: Aside from regular chores, sometimes a work party helps to rally everyone to participate in a once-per-year rather onerous and long task that is simple enough for everyone to participate in.

Roles and Responsibilities

For many people, the approach to roles and responsibilities seems obvious and intuitive. It might not be until you meet others with a different cultural background or experiences that you realize there isn’t one right way for all people. It’s important to make sure your group members don’t have wrong assumptions of others’ general attitude toward roles and responsibilities. The following statements can be agreed to at the same time without feeling that the statements contradict each other. These statements are from the profile questions, and are mostly helpful to determine whether someone has extreme views. Getting clear on the edge cases and exceptions is the challenge for a founders team.

• Transactional relationships are more fair; to a reasonable extent there should be accountability through written agreements
• In a reciprocal relationship you give about as much as you get, but it happens without keeping track
• In a small family-like group, the saying applies, “to each according to their need, from each according to their abilities”
• Clear responsibilities are important to minimize conflict
• Flexible responsibilities are often best, which aren’t assigned or micromanaged

Member Work Benefits

Describe what benefits are available to those who provide the required work, asset contribution, monthly financial contribution, and/or financial investment.

• Stipend or wage
• Share in profits
• Educational certification
• Credit toward property shares
• Lodging during negotiated timeframe
• Produce or prepared meals
• Access to shared resources

Contribution Accountability

• Everyone is required to attend agreed-on decision making meetings
• Everyone attends joint work sessions to ensure equitable work contribution
• Group schedules flexibly timed work contributions to ensure equitable work contribution
• Group uses recording system and regular reviews to ensure equitable work contribution
• Group members all have oversight of each other and group agrees on consequences for breaking rules
• Group allows spontaneity, goes with the flow, with many opportunities to renegotiate rules
• Group accepts only members with high maturity level with expectation of self-governance
• Undecided (i.e., we currently have no accountability)
• Have a community cleaning pre-pay. Anytime someone forgets to clean up after themselves, whoever does it gets paid at an agreed-on pay rate out of that member’s prepay.
• Anytime someone breaks or damages group-owned resources, they may pay some percentage of it based on possible negligence, but the remainder of replacement cost can be covered by the community funds.

Contribution Types

• We negotiate contributions based on various inputs: financial contribution, property contribution (e.g., vehicle, real estate), and/or work
• Everyone’s financial contribution should be proportional to what they receive of group benefits
• Everyone’s work hour contribution should be proportional to what they receive of group benefits
• Work hours should be negotiable based on physical exertion (e.g., digging), danger (e.g., roofing), general dislike (e.g., cleaning toilets), or acquired skill/credentials (e.g., welding)
• Sharing income and resources should be mostly need-based
• Everyone’s financial contribution should be the same
• Everyone’s work hour contribution should be the same

___ hours weekly labor contribution or negotiable equivalent of payment to cover others’ labor cost.

___ is the per-person or per-family average expected contribution in work hours

Skills and Knowledge Needed

This list may help you to divide up responsibilities among your leadership team in the short term. In the long term, this list can help you determine what skill sets you still need to upgrade in your group or find in new members.

Daily chores:

• Cooking for groups
• Childcare
• Cleaning
• Gardening
• Carpentry & repair
• Farm animal care
• Grant-writing
• Bookkeeping
• Group facilitation
• Organizing & labeling

Governance:

• Sociocracy or holocracy
• Mediation or dispute resolution
• Consensus facilitation

Business management:

• Timebanking
• Legal practice
• Grant writing
• Bookkeeping/accounting
• Short term rentals & hospitality
• Long term rentals & maintenance
• Diversity, equity, and inclusion training

Site construction and management:

• Ecological science
• Horticulture or permaculture
• Architecture
• Natural building
• Carpentry & construction
• Welding
• Waterworks & sanitation
• Security & weapons
• City planning, zoning, & compliance

Vocational skills for ICs:

• Humanitarian or social work
• Event planning & management
• Event hosting
• Animal training or care
• Outdoor survival skills
• Sports or physical recreation
• Travel guide
• Ordained minister or religious scholar
• Photography or videography
• Certification for teaching children
• Experience teaching adults

Health and nutrition:

• First responder (first aid) or EMT
• Medicine – western
• Medicine – alternative
• Massage or other bodywork
• Nutrition
• Food handling certification trainer

Arts:

• Filmmaking
• Musical performance
• Performative dance
• Social dance
• Standup comedy
• Theater
• Visual art

Communications:

• Writing
• Website design
• Database management
• Marketing
• Public speaking
• Political campaigning
• Group therapy or group processing
• Activism & organizing

Academic Subjects:

• Computer science
• Electric engineering
• Mathematics
• Physics
• Astronomy
• Anthropology
• Psychology
• Sociology
• Finance & economics
• Political science & history
• Biological sciences

Language Required

This may be relevant if you are an expat group or bilingual group. If you have a bilingual community or frequently have guests who are not as familiar with the more used language, make sure your agreements about benefits and accountability for work contributions are translated.

