Services
HomeWorlding has spent a lot of time listening to what communities need, which for a whole world of reasons is often different than what many outside or temporarily connected people believe that communities need. It’s different in the living, on the ground.
While every community, challenge and opportunity is unique, HomeWorlding has created packages of limited scope and cost that allow us all to get to know one another, solve or achieve a specific effort, and build upon the trust and successes we create together.
For special exceptions, and often after a richer, more connected and ongoing relationship, HomeWorlding can provide longer term community creation, transition and development support services. Please see the Ongoing Development Engagements section below for more information.
Service Packages
HomeWorlding exists to bring new perspectives and experience, and wherever possible, connections and knowledge to and from other communities. Each of the following packages allows us all to discover and connect this potential.
Workshops & Discussions
We have been taking much of what we have learned or discovered as missing gaps while we have traveled on our Community Connections Visits to create interactive workshops and facilitated discussions. Some of these have been presented at community events and festivals such as QuinkFair and the Twin Oaks Communities Conference, and all of them can be offered as part of Community Connections Visit.
Visualizing and Mapping the Ecologies of Healthy Communities
We all have shared and different perspectives, ideas and experience about what makes a healthy, abundant and connected community. Are there ways to visualize, design and build maps of all the entities, elements, resources and flows that represent our community realities and ideals? Let’s find out!
Clearing and Relating to Sovereignty, Control and Interdependence
In community, we often trade sovereignty in things we do for each other in order to enjoy space and agency of our own. We all want freedom, and this may require us to agree to mechanisms of control that ensure safety and space to be what we are. Poetic ironies? Or a new conversation? Let’s explore.
Lessons and Opportunities for Communities from the World of Coworking
In a very real way, coworking spaces bridge the cultural and operational gaps between dreaming about starting a venture and making it real. How can communities create the same kinds of opportunities to make it easier for the ‘community-curious’ to experience a new way of living? And maybe create some new revenue?
Designing and Defining the Ideal Communities Law Firm
HomeWorlding is supporting the potential founding of a new law firm created from the beginning to serve and support the world of Communities.
How could this firm best serve the unique and specific needs of communities? Or help articulate and translate our values in and to our own agreements, and the world of law?
Community Health, Viability & Opportunity Assessments
Every community is different in its unique strengths as well as its ongoing and interrelated challenges. After spending some time getting to know your community, its culture, activities, aspirations and constraints, we will work with you to create a high level but multifaceted snapshot of where you are, where you can and want to go, and what will help you get there.
This process generally includes formal and informal group and individual discussions, as well as collecting information about and from systems and documents. Where there are gaps, HomeWorlding can help come up with ways we can create or gather what is needed more easily, both now and in the future, HomeWorlding can also help find, evaluate and select any specialized expertise or experience that might be needed.
These assessments, as well as many other aspects of our Package and Ongoing services are generally confidential in nature, and, one of the benefits of our traveling and meeting communities is our ability to discern and recognize patterns among challenges and opportunities. In this respect, our measured and respectful approach means we might very well be able to connect you with someone or a community who knows how to fix or transform a challenge, and you never know when the work we do together makes you the new expert we connect to a project or community down the road.
Opportunity Identification, Creation & Development
Each community has its own values, goals and dreams. And many communities also share common challenges such as wanting to diversify or increase revenues, resource scarcities, attract more diverse and value-aligned new members, or how to better connect and partner with neighboring farms, organizations or businesses.
Many communities may be strong in their own specific essence, capacities or offerings, but weaker in areas that seem less core to their values, such as marketing, partnering, or systems and process design and implementation. HomeWorlding begins with unique strengths, existing capacities and resources and what is within closest reach of a community and then begins to map and develop paths to creating and developing new or existing opportunities.
A high level opportunity map and assessment document will be prepared to share and review with community members. Once discussion and agreement is reached, an additional and more developed plan can be created, including what other resources and capacities will be needed, as well as how the community can take and develop ownership of the new arc, project, partnership or venture.
Event Design, Planning & Creation
Events, festivals, markets and gatherings can be great ways to not only increase awareness and revenues for communities, but also create meaningful connections and opportunities among a range of local partners, stakeholders and the community-curious.
HomeWorlding has supported the creation, space design and making, logistics, operations, content creation and marketing efforts of community centered events such as QuinkFair and the Twin Oaks Communities Conference. We also bring our space creation and event production experience from the worlds of Burning Man, co-working and entrepreneurs, as well as cross-community and cultural events such as resync.art in Middleburg, VA and Learnapalooza in Washington DC.
Service Package Pricing & Discounts
Package costs range $1,000 to $5,000 depending on complexity, longevity and customization. And although each project has its unique resource needs, which we identify with you ahead of time, we generally try to include basic travel expenses in our flat package pricing.
Additionally, every effort is made to reduce project costs and minimize scope and cost increases by getting local community initiative leaders (and their community collaborators) to handle tasks and efforts, which, perhaps more importantly, sets precedent and likelihood of a community’s independent capacity to lead and execute on follow-on stages of a project, although packages generally include follow-on check-ins and support.
Due to the unique nature of HomeWorlding’s work, especially given the cultural and resource specific requirements in the world of communities, ecovillages, homesteads and land-based concepts, we can sometimes offer sliding scale pricing, as well as potential discounts or energy exchanges for room, board and other services or resources that our community clients can provide.
Ongoing Development Engagements
As you already know, the creation and development of communities, ecovillages and land-based concepts is a complex and ongoing journey. It is much closer to the creation and evolution of ecologies or cosmologies than it is to, say, bringing a new product, service or venture to the world. Things like this are their own worlds of learning and challenge unto themselves, but at least there are lots of models, examples, courses and support services that are available.
This is not so much the case with creating and developing communities. And most often the world, schooling and experience has not prepared us for the complex, interdependent and always changing dynamics that are required of all of us who embark on this work.
Add to this that many communities have had a mixed relationship with experts and consultants who swoop in, and may do a great job of scoping and initiating longer arc projects, but ultimately leave before the project is done or is even able to continue and evolve on its own. The shortness and limited connection to the people, culture and day to day life, challenges and experience of a community means that limited consulting engagements are often not able to experience the depth, richness and nuance of a community’s life that is not only necessary to understand and include in the reality of an effort, but greatly affect the viability and likelihood of any project’s success.
Inclusive of these realities, and in cases where HomeWorlding and a community have successful experience with creating together, ongoing engagements can be established to provide richer, longer term support for more complex, interconnected or challenging efforts.
For the time being HomeWorlding is capping the number of ongoing engagements to 2 or 3 communities to ensure the continuity, depth and quality of service we feel is required. If you are interested in having a discussion about how we might support your new or existing community on an ongoing basis, please contact Charles Planck ([email protected]).
UPDATE: We are in discussions about ongoing engagements with 1) a very well established intentional community as well as 2) a promising new holistic health and wellness community concept, both in the Eastern US. We are still open to a possible third engagement, and if you are considering connecting with us for ongoing creation or development work please reach out to schedule a free exploratory conversation for the possible third slot, a waitlist position or some options for initial, scoped opportunities for us to collaborate.
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