Community Explorers

So, what’s a Community Explorer? If you are actively looking for community and exploring yout options, we’d consider you a Community Explorer.

Exploring communities and getting involved can be incredibly rewarding, engaging, and healing. It can also be extremely confusing, frustrating, and disappointing when you are unclear on what you want, much less how to build or find it.

Thankfully, there are pathways, shortcuts, and tools that you can turn to developed by previous trailblazers who discovered what worked for them.

Dr. Bruce Lipton recently did a podcast with Uplift that is worth a listen if you are at the exploratory stage of engaging in more intentional forms of community. He’s got a lot of good stuff in there, including the following:

“Rather than promoting evolution that we’re all in this together, we’re sort of like ‘oh, the evolution is who’s going to be fittest.”

Community building may be the most important thing we do for personal growth and social change. Not only do we desire deeper connection, but current science points to our need for a community to shift into a new level of evolutionary consciousness.

“Our evolution is our ability to come together and share awareness.”

Community building is important, fundamental stuff that gets to the heart of the only way we can heal our planet, our society, and ourselves.

But it’s complicated.

Overcoming Obstacles to Finding Your Community

Where Do We Get Stuck Exploring Community?

One of the biggest challenges to finding your people is the assumption that the right community for you already exists out there waiting for you fully formed, wondering what’s taking you so long to get there. A healthy, active community that’s not too hot, not too cold, just right.

Because it’s complicated, analysis paralysis can be a problem. Kind of like that friend who has claimed to be writing a book for as long as you can remember, it’s common for people to talk about how important community is for ages without ever getting much skin in the game.

So What's the Solution?

At Community that Works, we believe that community building is inherently intensely personal, and it’s building blocks start with understanding ourselves and our one-on-one personal relationships.

We help clients by focusing on what matters most by using trusted tools for relational essentials and providing a Community 101 jumpstart as a foundation for moving ahead with clarity. For folks who are ready to move forward, we offer consulting and resources for exploring options for existing communities and structures, including opportunities to rent or buy real estate that should be the right fit.

In a Nutshell, Here’s Our Process For Helping Community Explorers

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Step #1

Initial Consultation: Getting to know you and where you are at, particularly what’s working and what’s not with building community.

Step #2

Self-Exploration: Getting clear on who you are and what you want so you can look for and communicate about it.

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Step #3

Resources & Tools: Guidance and recommendations on trusted sources and proven tools for getting out of your head and into community.

Step #4

Action Plan: Coaching and follow up for realistic and appropriate steps for exploring and co-creating a community that’s right for you.

Click Here to See a Full List of Our Services

Do-it-yourself (with consult option)

Introduction to Community Living
Introduction to Community Development
Introduction to Nurturing a Cooperative Culture
Project planning tools
- Vision, Mission, Aim, Values
- Canvas strategizers
Marketing planner
Marketing packet templates
- Blueprint of We intro
- Sales flyer
- Culture
- Explore path
- Website

Project Consultation and/or Management

Real estate search
Due diligence
Site design
Permitting process
Land development
House design
Permitting process
Home construction
Financial / Investor package
Legal structures / documents
Website design
Social media
Email marketing
Local promotion
Sales process
Blueprint of We
Decision making
Community Building

Training

Exploring Community Living
- Preparation
- Essentials
- Aging / Wellness
Community Development Process
- Vision / People
- Place / Plan / Build
Nurturing Cooperative Culture
- Heart / Foundation
- Circles / Practices / Tools
Relational Tools

Focusing on What Matters Most

The Right Culture

Getting some help with cultivating a relational environment that is nourishing and sustainable can save you years of stumbling in the dark.

We have experience with what works and what doesn’t in cultivating the right culture. But we have also learned a ton from experts in community and draw heavily from their tools and expertise when we help clients explore and develop the community culture they are looking for. You can find more about our processes and tools through the link below.

More about Nurturing Culture

The Right Structures

The physical structures we inhabit can have a profound impact on our lives and interactions. And you’ll find that the types of buildings people use for community spaces run the gambit through just about everything imaginable and sometimes the unfathomable. Putting some intention ahead of time into the types of space that would be most conducive to what you want to explore with others is smart.

Community that Works has a unique background in understanding how these spaces work that enables us to help community explorers think through and research what is possible in some novel ways. We enjoy working with clients to explore what is possible and develop action plans for finding or creating structures that work for them. We also have a solid understanding of real estate development and avenues for finding current community spaces for rent or purchase.

More About Creating Structure

The Right People

Simply finding your people is one of the most powerful driving forces that attract people to exploring community.

While there’s plenty to be said for a little luck and synchronicity, at Community that Works we believe in using a grounded and proactive approach to exploring what types of people you want and where to find them. For example, we use the Blueprint of Me with many of our clients to help them get really clear on who they are and what they want, which can be very helpful in communicating with potential partners.

With more than a decade of online marketing experience, we’re also experts at helping people get their message out there and finding the people that matter most at the right time and place.

More about Finding Your People

The Right Support

We provide ongoing support to community explorers in a few important ways. Our explorer clients become members of Community that Works itself, a network of seekers, organizers, developers, communities, and service providers that is an excellent source of resources and connections.

We also have an online course on community development that includes walkthroughs and explorations of topics ranging from developing the built environment to relational dynamics to collaborative agreements and documentation.

And we have a forum group on Facebook for connecting with others and sharing what works and what doesn’t in building community.

More About Getting Support

Click Here to See a Full List of Our Services

Do-it-yourself (with consult option)

Introduction to Community Living
Introduction to Community Development
Introduction to Nurturing a Cooperative Culture
Project planning tools
- Vision, Mission, Aim, Values
- Canvas strategizers
Marketing planner
Marketing packet templates
- Bluepring of We intro
- Sales flyer
- Culture
- Explore path
- Website

Project Consultation and/or Management

Real estate search
Due diligence
Site design
Permitting process
Land development
House design
Permitting process
Home construction
Financial / Investor package
Legal structures / documents
Website design
Social media
Email marketing
Local promotion
Sales process
Blueprint of We
Decision making
Community Building

Training

Exploring Community Living
- Preparation
- Essentials
- Aging / Wellness
Community Development Process
- Vision / People
- Place / Plan / Build
Nurturing Cooperative Culture
- Heart / Foundation
- Circles / Practices / Tools
Relational Tools