Healthcare Benefits

Health insurance or membership with an independent physician association (IPA) is a benefit that the group may get a group discount for, possibly qualifying as a small business. An IPA may be a good cultural fit. For example, The Wellness Company is focused on prevention more than symptom management, medical freedom, respect for natural treatments, and the right to affordable health care.

Recommended Resources

Participation and Work in Community: An online course from The Foundation for Intentional Community (a separate organization from ICmatch)

Governance means how you make decisions and who gets to participate. Agreements by founders of residential intentional community need to be decided in detail to hold all group members accountable to each other. In order to stick together and feel that the situation is mostly fair, you have to agree on how to decide and who decides. The topic of governance needs to be discussed so that your group can get clarity on what processes you’ll use and when. If your expectation is to achieve equitable or egalitarian outcomes, those don’t simply emerge because of good intentions. Those are based on following processes that take into account the complexity of human nature. You have a better chance of success trying out some of the processes that others have refined over decades, rather than thinking you’re going to reinvent the wheel and somehow succeed in a project that so many have given up on.

Governance Process

It may be that crucial long-lasting decisions are decided with a formal procedure of governance, while day-to-day less impactful decisions are made using simple conversation and reciprocity norms. It is important to be clear and upfront about the reality of the situation. For example, while IC-enthusiasts tend to favor egalitarian governance, there are often valid reasons to have an autocracy. In general, the people who have placed their credit or wealth on the line have more to lose, so they may feel it necessary to share power gradually as trust and buy-in of others increases. At the same time, most intentional communities are based on a shared interest in exploring governance styles that deviate from the norms of autocratic business leadership and from the democratic winners-and-losers outcome. If there is no shared decision-making and no shared benefits of what is created together, the founders are unlikely to attract people willing to make a full contribution.

• Sociocracy: multiple levels of leadership committees; AKA dynamic governance
• Consensus: agreement by all, which involves a lot of discussion
• Modified consensus: consensus, with alterations such as a backup decision style for time-limited decisions
• Holacracy: self-managing by roles and rules
• Standard governing board: vote of board members
• Democratic vote: majority opinion of (a) all contributing residents or (b) all share owners who are also residents
• Autocracy: leader or landowner makes the final decision for important matters
• Anarchy: no official authority, no micromanaging each other
• Robert’s Rules of Order: specific parliamentary procedures
• Martha’s Rules of Order: simplified version of Robert’s Rules of Order
• Do-ocracy: whoever does the work decides how it’s done
• Undecided or informal: your group may decide to use different decision processes for different types of decisions

We would love to simply tell you which is the most successful for governance of intentional community. Geoph Kozeny lived in six communities over 15 years then visited 300 to interview members and ex-members about what works. His response about what governance works: “Whatever the members wholeheartedly believe in” (Fellowship for Intentional Communities, 2014, p. 3). That said, sociocracy has gained popularity in more sizeable communities. Sociocracy benefits organization by dividing up decision-making into small groups. Your founder’s group will likely initially meet altogether, but you can use sociocracy meeting guidelines if you believe this system would serve your larger community well in the long run.

Reference: Fellowship for Intentional Communities. (2014). In community, intentionally. In Best of Communities: I. Intentional Community Overview and Starting a Community. Foundation for Intentional Community

Decision Makers

List the names of those who are committed or interested to be part of the initial decision-making processes.

Number of Members in Your Founders’ Group

Ownership of Physical Property

Who does or will own the building(s) and/or land on which you will reside? Is there a current or preliminary situation that will change over time? Some options are rent, rent-to-own, purchase. If jointly owned, how will ownership be structured? How will your initial team as well as newcomers buy in or buy out? In the footer, see the Contracts page and Financing page.

Avoiding autocracy: landlord/tenant agreement vs. intentional community

Leadership Meetings

Even before you have shared housing, you’ll need a basic framework for task assignment and decision making. Some people want to experiment with what comes naturally, while others want to start with a structure that worked for others. If you want it to always feel like a group of friends, without creating any rules, it’s important to consider how it will feel to others who may want to join. Will it feel like there is room for them or only for those with long-standing friendship? Will it feel like there are a few influential personalities that get their way more often than not?

• Time-tested group processes: Some of these focus on consensus-based group decision-making.
• Consultants page: Experts in sociocracy and other consensus-based decision-making strategies might help speed the learning curve.
• Meeting tips: from Dare to Lead by Brene Brown

It helps to record the following decisions:

• Administrative tasks: When and by whom do administrative tasks get done? If they don’t get done, what happens? If hired out, who pays?
• Agreement discussion and recording: When and how do group agreements get hashed out, recorded, and posted in an accessible location?

