Meet the FIC Team

Adder Oaks has spent most of his adult living communally with over a decade of membership at Twin Oaks Community in Virginia. Over the years he has worked as a parent, teacher, IT technician, machine operator, community administrator, economic planner, and more. He loves board games, rationalist fiction, novel voting systems, and meditation. He also serves as Director and Treasurer for Sirimangalo International Buddhist Meditation Society, a Canadian Registered Charity dedicated to teaching mindfulness meditation.

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Bianca is a journalist who dropped the newsroom to explore communitarian ways of living in this world. She volunteered at intentional communities in Brazil and Asia and has been living at permaculture farms since 2019. She is a member of Pertim.org, a collective that connects small organic farmers to vulnerable communities in peripheral regions. She is also a farmer and seed saver.

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Back in 1998, following his Ph.D. dissertation on Growing up in Intentional Communities, Daniel founded Living Routes, which ran study abroad programs in ecovillages around the world. In 2012, he started Earth Deeds, which offers online tools to account for our unavoidable CO2 emissions. Over the years, Daniel visited over 100 communities and lived in many, including Sirius in Massachusetts, Auroville in south India and, most recently, the Findhorn Foundation in Scotland, where he served as Director of Education. Daniel is co-founder and past Board Member of Gaia Education and served as President of the Global Ecovillage Network from 2015-2019. Daniel’s passion is to support the development of whole people, living well and lightly together.

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Hailing from Northern California, Erin is a creative digital enthusiast with a deep love for the outdoors. Her career began in Baltimore, MD, working for various nonprofits assisting with digital marketing, event coordination, and website design. After traveling out West, she managed a farm collective in NorCal, participating in the production of cannabis for three years. She is currently enrolled in school to become a Front-End Engineer, creating and developing websites.

You can find her hiking, swimming, snowboarding, gardening, and traveling whenever possible. She enjoys drawing, puzzles, meditation, yoga, and cuddling up to a good movie with her cat Cashew, who requires a warm lap at all times.

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Jensigne has spent several years as a tiny house enthusiast and permaculture proponent, somehow tying her tech interests into all of this, which has all led to a commitment to herself that she will never stop learning and growing. She recently moved to the Northeast US where she lives with her husband, The Best Dog Ever named Mossy, and their three cats in an off-grid cabin in the woods.

Jen has lived in community multiple times and recognizes how important connections between people, animals, and land truly are. Because of that, she is actively building a community of homesteading and self-reliant people in her local town. She intends to spread the word about locally adaptive plants, permaculture, food forests, and all the other topics of interest that she can help pass on knowledge about. When she’s not geeking out about plants (wait.. she’s always geeking out about plants), she also snowshoes nearly daily (in winter), rock climbs when she gets the chance, and loves building things with her hands.

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Kim began working for the FIC in 2014 fulfilling book orders, then managing the bookstore. Kim is a member of Sandhill Farm, serves on the board for Red Earth Farms, both neighboring communities to Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage in northeast Missouri. She’s dedicated to the re-imagination of 50 year-old Sandhill Farm and also strengthening the wider community in her region. When not behind the computer, she is often found in her gardens, walking her two dogs, or crafting something by hand.

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Kim worked as a Certified Public Accountant in San Antonio, TX before moving to Northeast Missouri in 2005. She is a founding member of Red Earth Farms, a co-homesteading community, and lives there on a homestead of 12.6 acres named Dandelion, an egalitarian-style sub-community based on the ideals of simple-living, permaculture, feminism, and open kind communication. She works part-time doing accounting work for the FIC, GEN-US and some local non-profits. Kim likes to be the change she wishes to see and aims to have a lifestyle such that if everyone on Earth was living this way there would be plenty for all.

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Lauren brings with her 10+ years of non-profit marketing and event planning experience. She currently lives in a tiny house within a small intentional community in Portland, OR. In her spare time, Lauren manages a community garden, serves on the board of The Talented X, and provides marketing support for a new-ish vegan permaculture farm and animal sanctuary called Wild Earth Farm & Sanctuary. You can find Lauren biking around Portland, knitting/crocheting, and learning about + practicing emergency preparedness, herbalism, gardening and other permaculture-y things!

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Ecovillage and Permaculture enthusiastic with a technological professional background, Rodrigo has traveled the world contributing to meaningful projects, interacting with different communities to get a wider perspective of how our existence on this planet can become healthier and more sustainable. Currently, he is living a nomadic life traveling Brazil with his partner and their dog in a small van, researching eco-communities and eco-projects. He is also a web developer for GEN, a member of CASA Latina and CASA Brasil, and enjoys discovering new agro-ecological products, surfing, and hiking.

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After a decade of traveling, visiting, and working in communities around the globe, Cynthia maintained an active network of well over a hundred intentional communities.

Cynthia lives at an ecovillage in Vermont where she built a passive solar home and enjoys tending her permaculture garden. She travels by invitation to speaking engagements and love stopping by communities enroute.

In late 2022, Cynthia founded CommunityFinders to better serve matchmaking clients with additional programs and resources to support them on their community journeys. 

From 2014-2022, she was trustee and then Co-Director of the Foundation for Intentional Community, leading the organization through a brand revamp and then tripling its revenue via educational programs and communications. She continues to be a spokesperson and educator with FIC, including hosting the Find Your Community Course and monthly “virtual tours” of communities. 

Cynthia is also a founder of Ecovillage Tours (since 2019), was an officeholder on the Board of Trustees for the Global Ecovillage Network (2015-2020), and was Director of the youth ecovillage network NextGENNA (2013-2018).

