29 Aug 2001 - Albert Bates, GEN Secretary for the Americas
Our movement to create sustainable human habitation of the Earth continues to grow more rapidly and our task as “agents of change” is to identify new villages, projects, initiatives and innovations and to appreciate their contributions. Many of them may be so uniquely creative that they help to shorten the transition process for all of us. In the case of new villages and village initiatives, our goal is also to invite them to join our networks and to share in our combined progress in transforming the world.
We envision that eventually there will be cascading circles of networks: neighborhood, local area, bioregion, nation, geographic region (ENA member regions), continental, global region (GEN member region), global. At each of these levels we envision that there will be contact persons and /or offices, newsletters, gatherings, councils, and delegates being sent to bordering relations in the expanding web.
The process of organizing each level has thus far come from the neighboring larger level. This is not to say that it cannot originate from the roots, only that so far our history has been outward articulation of the circles from a centerpoint, which is GEN. The purpose of this guide is to assist Ecovillage Contact Offices in organizing their constituencies, based upon the experience of our network growth in the past. It is not how it must be—all possibilities are open—but how it has worked in the past and perhaps might work for you.
Regional Development Guide for Ecovillage Contact Offices
1. Listen to the voices of your region.
What are the existing movements?
Do they have newsletters, websites, conferences or gatherings?
Examples:
Academics
Alternative Economists
Anthroposophicals
Antiglobalizationists
Antitransgenicos
Biodynamacists
Bioregionalists
Cohousing
Communitarians
Cooperatives
Fair Housing Organizations
Green Parties
Indigenous Peoples
Landless MovementLegislators
Natural Builders
Organic Gardening
Peace Movements
Permaculturists
Philanthropists
Professional Associations
Rainbow Tribe
Solar Energy
Spiritual Movements
Squatter Movements
Student Groups
Sustainable Development
Viridians & Social Artists
2. How are they organized and governed?
If they are closely aligned to the vision of ENA, how can we speak to the members of these organizations?
Examples:
Attend meetings
Exchange links
Write for their newsletters
Present at their conferences
Circulate our materials to their lists
Offer workshops
Invite articles for our publications
Profile them on our website.
3. Can we become partners with these existing organizations?
Examples:
Joint campaigns to influence government policy
Joint gatherings and conferences
Shared representatives or delegations at events or appearances
Joint fundraising campaigns and coalitions
4. For all these various organizations, join listservs or review archives of lists available on the web.
Who are the movers and shakers in these conversations?
What are their organizational affiliations?
Can we strike up a conversation with their constituents who are aligned with our vision?
Can we recruit them into our organization?
5. Locate sustainable villages, initiatives, and related projects or programs in your area. In addition to the existing networks already explored, find individual villages or projects and make direct contact. Surf the web. Peruse newsletters and magazines. Look for mentions in lists and literature. Start your own database. Call or write possible contacts. Make a survey questionnaire and circulate it to them. Visit them.
6. Invite local networks, villages, and projects to participate in ENA: submit data for our database, write something for our newsletter, put up a web page or a link on our site. Depending on local resources and abilities, you might offer to help them with translations, graphics, web development, events, workshops or fundraising.
7. Convene a gathering of your key contacts. At this gathering record the proceedings and later distribute that to any important contacts that did not attend. Suggest the formation of a council and the creation of a newsletter, website, and/or listserv. Create a steering committee to solicit contributions and formulate organizational documents.
8. Begin regular meetings of the steering committee. Depending on the size of the region, the size of the group, and other factors, the frequency of the meetings may vary, but regular periodicity is important, irrespective of whether meetings are monthly, biannually, annual, or at solstices and equinoxes.
9. Create a charter, mission statement, articles or bylaws. Convene a representative council to adopt these documents and to serve as the core of the new organization. This structure may take any suitable form but within ENA we endeavor to create representative, democratic forms that accurately reflect the diversity and values of all members. For this reason we favor election by the grassroots, consensus processes, gender and cultural diversity in governing bodies, and a spiritual (albeit nondenominational) orientation in decision-making.
10. Employ committees to draw out the talents of all those within the organization. Host workshops and other forms of training, perhaps in conjunction with meetings, to broaden the skills of the members. Only a few people will be delegates to other parts of ENA, or be selected to hold positions of responsibility within the local structure. Still, some contribution should be asked of all participants, to add to the collective strengths of ENA and to the local region, and to endow each member with the spirit that comes from a common share in the progress we might make in saving the planet.
11. Develop a membership fee structure. This can include alternative service and in-kind contributions. A memorandum on fee structure was prepared for the ENA steering committee in 1998 and may be helpful in developing local fee structures.
12. Keep budgets, fundraise, build contact points and empower the grassroots to expand and articulate our network still further.
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