Weekly Planning Meeting

A weekly planning meeting is essential if (a) the group is functioning as an income-producing work team, (b) some of the group has closely shared housing, and (c) some members are not in the leadership meetings and so needs an update. During meetings one member, if not the meeting facilitator, could be given a task to be on the lookout that when someone brings up an issue that’s not directly relevant to completing the meeting agenda items. This member would be responsible to respectfully invite them to bring up the topic in the meeting devoted to interpersonal issues. Many consensus-based meetings close with a comment by each person. This gives a chance for each person to be heard, and themes to be picked up on for possible work in the next meeting. If you’ve gone overtime, you might have a round with each person offering just one word to end the meeting as a checkout.

Regular time and place of planning meeting:

Group-wide Communication Norms

• Regular communication is crucial, because governance of intentional community breaks down without it. Decisions need to be communicated in order for them to be implemented. Rules need to be known and accessible for them to be remembered and followed.
• Platform the group will consistently use for group-wide communication: Email, Telegram, Discord, Googlechat, Whatsapp, Facebook, Instagram, Videoconferencing, Loomio, Communecter.org, Hylo, Discourse, BuddyBoss, Mighty Networks, PeerBoard, Panion, Tru Movements, HumHub
• Mandated check-ins or meetings: frequency and timing (e.g., check once per week for notices that will be notices will be available by Monday 9 am eastern time; members are expected to have read them by the following day 9 am eastern time)

Governance Participation Criteria

Describe what criteria are necessary for participation in decision-making at various levels. What attributes or contributions are required before someone is admitted into the leadership group or decision-making team, if there is one? Outside of trivial day-to-day decisions, do major decision-makers (a) need to have been in the community a certain amount of time and (b) need to be able to contribute a certain amount financially, such as owning shares? Are there term limits? Who will keep records of decisions and where will they be accessible?

Participation requirements for being part of a governance group:

• Do all members need to participate in meetings, and if so how often?
• If a member misses a mandatory meeting, with a defensible reason, how and when do they get a chance to weigh in?
• Can a member pass or is speaking mandatory?
• What are the governance roles of the group?
• How and when will governance roles be re-decided in the future?

Record of Agreements

We invite you to use our templates to create a sharable pre-formatted record of agreements (see the section titled Templates for Your Agreement Documents).

Governance Case Studies

Case Study: Leadership dysfunction in an ecovillage: Studying effective and ineffective governance of intentional community can help your group avoid mistakes others have made.

Counteract Negative Human Tendencies

Without clear written agreements and contracts, there are fewer ways to curb bad behavior and self-interested motivations. Without guidelines for decision-making, power-plays and even bullying can derail your intentions for egalitarian structure. Without clear agreements, your community is more at risk of the following negative tendencies:

• every decision might rest on a popularity contest, not on the long-term best interests of the group
• every decision might become subject to “might makes right;” an owner who has ultimate veto power won’t be challenged
• those who give kickbacks to build up personal alliances will undermine the group for their own self-interest
• dark triad types can accrue increasingly more power without others noticing, until they take over

Further reading: This article by a seasoned communitarian discusses consensus-based decision making.

This list is limited to people over age 50, not only to honor those intentional community elders who have spent several decades (if not a lifetime) of focus on ICs, but because fortunately there are so many great young upstarts that a full list of who’s who would be far too long for our modern attention spans.  

Diana Leafe Christian

Diana gives a 13-minute video overview of what it takes to create a successful lasting intentional community and a 45-minute presentation on how ecovillages benefit the wider culture.

Notes from a talk on resolving the three types of conflict in ICs are a preview to her upcoming book.

Major Contributions

Creating a Life Together: Practical Tools to Grow Ecovillages and Intentional Communities, and Finding Community: How to Join an Ecovillage or Intentional Community. Contributed chapters to several other popular ecovillage-related books. Ecovillage Design Education (EDE) trainer for Gaia Education, and editor of Communities magazine for 14 years.

Affiliations

Diana currently works with the Global Ecovillage Network (GEN) as a board member of GEN-US and lives in Earth Haven Ecovillage.

Recent Focus or How to Connect

She is writing an additional book on ICs. She teaches online courses and workshops, “Sociocracy for Intentional Communities,” “Helping Your Community Thrive,” and “Starting a Successful Ecovillage or Intentional Community.” Connect at https://dianaleafechristian.org/

Laird Schaub

Laird gives a 5-minute interview of some aspects of intentional community. He teaches an excellent online course Designing a Community Membership Process through the Foundation for Intentional Community website.

Major Contributions

Laird helped begin the Foundation for Intentional Community (FIC), where he served as the main administrator for 28 years. Laird has lived for four decades at Sandhill Farm, an income-sharing rural community that he helped found.

Affiliations

He currently serves as the FIC Executive Secretary.

Recent Focus or How to Connect

Other courses he teaches include “Consensus for Communities” and “Examining Intentional Community Living for Seniors,” both thru FIC, as well as consulting. He has been a regular contributor to Communities Magazine and included IC topics in his blog.

ICmatch community organizing trainers can help a variety of intentional community types:

• Ecovillages often need to approach local policymakers to advocate for zoning exceptions or policy change.
• Small farms and ranches may seek to change municipal laws. Advocates spread awareness of corporations harming communities thru chemical intensive horticulture and inhumane factory farming.
• Activist communes may work to ban corporate waste dumping that affects their entire community

What is community organizing?

