Collaborate
Coordinators are Visionary Society participants who help stakeholders (customers, staff, and owners) work collaboratively to bring meaning to the business. Read more
Here are some of the things Coordinators do:
— Introduce employees, owners and other participants in the business to Visionary Society and their Implications.
— Create anonymous accounts for employees who require this to participate fully.
— Create a physical, tangible place for visitors to explore the meaning of the business. ('1% for Meaning')
— Answer questions and keep track of the Implications for the business.
This process is meant to be collaborative and helpful (rather than adversarial or divisive). Together we can shake off our trance and build Visionary Society in this Hotel!
Visit the Implications Request page of the place to become a Coordinator and Collaborate.
Vision and Code of Conduct
The vision for businesses and this business type is meant to be a dynamic process that we arrive at collaboratively.
View this 'process of understanding and action.
Vision summary:
We envision an economy that works for all, and that recognizes the human being and the planet. It promotes the full growth of people, not profit, growth, consumption, or power. It favors diversity, creativity, sustainability, usefulness, meaning, not centralization, exploitation, and sterility.
Businesses should have a social purpose. Corporations should serve the interests of all stakeholders, including those who are effected indirectly, communities, and nature itself. They should be responsible for damages they causes, including long-term damage. Material gain should be secondary to virtue.
The economy should increase the range of meaningful choice, not just the choice of products to consume. Work should be collaborative and in the interests of a common cause. The price of an item should reflect its real wealth, including the existence of inner value.
Implications Display
A first step in participating in Visionary Society is joining the site. An additional step is to install an Implications exhibit. The exhibit should be displayed in a prominent place, and easily accessible. Information about Visionary Society should also be available on the organization's website. The exhibit can include a large touch screen, where visitors can add ratings, information, and concerns. It will have more resources than a website can provide: written, visual, and interactive features that invite customers to experience the entire Implications process.
The exhibit will also be a place to learn about the process of Collaborating (a group of stakeholders working actively to improve the place) and of becoming a Coordinator.
Visionary Society can provide the necessary devices, but will have to be reimbursed for costs.
Meaning Money
A business is a microcosm of the world (just like a person). Businesses have a widespread effect that we are seldom aware of. We are capable of more than we imagine. We can take account of the direct and indirect effects of our actions and participation in the world. Meaning Money is a way of playing a part on the larger stage.
Participants agree to give a portion of sales back to Visionary Society. A recommended amount is 5%, but the amount is flexible and is chosen freely by the business. We will use these funds, initially, for two main purposes: creating an alternative tabloid size newspaper, and an alternative educational center. Each newspaper edition will cost about $3,000 and reach about 10,000 people, and be based in the state in which the businesses participate. It will publicize successful and unsuccessful efforts to get businesses to be thoughtful. The educational center is considerably more expensive. Visionary Society requires an income to grow, and this could be an appropriate way to achieve that.
Businesses can also give a portion of sales back to the customer in the form of credit, which can be used at other Visionary Society businesses. This would benefit customers as well as businesses and create an expanding network of participants. The service is available only to active Visionary Society participants that have been active for at least 24 hours.
Meaning Money is a kind of alternative currency, and there are a number of ways to organize it, of varying complexity. A simple initial approach could be that participants receive a Meaning Money card, which is used to track contributions. Businesses send in the total amount on a monthly basis. A more advanced version involves a unique Visionary Society debit card that automatically sends the contributions to the designated location.
Collaborate
Collaborate is a way for owners, staff, and customers to get together the explore the meaning of a place and take action to improve it. It's like a trade union — only for all stakeholders, and taking into account the full range of interests of all.
“Get together with four to six fellow workers at your workplace, or with people in the same profession or line of work, and spend an afternoon or evening on the following topic: What could this workplace, profession, or type of work look like if we had a new bottom line? Imagine if our bosses, supervisors, and colleagues all agreed that we were going to be judged efficient or productive to the extent that our office practices, the products we produced, the services we offered, and the way we promoted our services and products created or helped promote love and caring, awe and wonder, ethical and spiritual sensitivity, and ecological responsibility.
“The hardest part of this discussion is getting rid of what I call ‘the reality police’ – all those voices in our own heads that tell us that ‘they’ won’t let us make these changes and that therefore we are wasting our time even thinking about all this. As long as people allow the reality police to hold them back, the discussions will remain stunted and uninspired.
“When people allow themselves to truly engage in this discussion, they end up with amazingly creative and inspiring ideas.”
