Classes in this course are suitable for: Community Starters | Community Residents

Course description

Every intentional community will face a crossroads where the current way of operating no longer works. Whether it’s time for a new mission statement, leadership, policies, or financial structure—or a critical event has shifted the community beyond a point of return—there comes a time when business as usual no longer holds. Yet, even when a community reaches a clear turning point, starting the conversation can feel threatening and change, impossible.

These vital opportunities for growth are deeply felt within the community but can often be suppressed, making stagnation the status quo. Yet, communities thrive when they have the tools for healthy self-analysis and the skills to implement a plan for their inevitable evolution.

Instructor Jahia de Rose draws inspiration for this course from The Hermit (IX) archetype, which asks us to go deeper in self-reflection, and the wisdom of the snake who uncomfortably yet necessarily sheds its skin to grow.

The Community at a Crossroads: Strategies for Guiding Community Change course is designed to support communities through challenging crossroads, providing students with the tools to evaluate their community’s current dynamics and re-assess their goals. It equips you with the tools to address some of the most common situations that signal the need for community-wide change including:

• Lack of funding and resources 
• Misaligned roles, community leaders who have outgrown their roles, problematic power dynamics
• An event of harm, catastrophe, or intense conflict which has forced a community to stop all business as usual
• A change in member demographics
• New ideas or directions that lost stamina and were not sustained

Students will gain a holistic understanding of the practical ways in which positive change can take place in their community, and how they can help catalyze it. Students will complete the course with the following tools and skills they can apply to their communities:

• How to draft a Change Action Plan (template provided)
• How to create SMART (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Time-Bound) goals 
• How to navigate difficult conversations about the need for change in their IC
• How to identify areas for change in their IC across different sectors of community life
• Tools and frameworks from alternative economies, restorative justice, abolitionist organizing, and decolonial theory, with practical applications for intentional communities
• How to locate funding opportunities and prepare a basic grant application
• Processes for transitional leadership, and alternative governance models
• Tangible materials such as resource guides, real-life examples, and literature
• Feelings of courage, insight, strength, and being ready to implement change!

Students will use current or past experiences for course content application. Classes will consist of instructor-led presentation and student participation through roundtable discussions, in-class drafting of ideas, drawing and mapping, open shares, reading analysis & critique.

 

Course Syllabus

All Community at a Crossroads classes are held on Fridays from 8am-10am Pacific / 9am-11am Mountain / 10am-12pm Central / 11am-1pm Eastern / 5pm-7pm Central European Time. You can view your local time here.

April 24: Equity & Power Dynamics

• Group Introductions
• Equity & Power Dynamics Presentation
• Q&A / Group Discussion
• Equity & Power Dynamics Mapping
• Goal Setting

May 1: Communication Strategies

• Understanding Our Own Communications Style
• Holding Space
• Creating Circles
• Sitting With Discomfort

May 8: Sustaining & Funding

• Alternative Economies
• Finding Funding
• Grant Applications 101

May 15: Restructuring Your Community

• Governance Models
• Calling In & Calling Out
• Stepping Down (With Grace) & Stepping Up
• Justice vs. Punishment vs. Consequences vs. Accountability

May 22: Resource Mapping

• Presentation & Practice: Assets-Based Approach to Resource Mapping
• Mapping our Allies & Accomplices
• The Spiral Effect: Drawing Our New Vision (With Help from Permaculture)

May 29: Revisioning Your Community

• Introduction to the Change Action Plan
• Introduction to SMART Goals
• Implementing Change & Sticking to It (Slips vs. Slides)
• Group Share-Out

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June 5:Q&A Session

• Ask any additional questions
• Get personalized help
• Networking

The Q&A session is optional and will take place from 8am-9am Pacific / 9am-10am Mountain / 10am-11am Central / 11am-12pm Eastern / 5pm-6pm Central European Time. You must register for the full course to attend the Q&A session. The Q&A session will NOT be recorded.

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