The following organizing can also help an IC to strategize about a neighborhood-wide network of sharing economy projects.

• Making use of the voluntary grassroots efforts of a community’s members acting jointly to achieve an economic or other benefit
• Generating a collective ideology-based “voice” (consensus message) thru individual, face-to-face meetings
• Developing a coherent strategy for building power and resources to make specific social changes
• Helping those affected by a problem to speak for themselves
• Teaching institutional leaders how to build relationships of trust across racial, faith, economic and geographic lines

A community organizing trainer: Here is one seasoned Canadian consultant among others listed.

Community organizer funding strategies

Organizing is often in the service of disadvantaged groups who are unable to fund their efforts thru dues or donations. They rarely receive funding from government since their activities often seek to contest government policies. Grantors more often fund service activities and shy away from groups with contentious approaches or controversial aims. ICmatch can help community organizers to pool resources and reduce expenses, freeing up time for organizing work.

Community organizing strategies for recruiting members

The following is in part a summary from the Wikipedia “Community organizing” article:

• Protest: Speaking out generates a sense in the larger community that they have the power of consensus. This may enable them to negotiate with powerful institutions or groups.
• Doorknocking: Organizers go door to door to inform and draw individuals into an organization.
• Block-club organizing: This means two sides of a street on a block are organized into a club, or tenants in a building are organized, to divide and clarify workloads of members.
• House meetings: A series of house meetings are held in a community, leading to a community congress to form an organization.
• Sociocracy approach: Problems located across a particular community need local people acting toward solutions. Then leaders come together in a larger organization to strategize and work toward coherence.
• Coalition building: Teaming up with any organization that has similar goals can strengthen a cause.

What community organizing is not

The following is a condensed version of the Wikipedia “Community organizing” article in the section on “What community organizing is not.” The following activities may be similar to or part of community organizing, but do not alone qualify as community organizing:

• Activism: engaging in social protest but may lack a coherent strategy for building power or for making specific social changes
• Mobilizing: gathering to effect a specific social change (such as a march or rally) but without a long-term plan
• Advocacy: speaking for others who are deemed unable to represent their own interests, which may happen without including helping those affected to speak for themselves
• Social movement building: coordinating a diverse collection of individual activists, local and national organizations, advocacy groups, multiple and often conflicting spokespersons, held together by relatively common aims but not a common organizational structure
• Legal action: if a social action strategy focuses primarily on a lawsuit, it can push a grassroots struggle into the background and benefit only the defendant(s)
• Direct service: providing services thru civic engagement can sometimes hinder community organizing if powerful groups threaten the “service” component in an effort to prevent collective action
• Community development: improving communities through a range of strategies, usually directed by educated professionals working in government, policy, non-profit, or business organizations, even if it includes a community participation component and seeks out existing community strengths
• Nonpartisan dialogues about community problems: meeting to discuss community problems, open to a diverse range of opinions, out of which some consensus may be reached, but lacking a team with skills to implement solutions

Group facilitation is a generalist role. Often facilitators are called to help with a decision-making process or to moderate discussions at an event. Group facilitators need a varied skillset. Their job includes monitoring time, group process, emotions, and behaviors. Needs for extensive and specific group work might be better met by consultants with specific skillsets, such as mediators to help with conflict resolution. The following list describes how a group facilitator can benefit your group discussion. These descriptions can also be used to help a group that is using its own members as facilitators.

Value of External Facilitators

While it may seem that someone in your group could do an adequate job at facilitating, the following are some ways an external facilitator is helpful:

• The internal facilitator makes a trade off of not being able to focus on and contribute because they’re distracted thinking about how to manage time and keep the agenda moving. 
• Trying to be the facilitator and a contributor at the same time introduces a power imbalance, where the facilitator might keep the group focused more on a topic they believe is most important, even if they intend to be fair about time allocation.
• External facilitators likely don’t have an emotional attachment to certain people or topics, so they can be more objective. They can create inclusive, equitable spaces.
• External facilitators can offer a fresh and unbiased perspective on challenging issues. This can help group members remain engaged, with the expectation that their current contribution and attitude will be more important than times in the past when they may have been unimpressive.
• As consultants, facilitators take a leadership role in a meeting without having a conflict of interest, without a personal stake or involvement in the issues discussed, and without decision-making power over the group members.

