For my 2015 masters thesis at UC Berkeley’s MDP, I studied the businesses of intentional communities (ICs) in the United States because I believe that community is essential to a cooperative and sustainable world. This post will highlight key findings from my research, national survey, and the recommendation package I provided to my client, The Fellowship for Intentional Community (FIC), a non-profit which maintains a directory of over 1,700 ICs in the U.S. (pictured above).
I chose to focus on business because that’s what keeps the lights on. The challenges for many of the ICs I surveyed pertain to economic sustainability. An article by Katie Gilbert in Al Jazeera summarizes the problem well: “In recent years, many of the U.S.’s roughly 3,000 intentional communities…have had to tighten budgets as the economy has slowed down. They’ve also had to grapple with how ballooning student debt may be constraining new membership. A look inside an intentional community in the midst of the economic slowdown is a look at what it’s like to live set apart from our society’s dearest economic values — acquisition and individual ownership, debt, consumption as fuel for the growth imperative — but still remain under their influence.”
This tension between living apart from capitalism yet remaining under its influence permeated my research. Anti-consumerism is a common sentiment in the communities movement. Yet I remain convinced that communities must adopt business strategies from the mainstream in order to survive. Diana Leafe Christian describes this sentiment in her seminal book, Creating a Life Together:
“In my younger years I was against anything remotely related to business, multinational corporations, or the government… But over time I learned not to mistake the tool for the motivation. I learned “business” is not the same thing as deceitful business practices, money is not the same thing as domination and the lust for power, legal structures are not the same as corporate greed. Every community formed…has been motivated by a spiritual impulse and/or by environmental and social justice concerns. Their founders learned to understand and use tools also used by mainstream culture — creating legal entities, buying property, borrowing money, paying interest — in order to create viable alternatives to mainstream culture.”
So, what exactly are intentional communities? The wheel chart pictured above breaks down the types of communities listed in the FIC’s Communities Directory. About half of the 1,700 communities in the directory are established; the other 900 are forming or reforming (communities register themselves in the directory and choose their own status). Spread throughout all 50 states, there are an estimated 70,000 residents living these communities. Using a Google survey form to contact the email addresses listed in the Directory, I surveyed 673 established communities (selecting for those that had updated their listing in the last four years) in early 2015. 45 business owners from 35 communities located in seven regions of the U.S. responded. This 5.1-percent response rate may be partially attributed to that, as a whole, 6.9 percent of Americans owned an established business in 2014 (source: GEM 2014).
Key findings from my analysis of the survey results are included in the executive summary of my recommendation package: “For over 20 years, the Fellowship for Intentional Community has offered a unique resource to people seeking community: the Communities Directory. The core value of the Directory is connecting people. Connection is the heart of community living and the source of its strength. With the strength of connection in mind, this project aims to help the FIC understand the needs of its stakeholders and how it might expand the Directory to connect the businesses of intentional communities as well as other cooperatives with a wider market. On a broader scale, the vision driving this project is to establish an ethical and resilient alternative to the business-as-usual economy of the United States. Drawing from research on cooperative economics, independent business networks, ethical consumer preference, and decentralized ecommerce trends, this project analyzes results from a national survey of IC businesses to offer marketing strategy and platform design recommendations to the FIC. Key findings include a commonly expressed need of IC businesses for marketing and publicity opportunities, a growing market for ecommerce, and lack of online cohesion in the multi-billion-dollar cooperative sector. The primary recommendation for the FIC is to expand the Directory on ic.org to include a Business Directory with four potential features: job listings; social media networking/groups; a Pro plan for online sales; and an alternative currency to facilitate the multiplier effect.”
I submitted my recommendation package to the FIC in 2015. A year later, the FIC launched a Kickstarter campaign to create the new online and book version of the Communities Directory. 166 backers pledged a total $8,500, meeting the goal of $7,500. I do not know what new features will be incorporated into the new versions of the Communities Directory. I hope they choose to include a Business Directory.
The core value of community is cooperation rather than competition. I elaborate on this topic in a 15-minute talk I gave at UC Berkeley, which touches on my research and personal experience living cooperatively in an environmental collective. There is much more to say about cooperation—its presence or absence touches every aspect of our lives, from work to housing. Carl Gibson, wrote on the Huffington Post Blog: “Why did I ever allow myself to live alone with no community and pay a landlord who doesn't make decisions with tenants in a democratic process? And why did I do it considering that form of living cost twice as much as my current housing situation? It's just one example of cooperative economics replacing the outdated corporate capitalist model.”
Perhaps the best way to conclude this post is with this list of benefits of cooperative community:
Potential Benefits of Cooperatives
· Group purchasing discounts
· Group purchasing consumer power (voting with dollars)
· Access to markets and anti-monopoly force
· Better (more expensive) information & technology
· Access to goods and services – in the case of situations that lack established businesses
· Better product information
· Common facilities (housing, parks, buildings)
Potential Benefits of Cooperative Culture
· Community support for women – lower birth rate
· Community support for children / Parental free time – better education, health, social connection
· Group purchasing discounts
· Lower environmental impact from sharing appliances, vehicles, cooking, heating
· Increased free time = less stress = better health, efficiency, & more innovation
· Community connections = larger network = employment/entrepreneurial opportunities
· Democratic process exposure = opportunity for personal growth