Michael Lerner, Spirit Matters, 201
Meetings
Visionary Society meetings
Our initial Visionary Society meetings are meant to present the range of our method and projects. Because there is a lot to cover, we will have compressed versions of each part (for instance,
Exploration could take place over a number of meetings rather than a single 30 minute sesssion). We also want to set aside time for attendees to express their interests and insights.
Eventually (probably 6 months to two years from now) we will move into our own Visionary Society center in Portland OR. For the time being, we meet at the small People in Need Partnership / Geoff apartment located in a first floor apartment in Northwest Portland.
Goals
What you can do
What you can do to create Visionary Society
? Attend our initial Visionary Society meetings.
? Participate in our collaborative, provocative action, either with a group of participants or individually.
? Become a Coordinator of a particular business or organization, or a type of business. This holistic alternative to unions is a way to engage the places you use in a process of understanding and action.
? Help develop a future topic, including exploration, action, and invitation.
? Help develop Implications for a type of business (such as restaurants, hotels, hospitals, etc), including areas to explore, a vision and a code of conduct.
? Join
People in Need Partnership, and become a partner with a person in extreme poverty in Haiti
? Develop (or attend) our spiritual community alternative, based on
principles
Exploration - goals
Exploration: Goals
We want to make the world safe for thoughtfulness, in as many ways and places as possible....
– Create and demonstrate a model for getting to the heart of any topic in a single meeting, using: short insightful written materials, connecting the actual situation with roots and fruit, active guided meditation, and group responsibility for enforcing the system.
– Learning forums on social and universal themes to be places in public spaces, such as the Saturday Market.
– City-wide classes on political current political controversies, to compare opposing political views and find a deeper resolution.
– Focused reflection spaces at large local gatherings such as Wordstock.
Create your own Exploration
Create your own entry
As we go along we would like to make Visionary Society more inclusive. Any person should be able to create their own Topic. The starting place is
Exploration. We want you to be able to gradually add your own fundamental problems, insights, vision, principles, and invitation.
Let us know if you'd like us to implement this feature.
Principles
Responsibility
We are responsible for suffering, even if we didn
Repent
Recognition of wrong-doing. How one develops a conscience, and the ability to act on it.
"Thus a gambler or a drunkard who does not resist temptation and yields to his passion is still free to recognize gambling and drunkenness as wrong or to regard them as a harmless pastime. In the first case even if he does not at once get over his passion, he gets the more free from it the more sincerely he recognizes the truth about it; in the second case he will be strengthened in his vice and will deprive himself of every possibility of shaking it off...." Leo Tolstoy, The Kingdom of God is Within You, page 352, before and after.
Prison partnership - Questions
How will Prisoner Partnership differ from other prisoner visitation organizations?
-- A single partnership with sharing and learning about what matters to each.
-- Commitments from both prisoner and partner.
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Prison partnership - Features
Partnership features
Prison partners - Steps and Stages
Recognition of wrong
How one develops a conscience, and the ability to act on it. The Kingdom of God is Within You, page 352, before and after. "Thus a gambler or a drunkard who does not resist temptation and yields to his passion is still free to recognize gambling and drunkenness as wrong or to regard them as a harmless pastime. In the first case even if he does not at once get over his passion, he gets the more free from it the more sincerely he recognizes the truth about it; in the second case he will be strengthened in his vice and will deprive himself of every possibility of shaking it off...."
See reading selection
Commitment of various kinds
Minimum interactions with partner
Refusal to do harm
Pathway toward improvement
Study of important insights (in written, oral, or visual form)
Resources for improvement (there are so many existing organizations)
See Alternatives
Partnership program
Prison partnership - Introduction
Is there anything we as individuals can do about deep-rooted violence? We can respond with a bold, creative act: forging a true partnership with one of the two million people locked up in our prisons. Our goal is to cultivate an exquisite sensitivity to meaning: to the causes that produced violence, to actions that can heal it, and to a state of mind capable of this.
Prisoner Visitation and Support
Violence is a subtext of everyday life, but is usually tucked away out of sight, and locked up in our vast prison system. But the personal aftermath continues and continues to effect us.
We must change the dynamics of the industrial prison system. Brute force is not likely to lead to lasting change. The dehumanization of prisoners is one of the main reasons that the cycle of violence continues, and it is also one of the great hidden misdemeanors of our culture.