Time Monitoring

• Sets the pace by mentioning set timeframes for discussing specific topics, redirects if discussion gets more detailed than is useful
• Keeps track of time, such as by suggesting when to have a “bio break”
• Suggests break-out groups for a set amount of time
• Closes the group, which could take the form of an evaluation; the facilitator might name instances of desired group behaviors, in order to promote them, such as cooperation, mutual trust, constructive disagreement, and encouragement

Process Monitoring

• Ensures that all are clear about the meeting’s purpose and agenda items
• Re-focuses the group if it strays from the process agreed on for the meeting or if members are unfamiliar with the process
• Balances group input, ensuring that all viewpoints are heard,  by drawing out less talkative members and making sure the most talkative don’t dominate
• Helps the group stay on topic by noticing tangents, suggesting a revisit of a topic later if it’s important, and redirecting to the agreed-on agenda or priorities
• Clarifies by inviting background information when needed, examining assumptions, rephrasing another’s potentially confusing statement, summarizing, checking for group’s level of agreement, asking for feedback on the facilitator’s statements
• Helps track the discussion by making notes, often as a large display such as whiteboard, about important points such as an agreement reached
• Points out when some are treating opinions as facts
• Reformulates the discussion by creating a list of areas of agreement and areas of disagreement, which can change throughout the meeting (Centre for Conflict Resolution, 1981).
• Leads a group to list its available resources to meet a defined need (and might inform the group about external resources)
• Notices if there is too little understanding of a problem, then suggests factfinding and possibly postponing a decision
• Makes sure that group members who have come to a decision have the same understanding then clarifies who will be responsible to carry out the task, what they will need from the group,  when it will be done, and how the group will know it was done
• Asks any uncooperative or disruptive participant to correct their behavior, take a break away from the meeting, or leave (probably the most challenging, and infrequent)

Emotion and Behavior Monitoring

• Starts with introductions or an ice-breaker activity if many of the participants are not familiar with each other
• Monitors emotional responses and skillfully smooths over tense moments, ideally without a disruption of the meeting
• Points out when a there appears to be suppressed feelings or conflict, if that fits with the intent of the meeting
• Helps the group self-correct by pointing out unhelpful actions of group members, such as pressuring, scapegoating, exaggerating, or minimizing
• Identifies interpersonal communication problems that are getting in the way of discussion
• Brings up group member ideas anonymously if group has a bias about ideas depending on who they come from
• Encourages the group to persist by acknowledging a difficulty but pointing to progress made

The Centre for Conflict Resolution (1981) asserts that a group can learn to take on these facilitation roles themselves.

The issue of power is inherent in structuring. The positions of facilitator and recorder, of first speaker, presenter, and devil’s advocate all carry influence. Many groups rotate the instituted positions of facilitator and recorder to spread the influence fairly and to share and build skills. (p. 40)

It may be instructive to see these roles demonstrated by an experienced facilitator before asking group members to take on these roles. See the Consultants page for consensus facilitators, team recreation guides, and general group facilitators.

Reference

Centre for Conflict Resolution. (1981). A handbook for consensus decision-making: Building united judgment. Fellowship for Intentional Community.

Our list of independent consultants represents a wide variety of skills needed by residential intentional communities. While the DIY ethic is admirable, there’s a lot to be said for getting some expert guidance to jumpstart your project. Many founders’ groups hire a consultant to teach them skills that they can gain proficiency at, then utilize themselves. The following are some of the most in-demand consultant services.

Getting Along as a Group

Group mentor

Group mentors develop familiarity with your group members over time. They may not have specific certifications but are wise and experienced. The understanding they develop about your particular group is a key component to their assistance.

Consensus facilitator

These professionals specialize in guiding groups in coming to difficult decisions using consensus-based decision-making.

The Foundation for Intentional Communities offers an excellent online course on consensus processes in intentional community.

Group facilitator

These professionals have a variety of specialized skills listed in their profile descriptions. As generalists, they may guide groups in coming to difficult decisions using a variety of methods an IC or founding group has chosen. This category is intended as a catch-all for group processes other than consensus decision-making. Follow this link to a further description of group facilitators, along with tips for groups in a DIY phase to take turns as facilitators.

The Foundation for Intentional Communities offers an excellent online course on group facilitation in intentional community. Topics covered include how to work with content, emotions, and how to delegate effectively.

Mediator (conflict resolution)

Ideally, in an intentional community, there is a hope for an equitable outcome rather than any one party trying to have the greatest gain for themselves. We invite our legal consultants to list based on their experience with intentional communities or their training as mediators. The one consultant can act as an intermediaries rather than having a double cost of representative for each side. For relatively minor concerns, you might hire a group facilitator trained in conflict resolution. Many facilitators can do an adequate job at less expense to your group than a legal professional. Be sure to recap and write up the agreement promptly, preferably before the end of the meetings. This helps ensure that everyone’s understanding and memory of the agreement is the same. Get the agreement signed by all when finalized. Give each member a signed copy of the agreement, so there is no question later of whether unauthorized changes were made.

Leadership

These professionals have skills in sociocracy, holocracy, business or non-profit, or general community leadership experience.

The Foundation for Intentional Communities offers an excellent online course on diversity in intentional community.

Team building (recreational)

You might find these consultants helpful to add in the mix for retreats or for getting to know prospective members during visitor sessions.

Membership consultant

These consultants can help you design processes for recruiting, onboarding, and maintaining members who are a good fit for your intentional community. No IC can meet the needs of all people, so it is important to get clear on what characteristics you will prioritize.

