A Wonderful and Necessary Folly

by Raven

I (and Yana Ludwig and Paxus, at least) often discourage people from trying to start communities.  It’s a lot of work and usually doesn’t work out the way you expected.  Often it just doesn’t work out.

But every community that’s up and running was started by someone (and usually a few folks) that was (or were) crazy enough to try.

I’m currently living in a very small community in western MA that is on its third attempt to get up and running.  I’ve been talking with folks starting an ecovillage in Vermont (where they are at least discussing income-sharing) as well as someone in a collective in central MA where everyone else is moving out and they are needing to start all over.  Plus, I’m thrilled that Serenity Solidarity has moved up to New York state and they are starting up on land near Albany.   I’m very excited about people starting or trying to revive communities.  I just want folks to realize what a hard task they are taking on.

Or maybe I shouldn’t emphasize this.  Maybe some of the communities that exist wouldn’t have happened if the founders had realized what they were in for.

Creating an income-sharing community that lasts is extra hard.  Right now the basic ones I know of are the three Kat Kinkade communities (ie, Kat was one of the founders of each of them):  Twin Oaks (57 years), East Wind (50), and Acorn (31).  (Also, Alpha Farm, which chose not to be part of the FEC.)  

I posted a question about why they lasted when others haven’t and I got well over thirty comments and over eight hundred views.  (Usually I think we are doing well if we get over a hundred views and phenomenal if we get over three hundred.)  Raines Cohen, a cohousing maven, pointed out in a comment that there were many cohousing communities that are now over thirty years old.  I do think it’s easier to create lasting cohousing places and co-op houses than to attempt to start an income-sharing community that makes it.

But we need to have people who are willing to do the work to start some.  I often quote the made up (but I suspect fairly accurate) statistic that 90% of new communities fail.  My take is that we need to start a hundred new communities–that way, we will probably end up with ten new ones that succeed.

However, I think that many new communities don’t last because the people starting them don’t know what they need to do in order to succeed.  That’s the reason I write so much about starting communities on this blog–and the reason folks like Yana Ludwig and Diana Leafe Christian write so much and the Foundation for Intentional Community offers so many courses and resources. (If you’re starting a community, I can’t imagine a better resource to start out with than ic.org –also, if you are looking for folks, you might want to also check out icmatch.org )  

In spite of trying to discourage folks from trying to start communities, if you are determined to do it, we all want you to succeed.  It’s a foolish endeavor, but I think it’s the best kind of foolishness.