Crisis = Opportunity: Taking it to the next level

People keep asking me, what’s your vision for the FIC? It’s a fair question to the new Executive Director of an almost-30 year old organization. I want to help intentional communities find their place in the world. I believe intentional communities have learned important lessons that need to be shared in collective resource sharing, cooperative governance and finances, and interpersonal relationships and conflict resolution. Intentional communities also have a lot to learn from other movements, particularly around addressing racial and economic justice, as well as cooperative business, sustainable technology, and more. How to make intentional communities truly applicable and relevant to the challenges of our time is core to the work we need to be doing.

Every day intentional communities and their allies work to model a better future. And everyday, the FIC works to support their development, share what they’ve learned, and connect them to the broader movement towards sustainability, cooperation, and justice. As a grassroots funded organization our income consists of membership fees, donations, and mission-related business income. We’ve never been foundation funded. It’s a testament to the network we serve and the importance of intentional community.

But right now, more than ever, we need your help.

As the intentional communities movement has continued to grow and evolve, we’ve increased our efforts. The challenge has been to increase income to increase capacity, and this has led us into a financial crisis. We have become dangerously reliant on cash flow loans and credit cards.

We’re ready to take things to the next level. We don’t just want to make up our current shortfall and pay off debt, we want to provide you with even more programs and services to support your efforts to build community.

Our goal is to raise $40,000 by January 1st. You can help us in a couple ways.

• First, please make a donation. Any amount is important and appreciated. We need lots of people giving us small amounts in addition to the smaller number of people who can give larger amounts.
• Additionally, we’ll be running an online auction this Fall, so please consider donating auction items. Things like handcrafts, travel tickets, unique experiences, and gift certificates are great for auctions.
• Second, pass the word. Like us on Facebook and share the post about this (currently pinned to the top). Share this email with people who support the intentional communities so they know we need their support to forward the movement.
• Third, consider volunteering with us. There are a variety of opportunities, and we could especially use skilled help with things like web development, management software, and, no surprise, fundraising.

Please use our contact form to get in touch with us about any of this.

There’s no shortage of amazing projects and programs we could be developing. We’d like to turn the wiki into a more robust toolkit/solutions library. We’d like to turn the Process Consultants list into a Community Consultants Program. We’d like to do an overhaul of the front end of the website. We’d like to develop the user interface and functionality of the online Directory. We’d like to work more with researchers. We’d like to do more to support regional networking. We’d like to collaborate more with aligned organizations. We’d like to expand the perception of intentional communities beyond 60’s communes and do more to articulate their relevance and applicability to today’s world. I could go on.

Intentional communities are helping address a fundamental question of our time: How can humanity peacefully, equitably, and sustainably share resources on this finite planet? The formation and development of intentional communities needs to accelerate, and their impact on society needs to be amplified. Let’s do this together.