Laird Schaub teaches an excellent online course on membership thru the Foundation for Intentional Communities. This is a great place to start. As you get more clear on all aspects of your needs and plans, a consultant can help you refine your processes further according to your specific needs and intentions.

Diversity consultant (as a subset of membership consultants)

These consultants can also help members understand and work thru challenges in understanding others and cooperating, as members from diverse cultures and backgrounds work together. For example, intentional communities often have difficulty recruiting and retaining ethnically diverse members. Many intentional communities want to attract members who differ from the local norm in race, gender, sexuality, education, socioeconomic status, or disability. Hiring a diversity consultant can help you better understand the barriers to inclusive community-building, and provide solutions moving forward.

The Foundation for Intentional Communities offers an excellent online course on diversity in intentional community.

Bringing in Income and Resources

Youth education programs

These professionals have a variety of specialized skills listed in their profile descriptions. Some have experience with charter school setup and alternative education styles such as Montessori and Waldorf.

Self-employment

Often remote communities are interested in ensuring that their residents have viable livelihoods. This could include a business that several or most members are engaged in, or individual businesses.

Business management

These professionals have experience with the business and non-profit aspect of ICs. This is more than just book keeping. Look for consultants who run a similar type of operation to your IC or planned IC. If part of your business is to offer space for or to coordinate retreats, hire our listed consultants as presenters. In addition, the consultants listed for team building have skills and recreational activities to delight guests as well as your own IC members.

Marketing or website expert

These professionals have in-depth experience with ICs and know how to increase your visibility. Follow this link for a further description of how marketing experts can benefit your IC.

Grant writer

Our listed grant writers may be able to direct you to relevant funding sources even if you are not a certified non-profit organization. Professional grant writers may also be willing to train one of your members to do the bulk of the grant searches and research. Nonprofits such as Open Collective may be able to act as an umbrella organization to support your funding of a project that meets their guidelines.

Financial and Legal Setup of ICs

Lawyer

Even with the best of intentions on both sides, written agreements are crucial. Our listed lawyers can help you with document preparation. You need your agreements to hold up in court, even if you trust your partners thoroughly. Consider that in the event of one of you passing, an inheritor of the partner’s assets may be a challenge to deal with. In addition, by making clear everyone’s commitments, you give yourselves a mandate to discuss potential challenges thoroughly. This can prevent misunderstandings or disputes. For any financial interactions, agreements should be in writing, signed, and dated. Most likely everyone will maintain their good will and compliance with the agreement. Yet it is still possible that a members’ unexpected death would cause uncertainty about how much was contributed by each member. You should have signed records to prevent loss of your contributions. Don’t make it something you think you’ll get around to later.

Each state has different laws around housing, so we recommend you check local jurisdictional requirements and limitations. It is important to consult with a lawyer for specifics on your situation. Get legal advice relevant to your state or province. With our listed consultants, you can limit your search by area. Often, a legal aide can assist you in writing your agreements at a lower cost. Then you should get a final review by a lawyer and officially file the document with the appropriate governing body.

National Association of Housing Cooperatives: See their listing of institutions and consultants offering legal services.

Sustainable Economies Law Center: Find templates for worker cooperatives, worker self-directed nonprofits, land return, cooperative housing, and community land trusts. This California-based organization offers free legal advice thru online “Legal Cafe” meetings.

Realtor

Our listed realtors specialize in multiple-party purchases or are actively upgrading their understanding of location-specific legal options for joint ownership.

Finance advisor

Our finance advisors specialize in community-related contexts.

Financial institution or lender

These are funding or lending institutions that are willing to work with unconventional loan structures or mixed mortgages.

National Association of Housing Cooperatives: See their listing of institutions and consultants offering financial services.

Land & Property Development

Property management advisor

Our property managers have successfully worked with groups for several years. They can guide you in establishing time-tested procedures related to facilities management, rentals, and hospitality services.

National Association of Housing Cooperatives: See their listing of institutions and consultants offering management services.

Zoning & compliance specialist

It’s best to find these professionals as local to you as possible. Even when distant, they can guide you in working with local municipalities to change or adapt regulations. If they aren’t familiar with your area, they can at least help you know what questions to ask.

Permaculture designer

It’s best to find these professionals local to you, familiar with the climate and regional plants. Hiring one after property purchase but before planning the layout of your community. This strategy will help you avoid mistakes and make the most of your natural assets.

For mundane ongoing advice, many state universities employ a master gardener who is available at no cost to consult. They have regional knowledge to diagnose diseases and pests. Search for “extension service” along with your state’s name.

Natural builder

It’s best to find these professionals local to you. Locals will be familiar with the best green building materials for your climate and familiar with local regulations.

Sanitation & water systems

It’s best to find these professionals local to you, familiar with specific offices and regulations.

Animal husbandry specialist

If you can’t find these professionals local to you, or willing to travel, you might find local farmers or community garden coordinators willing to act as consultants.