For someone who has committed a crime, who is condemned by society, who is locked up under austere and degrading circumstances, and who faces return to society one day without any real care from anyone, the prospects for self-improvement are minimal. But to have a friend, a special partner who takes the time to understand the dimensions of your past and present situation, and who is walking with you on a path towards self-exploration, making amends, and achieving a dream: this could change the dynamics of misery.
Problems that Prison Partners addresses:
Isolation, ignorance, and lack of commitment.
Lack of awareness of and access to healthy, creative opportunities for helping others.
Dependence on government to address problem that arise from the wounding of the human heart.
A habit of using external means and brute force to deal with persistent problems.
What Prison Partners offers:
Collaborative effort to take account of and respond to conditions in the prison in which the prisoner lives.
Mutual effort to explore the meaning of the life of the prisoner.
Finding a friend.
Learning about the meaning of relationships not based on personal need.
Learning about the social institutions that affect us.
Assistance with making amends to those who were harmed.
Help with organizations that provide services to prisoners.
Resources for long-term self-improvement.
Participation in a network of people taking direct action in responding to systemic societal problems.
Commitment to repent for the harm that you caused, to improve the world and yourself, and to do so in the context of a living partnership.
Explore the meaning of your position as a prisoner, including what brought you to where you are, and the full range of ramifications of where you are and what you are doing.
Action to take responsibility for your actions, to create your future based on your highest and deepest nature, and to create a better world.
Prison Partners forge a relationship and agree to embark on a mutual path toward understanding and action. It is not meant to be easy, and it won
Prison Synergy
Please submit links for related prison organizations that we can learn from or work with!
Prisoner Visitation and Support (PVS) is a volunteer visitation program to Federal and Military prisoners throughout the United States.
Our primary focus is on those prisoners who:
* do not ordinarily receive visits from family and friends,
* want or need supportive human contact,
* are in solitary confinement or on death row, or
* are serving long sentences.
We offer friendship and a listening ear to help prisoners prepare to assume a useful place in society.
Partnership programs
Extreme poverty is not the only dire need that can be addressed through healing relationships. Feast and Famine and People in Need Partnership are based on the insight that any human crisis is a result of broken relationships and can be addressed through partnerships. Here are some additional possibilities:
Homelessness
The problem of homelessness is dual, involving both the homeless person and the person with a home who is forced to live well while others suffer. There are many ways a one-to-one partnership could function. For example, the partners could meet over lunch once a month, to learn about each other, and simply form their relationship and demonstrate care - actions that are naturally helpful. Resources for long-term understanding and development should be available. Other kinds of help could be optional.
Prisoners and freed prisoners
Many prisoners are thrown back into society without a friend in the world, as well as with few resources for self-improvement.
Sex slavery
People in Need Partnership is founded on the belief that for every person in need, another person is waiting to help. This applies to all human crises, including sex slavery. Can we create a partnership program for this issue in Southeast Asia?
War
A long-term (and inspiring) goal is to create a partnership program for global conflict, such as the war in Afghanistan. The conventional perspective - including those of the right and the left - do not speak any longer of hope for real understanding, care and reconciliation. A partnership program of this kind would require thousands of participants, at least, to change the assumptions which we operate with.
Visionary Society Topics
Visionary Society Topics
Visionary Society connects our inner life with everyday life in society. It is an organic, non-arbitrary process of understanding and action that brings together the ideal and the real. Our small, everyday acts have global ramifications. We can change the world through delving within.
Explore
Explore the meaning of any social institution or situation, using the 'Process of understanding and action.' These non-traditional meetings have no teachers, but include tools to get to the heart of the subject.
Ask for depth
Collaborative, provocative, profound, and direct action to bring attention to the underlying meaning of what we are responsible for. This is a positive, engaging, and transformative approach that awakens awareness of hidden implications, personal responsibility, and living into being the world that we are envisioning.
Implications
Take into account the meaning of the businesses we use, the organizations we participate in, and our own job.
Invitation
Each month we present an invitation to become the person capable of Visionary Society. These explicit commitments can achieve a critical mass that galvanizes change.
Feast and Famine - intro - How website works
How the Feast and Famine website works
See the
intro page for an explanation of how your food contribution is used, the community of supporters of the food package, and the food delivery.
The Feast and Famine website also has several tools for food service businesses and individuals to learn about, keep track of, and make commitments about their responsibility for wasted food.