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Neil is a founding owner and co-developer of Swan’s Market Cohousing, and longtime FIC and Cohousing ambassador. Over the last 20+ years, he has held volunteer and leadership staff roles with the Cohousing Association of the US, the Cohousing Research Network and Sociocracy For All. His national communities tours have introduced thousands to the world of cohousing and intentional communities. He is a certified life coach who helps individuals through life’s many transitions. He loves working with seekers, residents of intentional communities and nonprofit technology leaders. Neil is a connector and champion for open source software.

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Rebecca Mesritz is a community builder living in Williams, Oregon.  In 2011, Rebecca co-founded the Emerald Village (EVO) in North County San Diego, California.  During her ten years with EVO, she supported and led numerous programs and initiatives including implementation and training of the community in Sociocracy, establishment of the Animal Husbandry program, leadership of the Land Circle, hosting numerous internal and external community events, and participation in the Human Relations Circle which holds the relational, spiritual and emotional container for their work.  

In June of 2021, with the blessing of EVO, Rebecca and 3 other co-founders relocated to begin a new, mission- driven community and learning center housed on 160 acres of forest and farmland.  Rebecca is passionate about communal living and sees intentional community as a tool for both personal and cultural transformation. In addition to her work in this field, she also holds a Master of Fine Arts degree from San Diego State University and creates functional, public, and interactive art in metal, wood, and pretty much any other material she can get her hands on. She’s currently growing Bound for Color, creating and selling bespoke and naturally dyed art, homegoods and wearables. She is a mother, a wife, an educator, a nurturer of gardens, an epicurean lover of sustainable wholesome food, and a cultivator of compassion and beauty.

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Sky Blue (they/them) has spent 20+ years living in a variety of intentional communities. Their parents met in Twin Oaks Community in the late 70’s, where Sky moved as an adult and raised a child. Sky has visited over 130 different communities, worked with the Federation of Egalitarian Communities, Global Ecovillage Network of North America, organized numerous communities conferences, and served as the Executive Director of the FIC. They are currently seeking a group of people to start a new community, and contribute to a variety of community-oriented projects as an organizer, consultant, and speaker.

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Crystal is a North Carolina native active in the cohousing and polyamorous communities. An engineer turned educator, she speaks and writes about ways communities can be more welcoming to people of all kinds of backgrounds. Crystal is the website editor for Black & Poly, an organization promoting healthy polyamorous relationships for people of color. She also serves on the Editorial Review Board of Communities Magazine published by the Global Ecovillage Network-United States. Her book The Token: Common Sense Ideas for Increasing Diversity in Your Organization will be published in late 2020.

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Dave Booda is a writer, musician and social entrepreneur. He’s the co-founder of IntimacyFest and has led over 300 workshops on connection, touch and relationship. He has consulted for and facilitated experiences for companies, retreats and conferences in the areas of group cohesion, creativity and communication. He has published over 200 essays for boodaism.com, and played over 1000 shows as a touring singer/songwriter. He is a former Naval Officer and currently lives at the Emerald Village in San Diego, California with his wife Vicki, and their dog Thanos.

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Harvey is a cofounder (1974) of Dunmire Hollow Community, and helped reinvigorate the FIC in the mid-80s, serving on FIC’s board over 30 years, as well as on several committees. He is past president of the Communal Studies Association. He owns a custom woodworking business, and serves the Waynesboro community as high school soccer coach. He and his wife Dorie grow organic fruits and vegetables in their garden. He enjoys soccer, bicycling, and playing harmonica. He hosts community visitors, touring bicyclists, and SERVAS travelers, giving them a glimpse of a more community based lifestyle.

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For well over a decade, Ivy has been passionately involved in curating, fostering, managing, and actively involved in a variety of intentional communities across the U.S. and Europe. She is a serial entrepreneur and flight attendant currently living in both Philadelphia and Thessaloniki, Greece. She enjoys personal development of all kinds, learning new languages, cooking/baking, reading, and living her way into life’s big questions. Her “why” is about creating a sense of communion with people around how we develop into better human beings.

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Jonas has been interested in community living since he was 18. He spent time in ecovillages such as Auroville in India and lived for eight years in a small intentional community in Italy, growing food and organizing retreats. He serves as trustee and treasurer for the Global Ecovillage Network and currently lives in San Francisco, California. He and his wife Kristina love to travel, sing medicine songs, cook Italian food, practice acro-yoga, and spend quality time with their friends.

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Kaison Tanabe resides in an intentional community in Oakland, CA. He currently works on the growth team at IDEO’s online school, IDEO U, where he focuses on acquiring, retaining, and engaging new and existing learners. Kaison takes a human-centered approach to support organizations committed to environmental + social impact and believes diverse intentional communities can teach us how to better live, work, and create with one another. He is incessantly curious, an avid cook, and enjoys wrestling, roller hockey, and spending as much time as he can outdoors.

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Marty has lived most of his adult life (35 years) in intentional community. He is a co-founder of Network for New Culture, a bi-coastal organization which has promoted personal growth, personal empowerment and social change since 1995. He has been a leader in the business world, acting as a corporate and classroom trainer, and project manager, including being a founding partner of Abacus, Inc., an early Apple distributor that was key in Apple getting a foothold in the business world. Marty has brought his considerable experience to FIC for the past 13 years.

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Neha is committed to tapping into collective insight & foresight in order to restore & regenerate our relationship with the planet, primarily through strategy and partnerships. Currently, she focuses on returning to the  commons, decolonizing impact lenses and repairing our relationship with land.  In past chapters, she explored diverse & equitable clean energy economies, energy efficiency & intelligence in the built environment, facilitation for group alignment, and bridge building between disparate networks & nodes. Consistent inquiries include: What will allow beings to cooperate harmoniously across scales? In conversations about creating the future, how do we ensure all voices and stakeholders are in the room?

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