Situation

Life Itself has existed for ~5.5y and really active for 2.5y now with 3FTE, single digit pioneers and a broad community of 100s; our strategy is focused on pioneering a culture but over the last 2y has morphed to include another equal “pillar” around “transforming the narrative”; we now have two ~financially sustainable hubs (Berlin & Bergerac) running for 1-2y and are expanding both of them; on the narrative side after 2.5+y we have partnerships but minimal funding (only 15k so far 2y ago) and little in the way of completed projects to point to; overall we have found it more challenging than we imagined to create and transmit our vision and culture (e.g. re pioneers, “top-down approach”); finally we are beginning to understand and establish ourselves in the ecosystem which is (rapidly) expanding but others find it difficult to grasp what we do.¹

Complication

We are spread too thin doing too many things for an organization our size, specifically having two independent pillars (pioneering a culture and transforming a narrative) which means we don’t do either powerfully and we are confusing (to ourselves and others) which makes comms, engaging partners, funders etc more difficult; our transforming the narrative work is less distinctive, less developed, unfunded and is not (directly) part of our core strategy and our current “pioneering the culture” thesis with an all-out focus on finding “hard-core” pioneers and a more “top-down” approach is not yielding the results we want/need (i.e. very few pioneers, significant breakdowns/friction) whilst the opportunity seems to be rapidly growing; finally, and relatedly, we don’t do what we are doing effectively / efficiently (e.g. completing things, coordination etc).

Question

What should we focus on (and how) and how should we transition to that in order to be more effective with “more wood behind fewer arrows” and specifically a) clearer to ourselves and others (esp partners, funders, community members) what we do and why (and how we determine progress towards that) b) complete and publicize our projects (on time) c) making (measurable) and more rapid learning and progress along our ToC d) improve internal LI culture/improve LI as a workplace?

Issue tree

• Can / should we have two active pillars?
• How should we evolve our pioneering the culture work? 
• What evolution in roles and ways of working should take place?
• …

Hypothesis

The best way to focus is to

• concentrate (back) on pioneering a culture; this should evolve away from a focus on pioneers and “being teal” (ourselves) to centre around praxis hubs as “labs” for developing effective collective means for sustainable personal and cultural “transition” including program development, rigorous research and evaluation and creation of pathway/ecosystem beyond the core hub stay (e.g. jobs boards, “pods/families” etc)
• simultaneously (and connected to this focus) we can more open up the community and develop it more as a network model, actively nurturing it e.g. via events, calls and permit space for broader initiatives to develop
• Evolve our current research/institute work into a research-oriented collective/cooperative guild/institute either under life itself or as a new-ish initiative in partnership with other orgs with life itself as a stakeholder
• Do this over the next 6m and would involve e.g. Theo focusing more on Praxis Hubs type stuff and Liam leading the guild development with support (exact details of budgeting to be more confirmed).

What is Life Itself? [new description]

We research and create conscious collective spaces to pioneer/transition to a wiser, weller culture

We develop praxis hubs.

First level why: Being changes everything. We are here to pioneer a waking up, growing up, cleaning up culture. To make politics cool again in order to address collective challenges. These are key steps to a wiser, weller world for all beings.

Second level why: culture is collective, plus the new paradigm culture will get forged in the collective because a) that’s what we need (collective action problems) b) culture is collective c) that’s where we see and deal with our issues/shadows and where we transform.

• Pioneer an awakening culture
•  …

SCQH brainstorm

See gdoc.