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.
“In our dreams we have seen another world…
We saw that in this world there was no need for armies;
peace, justice and liberty were so common that no one talked about them
as far-off concepts, but as things such as bread, birds, air, water…
This world was not a dream from the past…
It came from ahead, from the next step we were going to take.
And so we started to move forward to attain this dream,
make it come and sit down at our tables, light our homes, grow in our cornfields,
fill the hearts of the children, wipe our sweat, heal our history…”
This vision document lays out our perspective on the state of the world and the critical ways people must come together to create something different. It presents a vision for the creation of transformational intentional communities nationwide and documents key characteristics that can help those communities be catalysts for broader change.
This is a living document. It's been revised many times based on the feedback of hundreds of people and it is continually being worked on. You may notice portions that are clearly in draft form. We welcome your feedback.
The document is 33 pages total including endnotes.
Click on the image to download. You can then save it for future reading or to print out.
You must have the free Adobe Reader to view the document.
The following video is a companion piece to the vision document, created by Alex Schein. We hope it will be another spark on your own journey towards the more just and sustainable future you dream of.
VIEWING TIP: If the video seems to "stick" once in a while, try pausing it to let it "buffer", letting your computer download enough to stay ahead of your viewing.
Our Vision -- In