At the Graham Downs Community Farm…
We are a deeply cooperative and highly integrated, land-rooted community.
Our daily lives are woven into the land we steward—growing food, raising children, and bringing the long-neglected farm and its buildings back into productive health and vitality through environmentally-conscious and holistically healthy practices that inspire broader change.
We steward this land and its projects through inclusive, collaborative decision-making that honours each voice and deepens our capacity to work well together.
With courage, care, and generosity, we are co-creating a regenerative culture of shared responsibility, abundance, and mutual support that can endure beyond industrial systems.
We live this vision through practice, reflection, and collaboration.
Governance: egalitarian and deeply participatory, ensuring power is shared and decision-making is transparent, inclusive, and effective.
Daily Life: cooperative work, shared meals, mutual care and support, and rhythms balancing productivity and play; nurturing and supporting children
Land Stewardship: regenerative farming methods, permaculture and human scale management, clearing the overgrown and producing healthy food from the land along with medicine, fuel and materials for crafting and building.
Learning & Culture: ongoing training in communication, authentic relating, and conflict transformation
Infrastructure: appropriate-tech approaches and resilient systems that we can manage ourselves or with local resources, reducing dependency on fossil fuels and materials from across the globe; prioritising natural and recycled materials
Economy: self-provisioning as much as feasible in food, materials, labour, and culture-creation; extensive sharing of time, tools, and resources beyond transactional exchange, fostering a mindset of abundance and interdependence
We are here to create a cooperative way of life that interweaves people with land and one another!
We are currently seeking Provisional Members who may go on to become Long-term or Core Founding members once compatibility and commitment to vision and values has become evident.
Our process:
Provisional Membership is an invitation to step into the early, real work of forming an intentional community.
It is a way of living on the land while participating in shared rhythms, relationships, and responsibilities, and discovering — through lived experience — whether a deeper or longer-term path in community feels right over time.
Provisional Members are important culture creators and carriers. How you show up — in communication, reliability, care, and contribution — helps establish what life here actually feels like, both for the current group and for future arrivals.
Provisional Membership is grounded in a shared vision and set of values that guide how we relate to one another, the land, and the wider world. Anyone wishing to move forward in the process is asked to read our Vision and Values document before completing the next step.
Provisional Membership may be offered for up to one year, with a process that includes reflection and assessment built into that time frame. Longer-term membership and a co-founding role is certainly possible, but depends on how things unfold and is not guaranteed.
Visitors are welcome by prior arrangement! Please just email us to sort out a good time to visit.
The whole membership decides collectively.
Decisions proceed unless someone has a reasoned objection.
Organized in circles or domains with distributed authority.
We have engaged in sociocracy training through the Sociocracy for All organization as well as with Diana Leafe Christian and have found the structures to be especially productive for meetings and getting things done!
Members contribute a percentage of income to community funds.
Regular fees: $600
Labor: Yes (10 hrs/week)
As we are in a re-forming stage, the internal economic system is still a work in progress. Our transitional system is one of regular community contributions that go towards basic maintenance and upkeep of the farm and its infrastructure, but does not meaningfully contribute towards the massive development expenses we expect for expanded housing in particular.
We hope to develop on-site businesses in time, including revival of a campground, and potentially developing an on-site milling operation from the massive stand of mature trees. Other options include running workshops and operating a value-added horticultural operation depending on the passions and capacities of future membership. In the meantime, all income is derived from off-site and we need to balance that reality against the needs of the land.
Land-based labour contributions include farm maintenance, animal husbandry, massive weed management efforts, orcharding, food preservation, communal gardening, roading, housing maintenance and development. Meetings, communication practices, and meals are all independent on this labor expectation.
Common House, Garden(s), Greenhouse(s), Vehicle Share, Workshop, Outbuilding(s), Tractor & Farm Equipment, Fire pit, Waterfront access
Countryside locations with significant distance from urban centers.
Shared living spaces with private bedrooms/bathrooms and communal
kitchens, dining, and social areas.
Integrated communities designed around ecological principles with sustainable living practices.
Communal living with shared resources, property, and often income or work responsibilities
Geographically close groups of independently-owned homes whose residents actively cultivate community relationships and shared values.
Connecting people and communities through an intentional online marketplace
A residential project: people live here as their primary home.
An institution, business, network, or project that isn’t a residence (e.g. a learning center, farm, or network with no one living there full-time).
{{ item.label }}
{{ item.value ? item.value : currencyFormat( item.amount ) }}
Subtotal
{{ currencyFormat( pricing_summary.total_amount ) }}
We’re introducing new Plus features — including community reviews, Profile Match, and unlimited Needs & Offers posts — while keeping most of FIC free for everyone. Membership costs less than two coffees a month.
