Stewardship Collective Application

The Challenge of Building Resilient Communities

The number one necessity for establishing a successful Resilient Community is a small founding team that effectively cultivates a strong, healthy culture. People who can do this together are rare, however. Very few formative intentional communities actually get established and the unfortunate experience of so many people in the ones that do further confirms this key challenge. The Resilient Communities Network's organizing platform and outreach campaign begin to address this impediment by attracting and orienting large numbers of prospective communitarians who are aligned with our basic framework.

So far so good. But assembling a group of co-founders who are highly capable, psychologically healthy, and in accord regarding their fundamental principles and values, how they want to live, where they want to live, with whom they want to live, when and why they want to take action, with a suitable mix of personalities, experience, and skills, is a demanding task.

These challenges are no reason to give up, however, because the ongoing breakdown of our global civilization and the natural systems upon which it is based means that before long Resilient Communities will be the only way for many to attain a good quality of life or, in many highly vulnerable places, to survive or retain a life worth living.

The Solution: Stewardship Collective

So what are we to do? The key to successfully organizing, leading, and sustaining a Resilient Community despite all these challenges is the combination of knowledge, experience, and skills we call Stewardship. Even in the most advanced of us, however, this capability is incomplete. We all have a lot to learn and the Stewardship Collective (SC) is where we can learn it together.

The Stewardship Collective is not a training or course. There are good courses out there on intentional community building, and they are worth taking. But the historical track record of intentional communities is messy, to put it mildly. Going back centuries, they have tended to churn people in and out because most have deep systemic dysfunctions. Something more than what is currently available is needed.

No one we know of yet is a perfect master of community stewardship, but some do have a broad diversity of community and life experience from which they have developed significant relevant knowledge and capabilities. If you are one of these people, imagine what it would be like to collaborate with others such as yourself as you coach and guide each other in a well-facilitated learning community. Imagine what it would be like to learn from each others' successes and mistakes as you develop, try out, and achieve practical solutions to the perennial problems of community building. How cool is that?!

What You'll Do as a Member

As a member of your Stewardship Collective cohort you will explore contributions from your companions as well as outside sources:

• You will each share your goals, ideas, and experiences with one another.
• You will bring in practical experts to learn from and consult with.
• You will each bring both your challenges and successes so that you can learn new approaches and solve unique problems together.
• You will work together on a regular basis, both virtually through forums and video meetings and in person from time to time as distances allow.

Who Should Apply

The Stewardship Collective is not for everyone. It is for people who are intending to help organize Resilient Communities and have demonstrated the integrity and experience to be prepared to do so successfully; who have led people in non-traditional, more facilitative ways; who have shown the character to stand up to a person, group, or institution that may be acting in an unjust or destructive way.

You may have been an activist organizer, whistleblower, non-profit leader, community organizer, teacher of relevant practical knowledge and skills, non-traditional leader in traditional organizations, or any other preparation to be an effective steward. You will be a servant leader cultivating and nourishing Resilient Communities. You will not work alone. You will work with your Stewardship Collective cohort and with your team that you will build.

Join Our Prototype Cohort

If you have the background and motivation to be a Steward of Resilient Communities, please apply to join our first prototype cohort. This first group will be helping to develop the Stewardship Collective together. Consequently we will not require any fees for it, though we will accept voluntary donations to help to fund our work.