What Communities Are Really Looking For: Understanding the Other Side of the Joining Process

About the Workshops

Overview

When looking through the FIC directory or exploring a community’s website, it can be easy to project an ideal scenario onto what we see—a kind of community nirvana where our needs will be met, and we can live happily ever after.

But communities have needs and problems too. Many are under-resourced, stretched thin, and looking for new people who are ready to arrive, pitch in, and become part of what they’re building.

A good community search includes understanding this other side of the equation: What are communities looking for in prospective members and residents? What qualities, approaches, life experience, and perspectives make someone a good fit? And what might give a community pause?

The goal isn’t to become the “perfect” community member. It’s to understand what you already bring, where you may need support or growth, and how knowing yourself more honestly can help you find a better mutual fit.

This practical, beginner-friendly workshop will help you look at the community-seeking process from both sides—and approach prospective communities with greater awareness of what it takes to join and contribute.

This workshop is for you if:

You’re actively exploring or visiting intentional communities.
You want to understand how communities evaluate prospective members.
You’re wondering what makes someone a strong candidate for community membership.
You want to better understand the joining process from the community’s perspective.
You want to assess your own readiness and fit more honestly.

In this session, you’ll gain:

Insight into what communities actually look for in prospective members
A clearer understanding of mutual fit between a person and a community
A framework for assessing your own strengths, capacities, and growing edges
A way to turn that same assessment toward communities you’re considering
A more realistic understanding of the joining process

For those who are...

New to community

Searching for community

Skills you’ll gain

Community & Social

Instructor

Lee Warren

Lee’s life purpose is to provide leadership in the building of community in accessible, natural, and deeply human ways. To that end, she is committed to reweaving the cosmologies and regenerating the cultural wisdom that allow us all to return to the village. The village, as Lee uses the term, is a metaphor for the collaborative, relational way of living that repairs historical damage and creates coherence, belonging, and shared purpose. Cultural repair looks like conscious relating—to self, to land, to dying, to living, and to one another. As we return to the village, we cultivate supportive and inclusive systems that tend to the whole, including the more-than-human world. Lee is also the author of the forthcoming book Dying Together: The Art of Community Death Care—A Village-Inspired Guide to Belonging at the End of Life, which explores how communal, embodied, and relational approaches to dying can transform both individuals and culture. https://reclaimingwisdom.com/