___________________________________________________________________________________

THE WHY

More and more groups - communities, non-profits, small businesses or families - are seeking ways to move away from a top-down, hierarchical way of making decisions and become more inclusive and non-hierarchical. But the journey to creating a cooperative culture is fraught with challenges when conditioned in a competitive society. Chief among them is how do we navigate the added complexity of working collectively and make decisions in service to the group's best future?

Values-Based Decision Making is a tool designed to deal with this challenge. When used effectively, it can cut right to the heart of a group's essence, bringing its unique values to the surface and allowing its members to be more explicit about why they are here. 

But it goes further than any other visioning exercise because it grounds the group's values in their current context and guides them in making decisions holistically. Once the group understands and is clear about its values and begins to make decisions from them, it becomes an unstoppable force in manifesting its future. It also enjoys benefits such as:

• Quickly knowing where and how to allocate resources.
• Saving countless hours of group time and significant amounts of money as decision-making becomes more effective and efficient and unintended consequences are reduced.
• Overcoming the common experience in groups of having too many ideas and too little time.
• Becoming more explicit about what the collective holds to be true. From this point, individual members can see where their values and needs are the same and where they are different, allowing simple and less personal decisions about who is a good fit for the group.
• Attracting future members who are aligned with what you want your collective to be.
• Being able to turn conflicts into a valuable resource.

My work in this field has been guided by a mentor, Javan Bernakevitch, who has practiced Values-Based Decision-Making with thousands of clients over the past decade. I live in community myself and have successfully adapted this tool to support different group projects. I am looking for other groups or communities to work with to increase my exposure and practice as I build my professional offerings in the community facilitation space and fine-tune my processes.

Ultimately, this exercise aims to empower you to make decisions that lead to the future you want. And to do this in a way that builds capacity in your group to the point where you don't need me because the way that your group makes decisions has been effectively rewired.

___________________________________________________________________________________

THE FORMAT

The process will involve four online sessions, each lasting two hours. All members of the group must be present for those calls.

As this free offering is a condensed form of VBDM (normally we would run the process over at least seven calls), groups will need to put work in outside the calls. You should budget 30-60 minutes of reflective work before the first session, and 1-2 hours in between the calls.

Javan will join the calls if time zones permit to observe the facilitation and process, offering his experience and insights.

___________________________________________________________________________________

TIMING

Should we decide to work together, let's discuss a day and time that is mutually beneficial. However, please note that all four sessions must occur within three months of the start date. The sessions should be a minimum of one week apart and a maximum of three weeks apart.

___________________________________________________________________________________

WHO IS THIS OFFERING FOR

• You are a community, family or group in the forming stage, and you're looking for someone with experience to guide you through visioning and decision-making.
• You are a non-profit organisation or a business that is looking to improve its ability to create the future that you desire.
• You are a community, family or group ready to seek land or launch your project but need clarification on what you should be looking for.
• You are an established community living on a piece of land, but you need help to make decisions enjoyably and effectively.
• As a community, family or group, you are finding that you are making lots of costly mistakes, and you're ready to save time and money by improving your decision-making.
• As a community, family or group, you need to find out whether you are all there for the same reason or share the same vision and values.
• You are an individual or a family interested in community but need to decide whether living in community would be right for you.
• You are an individual or family actively seeking community, but feel overwhelmed by how to decide which community would suit you.
• You are a landowner who is considering creating a community on your piece of land.
• You have the full buy-in from the whole group to complete this exercise.

WHO IS THIS OFFERING NOT A GOOD FIT FOR?

• The scale of conflict within your group is such that you are in mediation or another legal process.
• You like the idea of this process, but realistically your group will not have the time and motivation to complete it.
• Your group cannot meet the basic requirements of the process.

___________________________________________________________________________________

MY BACKGROUND

In 2019, I (Tristan Holme) co-founded an intentional community in South Africa. I used Values-Based Decision-Making to guide the group through the visioning and purchasing of suitable land - all in just four months. Four years on, all of the group's original members remain, and they continue to attract new members each year. I put a large part of this success down to VBDM, how clearly a group's values can be articulated through that process and the fact that it is a decision-making tool - not just a flowery visioning exercise.

I am trained in and have experience in conflict transformation and community facilitation.

___________________________________________________________________________________

COST

FREE! 

But I need you and your group to commit to completing the process.

Therefore, a HOLD FEE is required from you to secure your participation. This fee will be paid in advance and returned to you once we have completed the process. If you fail to complete the process within three months, I will keep the fee.

___________________________________________________________________________________

THANK YOU

Thank you for taking the time to note your interest. 

I'll be in touch once I have read your responses to the questions. The next step will be to set up a call to ensure we are a good fit for each other.

I look forward to engaging with you. 

Tristan Holme