Small farms or ecovillages may play an important role in emergency preparedness and should be able to profit from this potential. The emergency timeshare contract is one way to potentially bring in funds at the present time for a service that will be provided at an unknown time in the future. That future service is to house people who have experienced a natural disaster that has made their current housing uninhabitable, and which likely would have reduced or eliminated the supply of available short term rentals in the area. Including disaster relief temporary shelter as a function of an intentional community also can help create ongoing supportive external relationships.

Emergency Timeshare Contract: A Template and Example

X ecovillage/farm is situated on x acres in x county. We have x permanent long-term residents and have been members of the Foundation for Intentional Communities for x years. The leadership consists of… and has been stable since…. Reviews of our establishment and leadership team can be found at…

We are offering a limited number of emergency timeshare contracts that will afford the purchaser 3 months of shelter, food, and other necessary provisions in the event of an emergency. Contracts will be valid for a 10-year period and can be renewed. Longer stays can be negotiated if needed. Contracts include access to a share of the following resources:

Provisions Included 

• Water: We have a spring on the property that runs year round and is uncontaminated.
• Food: We have x lbs of beans and grains stored for emergency use. You are welcome to store on the property x lbs of your own provisions, labeled with your full name, in waterproof rodent proof containers, up to a volume of 1.5 cubic meters.
• Fuel for cooking and heating: We have firewood stored and acres of wooded area from which to gather wood.
• Energy: We have the following provisions for solar electric: ________.
• Gardening: We have a garden and wild edibles on the property to be harvested on an as-needed basis at the owner’s discretion, due to our need to ensure a seed stock.
• Emergency subsistence: Two members of our community have survivalist training.
• Safety: Two members of our community have first responder training and first aid supplies.
• Hygiene: We have a septic system and have protocols for safe waste and wastewater management for groups during an emergency.
• Shelter: There are four houses, three of which can be reserved for your and your companions’ sole use. At a lower cost, there are some tent shelter spots available.

Training for Community Living

In the event of an emergency, we will need to work together, possibly under stressful conditions, and definitely with some who will be experiencing grief and anxiety. It will be helpful for the group of potential emergency residents to know each other and practice consensus decision-making beforehand. We will invite you every odd-numbered year to gather for a weekend (one overnight) of workshops and team-building activities. The cost of these is included in the contract payment, with no refund for non-attendance. We expect a good-faith effort to attend. After a natural disaster, members may be grieving loss of loved ones and substantial assets. Emotional distress can lead to heightened challenges interacting with a group. If emergency residents have some amount of familiarity with daily routines of group planning, mealtimes, and available pastimes, this can alleviate the pressure on the management and staff as they attempt to meet the needs of all present. Your participation can help facilitate a more comfortable and safe experience for the long-term and short-term residents. The training is valuable for leadership and interpersonal relationships. We aim to make the gatherings a retreat-like experience where visitors enjoy conversations and practice useful decision-making skills.  

Available Shelters

We have x tent spots and tents. The common areas and bathrooms of the main house will be available to tent-site renters.

Upper house: This can be reserved for your and your companions’ sole use at the price of $___. It has x bedrooms and 1 bathroom.

Artist studio: This can be reserved for your and your companions’ sole use at the price of $___. It has one futon bed and 1 half bath.  

For further details about the site, see the Airbnb accommodations labeled ______ and the Hipcamp accommodations labeled ______.

For a vacation that is not an emergency, you’ll need to pay the same booking price as anyone else. You’ll still book thru Airbnb for non-emergency stays. Whoever may be temporarily renting each place will be allowed to remain on the property during an emergency, but will need to relocate to a tent site to make space for the owner of the emergency timeshare contract after their own contracted stay expires, or work out a shared tenancy agreement. The short term renter may negotiate a rent depending on how long they extend their stay and utilize emergency provisions.

Whatever short-term renters are currently on site at the time of an emergency, we’re not going to send them off site if their own homes are inaccessible or most likely uninhabitable, so you may have to share housing and outdoor accommodations with some people who you are not familiar with until the end of their contracted stay, at which time they will be offered other on-site lodging.

Emergency Access

We will define your access privileges in this way:

• Earthquake: If your apartment or home became uninhabitable or you fear looting and rioting as a result of a social unrest that is developing, that is an emergency, but let’s discuss it before you come if communication allows. A few break-ins nearby doesn’t mean there’s widespread danger. In a small-scale emergency, you will use up some of your 60-day emergency time allotment or pay as an Airbnb guest, as decided by owners after negotiating with you.
• Pandemic: If the CDC reports a transmissibility level and lethality greater than or equal to the first major outbreak of COVID-19, and you are in a high risk group, this constitutes an emergency for you.
• Other: If FEMA or the national guard is called in and your home is within the boundaries of the stated area of disaster, you will be allowed emergency access.

We recommend packing a 72-hour emergency backpack that includes a printed map to the property (see maps section with detailed travel directions). Some keep their emergency kits in their car, which may make their kits more accessible when buildings have collapsed.