Each restaurant has a page where they can review their current situation, publicize actions they are taking, and blog about recent events. Visitors can add topics or comments directly to the page of any business. Individual Feast and Famine members have a blog where they can share their current view and actions. Discussion forums round out the list of social networking features on Feast and Famine.
Feast and Famine - Intro - Q&A
Questions and Answers
How will I know that the money I donated was really used for the person shown on my Supporters page?
Within a few days after the sum of $25 is raised, the food package will be delivered and you will receive notification of the delivery, along with a link to a page showing photos of the delivery that include a printout of the names of the community of supporters. You will be able to see your own name printed on that page.
Where will the food package be delivered?
People in Need Partnership is based in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, and works in several slums there. About half of our partners live in Cite Soleil, a notorious slum of several hundred thousand people, with no government services and little food. All food packages are currently being delivered to people in Cite Soleil. We provide food only to those who have completed profiles on the People in Need Partnership site.
Isn't giving food just a temporary measure?
Yes, and that's why we focus on creating partnerships. Though we deliver food packages, we do so only to people who have already entered the People in Need Partnership family, through creating an in-depth personal Profile. Furthermore, after the delivery of the first food package, supporters have the opportunity to become a 'silent partner' for just $2.50 per month - establishing a relationship and setting their partner along the path to long-term development.
What are the organizations of which Feast and Famine is a part?
Feast and Famine operates through
People in Need Partnership, an innovative program that cultivates relationships between people in extreme poverty and others. It is based on the insight that severe global problems are the result of broken personal relationships, and that healing those broken bonds can have widespread effects.
Visionary Society is a way of connecting our everyday life with what is most important and most real.
How can I add a restaurant that is not yet participating?
Add the restaurant to our site by using this form. Include as many details as possible.
You may approach the restaurant yourself, and invite them to participate.
We are preparing introductory resources for you to use. Here is
a card you can print.
Intro - Responsibility
We all waste food, whether we want to or not. Maybe the restaurant served more than we can eat. Maybe the food spoiled in our home. Maybe the store we bought it from threw away its excess.
It happens all the time, but is it justified? In a world where hundreds of millions of people are hungry and malnourished, is it okay to waste food? Perhaps it is not okay, but until now there has been nothing we could do about it.
In the United States half of the population is obese or overweight. A fifth of the population takes anti-depressants. This is not happening by chance. It is a result of the quality of our lives and our relationships. Feast and Famine allows us to heal the fracture between feast and famine that in a subtle way degrades the quality of our happiness. It is a way to take account of our complicity in harm-doing, and our connection with people in extreme poverty.
Like carbon trading, a somewhat successful model that allows people to compensate for the harm that they do environmentally, Feast or Famine does not stop the problem at the origin. But it does address the primary problem: the absolute injustice of overconsumption in a world where others are starving.
We are interconnected, and we are responsible.
"Eichmann's answer is probably given five thousand times a day in America alone: I have no responsibility for the human consequences of my decisions. I am only responsible for the efficiency of my part of the bureaucracy." Neil Postman, Technopoly
"Most of us are content to delegate the problem to the courts, as if justice were a matter for professionals or specialists. But to do justice is what God demands of every man: it is the supreme commandment, and one that cannot be fulfilled vicariously." Abraham Heschel, Insecurity
Feast and Famine - Extreme Poverty
Extreme poverty is a condition where basic human needs, such as food, clean water, shelter, clothing, sanitation, and health care, are not met. A rule of thumb is that those who live on less than $1.25 a day are living in extreme poverty. According to the World Bank, there are about 1.4 billion people now living in these conditions.
Extreme poverty is the most severe state of poverty. The World Bank defines extreme poverty as living on less than $1.25 per day, and estimates that 1.4 billion people currently live in these circumstances.
Extreme poverty facts
* One third of deaths
Feast and Famine - intro
In a world where millions of people are starving, wasting food is simply unjust - but something that we all do. Until now there has been little we could do about our responsibility for those who are suffering because of our own over-abundance.
Welcome to Feast and Famine. Not only can you easily and affordably offer food to those who need it most, but you are also joining a community of participants who are taking small, direct, crucial steps to creating a world of justice.
All recipients are living in extreme poverty
When $25 is collected, a food package with enough food for 30 meals is delivered to a starving family
You will receive a link to a web page with photos of the delivery, with your own name on the package
Invitiation - introduction
Welcome to Visionary Society!
Join us in co-creating a world connected to what is deepest and most real
