Hey everyone! Maddie from the NGO & Non-profit circle here.
Anyone here using sociocracy in non-profits? I feel like there’s a big underlying community here that cuts across so many different sectors – I’d love to see what magic can happen when we connect!
Open Floor International: https://openfloor.org/ - they have a page on their governance (they started up when “dynamic governance” was still a common alternate term and it is still in their language), here: https://openfloor.org/our-people/dynamic-governance/
They actually started as an LLC but then switched to 501c3 some years ago.
ICMTA (International Conscious Movement Teachers Association - five words, 16 syllables, thank goodness for acronyms!): https://icmta.com/ - also have a page about governance: International Conscious Movement Teachers Association - Our Structure & Key Personnel - which also refers to DG, they started up same time as Open Floor, quite a bit of overlap in people involved as they are all in that ‘tribe’. Their legal entity is in Belgium (turns out Belgium is one of the simplest countries in EU in which to start a nonprofit, and they had a founding member there).
There are some other nonprofits I’ve engaged with significantly in training and/or consulting in past. Some did not follow through with implementation; some are fully or partly dormant; some have had major transitions or ceased to exist. At least one claimed to be sociocratic and was (and remains) not.
I’ll soon find out more on Quail Springs Permaculture: https://www.quailsprings.org/
They are in the same watershed (Cuyama Valley, CA) as Blue Sky Center, and say they “became sociocratic” two years ago. As we know, that can mean almost anything in practice. I will be mentoring someone from Blue Sky in working with Quail Springs in person, so jointly we will be able to assess where they’re at.
Thanks so much for contributing this list – I’m especially loving reading those governance pages and getting a sense for how different orgs relate to sociocracy.
The organization which I volunteer with, and have done some sociocracy training for, is machonehealth.org
which is currently beginning to reconsider whether this governance structure is the best for this organization. At the same time, they are considering becoming an organizational member of SoFA. Transition time!