Two-Day Workshop

Starting a Successful Ecovillage
or Intentional Community

August 23-24, 2008
Berkeley, California
Berkeley Cohousing Common House,
2220 Sacramento Street, Berkeley
$225. $200 Early Registration (before August 1st)

With Diana Leafe Christian

This first day, “The Heart of Healthy Community,” on Saturday, August 23, is foundational, and focuses on how people can work well together to co-create a thriving community, with methods for communicating well and dealing effectively with conflict. This includes “structural conflict” as well as interpersonal conflict. While some of this material is covered in Diana’s book, Creating a Life Together, much of it is new. It is designed for forming community groups as well as existing communities, and groups with property as well as those with no property yet.

The second day, “Property Purchase, Financing, Zoning, and Legal Entities,” on Sunday, August 24, is designed for participants whose forming community groups don’t have property, or they do have property but they haven’t worked out ways others can buy in.

Location: Common House at Berkeley Cohousing, 2222 Sacramento St., Berkeley. Six blocks from North Berkeley BART station; parking on Sacramento Street and nearby streets. Workshop is sponsored by Judith Iam at New Paradigm Communities.

Cost and Registration:

• $225. $200 Early Registration price, if received before August 1st.
• Cost includes workshop fee, but not catered lunch, which will be available onsite for a fee both days.
• To register, send check (made out to “Judith Iam”) to Judith at P.O. Box 4963, Santa Rosa CA 95402.
• If after registering you decide not to attend, your payment will be refunded except for a 25% administration fee.
• email or call 707-480-7028.

For more information about the content of the workshop, please see below.

The workshop includes lunch. Participants will receive Handout Booklets on each day. You can participate in the whole workshop or attend just the first day.

Workshop sponsor:
The workshop sponsor is Judith Iam and New Paradigm Communities. For more information or to register, email

Workshop Co-Sponsors:

• Raines Cohen & Betsy Morris, Cohousing Coaches
• Northern California Cohousing Association

Saturday, August 23: “The Heart of Healthy Community”

(1) Reducing and eliminating “Structural Conflict.” Identifying and briefly discussing six crucial organizational structures that, when missing, can cause failure in forming-community groups or wrenching conflict in existing communities.

These structures include

• Common Mission and Purpose
• Clear Agreements in Writing
• Fair, Participatory Decision-Making Method (and if it’s consensus, getting trained before using it)
• Valuing and Using Both Head and Heart Skills
• Good Communication and Group Process Skills (including accountability methods, and having a conflict-resolution method in place from the beginning)
• Well-Organized New-Member Policy (including selecting cofounders and new members who will be a good match for the group and its goals).

Some structures are explored in more depth, such as Mission and Purpose (including the musical skit, “That’s Not Community!”), and Decision-Making, Power, and Governance, about how the most number of people can get most of what they want, most of the time.

Diana considers the single most helpful part of this workshop to be the “Board Game”—learning about the crucial, mutually influencing relationship between a group’s mission & purpose, its decision-making method, and its new-member policy.

This section also notes the many kinds of community practices—agenda planning, well-crafted proposals, meeting evaluations, decision logs, labor requirements, labor credit policies, and many more—which can make all the difference in helping communities keep morale high and reduce stress.

(2) Creating Communication Agreements. Creating communication agreements increases energy and satisfaction in meetings and helps reduce the level of distrust and hurt feelings that can result from people having differing communication styles during meetings. Experiential small-group exercise.

(3) Helping People Stay Accountable to the Group. Three effective, no-shame/no-blame ways to help each other stay accountable to group agreements, and how to use a “graduated series of consequences” process when people consistently break agreements. These processes help raise the level of trust in the group and reduce the amount of resentment and demoralization that can occur when people don’t abide by their agreements. Includes role-playing exercise.

(4) Building a Sense of Trust and Connection. These first three methods help reduce the kinds conflicts that can devastate a group and quickly erode trust between members. A group can also do processes that specifically build trust and connection—so when conflict does arise it’s much easier to deal with than if trust levels were lower. Experiential whole-group exercise.

(5) Dealing Effectively with “The Challenging Person.” Sometimes a group has a member who is so challenging that some people want to leave the group (or do leave!). This is a highly effective, relatively widespread (but usually not consciously applied) method to gently—and with no shame or blame—encourage the person to change their ways . . . or to, on their own, decide to leave.

(6) Cultivating Your Social Capital in the Group. If you have high “social capital” personally, you will most likely be listened to and your ideas for the community considered seriously. If you have low social capital, no matter how articulate your proposals or relevant your ideas, your ideas may be dismissed or ignored. Fortunately, there are things we can do to increase our own social capital and hence personal effectiveness in a group . . . and help the whole community thrive. Role-playing exercise.

Other topics touched on in the first day include the Rock Polisher Effect, the Lightning Rod Effect, the Future Community Success Assessment Tool, and How we can use the Empowered Member/Disempowered Member model and Robert Gilman’s insights on “multiple centers of initiative” to understand and benefit our community and ourselves.

Sunday, August 24:

“Property Purchase, Financing, Zoning, and Legal Entities”

Topics: Case histories—how two successful communities found and financed their property. When an individual or couple owns the land. Triple-net lease. Raw, developed, and turn-key property. Cost, zoning, members, mortgage payments, jobs. Three sources of financing. Three ways to own property. When one person buys or finances the property. Personal loans. Owner financing. Revolving Loan Funds. Determining the group's assets. Helping less affluent members afford it. Income and expenses. Can people afford to live there? The relationship between individually owned parcels with deeds and the community’s ability to choose its members—and why this is important. Checklist for legal entities. LLCs, 501(c)(3) nonprofits. Land trusts, conservation easements.

How zoning works, seeking a zoning variance/special-use permit. Urban refugee syndrome. Learning from cohousing designers. Community buildings. When is sustainable building not really sustainable?

Creating a village-scale economy.