Once the sale of the Tivoli Housing Co-op was complete in 2014, the Common Fire Foundation shifted its focus dramatically, limiting itself to providing basic support for the Beacon Co-Housing community. The Foundation previously had a much more expansive vision of helping to support the creation of numerous intentional communities nationwide that shared our values related to communities as a foundation for personal and collective transformation. The information on this page represents our PREVIOUS more expansive vision and is provided here in the hopes that it may help to support or inspire other people’s efforts in this field.
Common Fire essentially serves as an incubator for new communities. Diana Leafe Christian has estimated that 90% of groups that aim to create an intentional community never make it. Common Fire provides strategic support to help ensure that the aspiring community groups we work with are among the 10% that succeed. We provide:
- Nuts and bolts consultations and trainings;
- Financial and legal infrastructure and support;
- Strategic initiative and leadership;
- Links to a diversity of partners and opportunities to collaborate;
- And the credibility that we’ve earned through our successes.
At the same time, we want relationships with these groups that allow them to unleash their own potential and develop cultures and systems that reflect their own unique visions. So we seek to:
- Leverage the resources and skills of the people within group and in their own networks;
- Support a sense of responsibility and self-reliance in the group;
- Strengthen their confidence in their collective and individual ability to be successful;
- Give them the space and the time to develop their own more detailed visions and solutions.
Our eventual goal is for the communities to be autonomous of Common Fire, though still actively involved in the network of Common Fire communities.
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