What is an intentional community?
An intentional community is a group of people who have chosen to live or work together in pursuit of a common ideal or vision. An ecovillage is a village-scale intentional community that intends to create ecological, social, economic, and spiritual sustainability over several generations. Having researched and discussed at length, our current founder’s group envisions becoming an intentional community, however we have included resources related to the ecovillage model as well.
WEBSITES
Foundation for Intentional Community
The Foundation for Intentional Community (FIC) has over 35 years of service to a growing movement of people joining and building intentional communities. “People need community. Communities need people. People and communities meet at IC.org.” FIC curates a directory of over 1,000 communities worldwide, promotes community classifieds, runs educational events and supplies resources. Their online bookstore provides a wealth of information and resources on how to start, join and build intentional community. They feature an online catalogue of books, as well as articles, videos and free downloads. A world of knowledge awaits you!
Global Ecovillage Network
Through the sharing of best practices and innovative solutions and the honouring of deep-rooted traditional knowledge and local cultures, the Global Ecovillage Network builds bridges between policy-makers, academics, entrepreneurs and sustainable community networks across the globe in order to develop strategies for a global transition to resilient communities and cultures. Central to GEN’s mission is spreading knowledge about ecovillages to people around the globe. Here is a selection of educational books, videos, and tools to help! We face many challenges in our time. Fortunately there are many solutions and people willing to implement them! The Solution Library helps make the transition to sustainability universally accessible.
The Federation of Egalitarian Communities
The FEC is a union of Egalitarian Communities which have joined together in their common struggle to create a lifestyle based on Equality, Cooperation, and Harmony with the Earth. You can learn more about their member communities, systems/structure and 7 Basic Principles.
BOOKS
Creating a Life Together – Diana Leafe Christensen
Creating a Life Together is the only resource available that provides step-by-step, practical “how-to” information on how to launch and sustain a successful ecovillage or intentional community. Through anecdotes, stories, and cautionary tales about real communities, and by profiling seven successful communities in depth, the book examines “the successful 10 percent” and why 90 percent fail; the role of community founders; getting a group off to a good start; vision and vision documents; decision-making and governance; agreements; legal options; finding, financing, and developing land; structuring a community economy; selecting new members; and communication, process, and dealing well with conflict. Sample vision documents, community agreements, and visioning exercises are included, along with abundant resources for learning more.
Click to read an excerpt, see the table of contents or purchase the book.
Wisdom of Communities
Since 1972, Communities magazine, published by the Foundation for Intentional Community, has been collecting and disseminating the lessons learned, and now they’ve distilled them into a new 4 volume book series, Wisdom of Communities.
This series is intended to aid community founders, seekers, current communitarians, students, and researchers alike in their explorations. Each book is over 300 pages and features over 100 of our best articles. You can purchase the set here.
Volume 1 – Starting a Community: Resources and Stories about Creating and Exploring Intentional Community includes both general articles and on-the-ground stories from intentional community founders and other catalysts of cooperative efforts.
This book aims to increase the survival rate of attempts to start intentional communities (it’s estimated that currently just 10 percent move past the initial stages). Table of Contents
Volume 2 – Finding a Community: Resources and Stories about Seeking and Joining Intentional Community is a response to the reality that many searches for intentional community fizzle out due to lack of adequate information, guidance, or exposure to fellow travelers’ stories.
Authors share experiences, tools, advice, and perspectives that should help anyone searching for an intentional community—whether to visit or to live in—increase the likelihood of finding what they’re seeking. Table of Contents
Volume 3 – Communication in Community: Resources and Stories about the Human Dimension of Cooperative Culture includes articles about decision-making, governance, power, gender, class, race, relationships, intimacy, politics, and neighbor relations in cooperative group culture.
These areas are key for communities to address if they are to retain members and develop strong and healthy group connection. Table of Contents
Volume 4 – Sustainability in Community: Resources and Stories about Creating Eco-Resilience in Intentional Community focuses on food, water, shelter, energy, land, permaculture, ecovillage design, eco-education, and resilience in cooperative culture.
These areas will prove more and more essential in allowing communities to navigate changing circumstances on our planet, while growing into new, regenerative ways of living and thriving together. Table of Contents
VIDEOS
Sustainable is Possible: Ma’ikwe Schaub Ludwig at TEDxCarletonCollege
Ma’ikwe Schaub Ludwig is the Executive Director of Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage, the pioneering sustainability educator who heads up Ecovillage Education US, and a member of the Board of Directors of the Fellowship for Intentional Community. She believes strongly that sustainability is possible, assuming we can learn to cooperate, share and assess what really makes us happy, rather than staying bought in to the material excess culture we’ve been raised in. In addition to more common sustainability work, Ma’ikwe teaches cooperative group dynamics as a key skill set in moving us toward sustainability and spiritual activism as a framework for linking the personal and political.
Intentional Season 1 Episode 2: Dancing Rabbit Eco-village
This is the second episode of “Intentional” a documentary series on intentional communities and community living. This episode features Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage, a robust and growing intentional community situated on 280 acres of land in the rolling hills of northeastern Missouri. At Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage, we understand how difficult it can be to live sustainably and responsibly within modern US culture. We believe that we can work to build a healthy alternative: a social structure that is both non-exploitative and vibrant. As our village grows, we see this ideal take shape more clearly every day: a diverse range of people living ecologically sound lives in a community that truly serves as an example of positive human action within the natural world.
A Simpler Way: Crisis as Opportunity
“A Simpler Way: Crisis as Opportunity” is a free-to-view, feature-length documentary that follows a community in Australia who have come together to explore and demonstrate a simpler way to live in response to global crises. Throughout the year the group build tiny houses, plant veggie gardens, practice simple living and permaculture principles, and discover the challenges of living in community.
WEBINAR
“Co-Buying Property With Friends”
Phil Levin uses his community experience with The Radish in Oakland as a case study for buying property with friends. In this article and presentation he covers:
The who: picking your “co-buy squad”
The what: defining basic property requirements
The how: locating financing + defining legal structure
The where: finding the right property
There are many other resources on community worth exploring!