Map

You are responsible for transporting yourself to the property. The approximate location is shown in the map section. You will be provided with pdf maps upon payment of contract. Please prepare yourself with any additional printed maps relevant to your likely travel route. As you may know, you can travel safely by foot or bike on the Golden Gate Bridge, as there is a divider for traffic. The bridge is overly reinforced to be able to withstand severe earthquakes. Google maps says it would take 7 to 10 hours by foot, starting from Golden Gate Park, depending on which route you take. It is about a 45 minute drive. 

Your Responsibilities During an Emergency

• Follow the site rules and the group rules created by consensus.
• Participate in 1/2 hour morning meetings that keep everyone informed.
• Participate in hour-long weekly consensus decision-making processes.
• Use good judgement to preserve the physical and mental wellbeing of yourself and others.
• All able-bodied persons will be asked to assist if there is a crisis that threatens group safety.

Added Unapproved Guests

Unplanned added guests must be persons who were houseguests of yours during the time of emergency. The landowner has the right to refuse or grant access. Added guests will need to be in your lodging, share your rations, and will be assessed a negotiated lodging fee afterward, roughly equivalent to the Airbnb lodging rate for the time they stay. You may not receive payment from them for the access. Any person included in your contract or as your guest, 13 years of age or older, must have access to participate in group decision-making.

Drugs

Marijuana and tobacco use is allowed outdoors only. There are ashtrays located in the outdoor seating areas. Be responsible about fire danger.  To ensure the safety and well-being of us all, we need to ensure that we are not accepting people who are struggling with addictions in a manner that substance abuse or withdrawal symptoms would become problematic for community life.

Acceptable Behavior

Unacceptable behavior will be discussed by the group. Ultimately at the landowner’s discretion, if a group member is repeatedly non compliant with pre-established rules or with consensus-based decisions, they may be made to leave the property or to isolate themselves at the periphery of the property: violence or threat of violence, stealing, continually disruptive loudness or rudeness, or socially immature or coercive behavior that threatens group cohesiveness.

To Interview

Please fill out an application form. You may then be invited to a preliminary 20-minute interview online. You may be invited to an extended interview. You need to either drive out to meet in person, in which case the interview is at no cost, and you can see the property. Alternatively, you need to pay $100 for your hour-long remote interview, and you will have access to photos and a video tour of the property.

Privacy

To not be overwhelmed by others in need, should an emergency arise, you must agree to limit knowledge of the details of this agreement to only the adult family members or friends included on the contract, and one distant relative or friend who could retrieve you in the event of extended disaster conditions. If you know others you would like to inform of the contract, let us know, and we will reach out to them if we have more spaces available.

References

Our intent is to accept only people who are word-of-mouth referrals. Others may need to provide up to three character references. Our hope is that the interview process will prevent inclusion of persons who have personality disorders that could cause extreme difficulty in the group. Stressful times can bring out the worst in people, so it will take an effort from all of us to stay in a pro-social and rational frame of mind.

Guaranteed Length of Stay

Most disasters can be ameliorated well before 2 months. For cases in which unsafe travel or living conditions persist, extended stay will be negotiated on a case-by-case basis, depending on the available provisions and the group’s willingness to support each other. Those willing and able to assist with gardening, hunting, or foraging are more likely to be invited to stay past the 3-month contract limit. Those with family or other trusted persons who are able to support them in other locations should inform a trusted person in advance of where to come to escort them out of the area.

Cost for 10-year Contract

• For each adult or child 100 lbs or more:
• For each additional child under 100 lbs:
• For each dog over 100 lbs:
• For each dog 50-99 lbs:
• For each dog under 50 lbs:
• Cats must be discussed and would only be an option for those in housing, not tents.

Further cost considerations:

• In the event that you do not arrive at the property during an emergency, or if no emergency situation occurs during your 10-year contract, you will not receive a refund.
• At the discretion of the owner and other contract-holders, you will have first option to renew the contract if you signal your intention to do so and pay at least 3 months before the end date of the contract.  

Transfer of Contract

This contract is transferrable only by agreement of the property owner. If you wish to sell your contract, a buyer might be available from a waiting list. If you leave the contract in your will, the designee(s) must complete an application and be approved. A record of criminal violence or severe psychiatric condition is likely to prevent approval.

Mediation

If the property owner fails to perform any agreed-on functions, or damage to property by a renter should occur, neither side will pursue monetary compensation in court without first in good faith seeking professionally licensed mediation services, to be paid for jointly and equally.

Legally Binding Signature

Both parties should receive a signed agreement. By signing, we both agree to these terms, which are valid only after receipt of payment, and which last 10 years from the date of signing:

Printed name(s): ___________________________________________________

Signed: ___________________________________________________________date: ________

Landowner acknowledges payment: ___________________________________ date: ________

Renter has paid for this lodging (indicate which house or campsite): ______________________ 

Renter has paid for this number of adults (including myself) ____, children____, and pets_____

Renter is beginning emergency stay on this date (this is to be signed if and when an emergency occurs):

Signed: __________________________________________________________date: ________