Community Governance Discussion Paper

Version 7 – 19th September 2023
Dave Till, Gordon McAlpine, Jake Jay-Lewin, Marilyn Hamilton, Viv Wylde

Table of Contents

1 Summary

2 Introduction

3 Main ideas in detail 

3.1 First idea: Community Parliament

3.1.1 Who decides what? 

3.1.2 Neighbourhoods

3.2 Second idea: Integrating the Community Organisations

3.2.1 Distribution of Power, Flow of Information and Resources

3.3 Third idea: Operational Staff Team 

3.3.1 The Role of the Operational Staff Team

4 Relationships to Existing Organisations 

5 Further Work, Communication & Education 

1. Summary

1) The need – The community has no agreed decision making process, big changes and big decisions are coming up, tensions are arising about who is making decisions, how and why – this time is an opportunity to review our processes and structures and create more unity and coherence.

2) The process – The Governance Group consists of around 20 people, 5 of whom were chosen to form the Governance Working Group (GWG). The other members form the Feedback Group who act as a sounding board. We have also invited feedback from the NFA and ColCi. The GWG have developed this discussion paper to present a set of ideas which could form a unified system for community communication, engagement/consultation and decision-making, and a means to create general policies and strategies to further the well-being of the community. Our remit is here: Governance Working Group – NFA (findhorn.cc)

3) The main ideas – We are suggesting the formation of an integrative Community Parliament which comprises:

• community representation, e.g. Park residents and other local community members such as NFA members
• group representation, e.g. young people or families with children
• organisational representation for those organisations that provide major functions for the community
• an improved community-wide communication system
• genuine & effective consultation possibly through neighbourhood representatives, whole community gatherings and polls
• the use of consent to make decisions in the parliament

The Community Parliament would be a decision-making body for the whole community, empowered as the highest authority in the community.

Governance is the process of setting objectives and making decisions that guide people towards achieving those objectives. It includes the process of reviewing and evolving these decision-making systems. The role of the community parliament would be to make governance decisions: policies and strategies.

Operations is doing the work and organising day-to-day activities within the constraints defined through governance. Operational decisions would be made by the staff of the community organisations.

The Community Parliament would use the principle of alignment which means that those who use (or benefit from) the existence of a resource should also be the ones who have influence on how it is “operated”, are responsible for it (e.g. ensuring it is preserved and maintained) and provide the financing to keep it running and in existence.

We also need to define systems to ensure transparency, accountability and appropriate consequences when rules or agreements are breached.

The running of an effective governance system will require a staff team to administer and support it – to provide functions such as secretary to the Parliament, managing community engagement and communication, etc.

Whatever decision-making system the community decides upon, it is vital that this system is reviewed after a predefined period and if it turns out not to work well enough, then the whole community should always have the power to remove whatever mandate it has delegated out and replace it with another system, by enshrining a safeguard mechanism.

4) Integration with existing structures – as the aim of these suggestions is to help unite and strengthen the community through one unified, overarching governance system, we suggest that the most obvious home for it might be our existing community association – the NFA.

Merging the Collaboration Circle into the Community Parliament, and thus providing community members with a stronger sense of engagement with the main community organisations, would integrate and simplify existing structures.

We also wonder if there may be other opportunities to simplify and strengthen our community at this time. For example, the community could consider whether it is feasible and desirable for the NFA to merge with the BenCom and the THA. And potentially, with any other organisations that wish to do so.

Please continue reading to go deeper into the ideas summarised here.

2. Introduction

The events of the last 3-4 years have made it clear that our community needs some new or revised governance systems. This is especially precipitated by the following:

• Both Duneland and the Findhorn Foundation wish to hand over commons (infrastructure, land and buildings) into community ownership. The community will thus need some kind of governance system to manage these resources.
• In addition, the Strategic Framework and Calls for Ideas processes have highlighted that we do not have any agreed mechanism for “the community” to make decisions about major issues (e.g. the further development of The Park).
• There are many signs of tensions around governance and communication within the community: community members expressing that they do not have enough influence in the decisions being made by community organisations, along with organisations expressing that they are being overrun with criticisms and blame in inappropriate ways that neither serve them nor the work they are trying to do for the benefit of the community.

This paper is the work of the Governance Working Group, whose process has been supported by the NFA to explore the issue of governance and come up with some ideas on how to resolve these issues that can be discussed by the community and lead to a resolution. The Working Group was elected by a larger, open group, called the Governance Feedback Group, who are continuing to support the working group by acting as a sounding board.

Over the years, the Findhorn Foundation developed various governance structures and processes which worked pretty well in order to:

1. Create and maintain a sense of unified purpose and spiritual alignment
2. Use clear decision–making processes that engaged co-workers and created a sense of transparency and accountability (e.g. the Foundation Council)
3. Deal with group dynamics and conflict resolution.

However, none of these have been fully developed or formalised within the community as a whole.

This time of major changes, when structures are falling away or being revamped, is a unique opportunity to address all of the above; to consider what is the natural order of our community; and to rethink and adjust our systems and structures so they reflect that natural order; and thus create stronger unity and cohesion, so our community is more vibrant to live in and models a more holistic way for humans to live on this earth.

Scope: This discussion paper outlines a set of ideas which could form a unified system for community communication, engagement/consultation and decision-making. It offers all the community organisations a highly effective and efficient way of communicating and consulting, while respecting their rights to make their own decisions. In addition, it offers whichever organisation eventually takes over the commons a way to make significant policy and governance decisions. And finally, once the community has agreed on a common vision and set of aims, then it provides a means to create general policies and strategies to further these aims and the well-being of the community.

We have included some specific details to give a clearer picture of what this might look like, but have consciously left many other details unspecified, as they are not relevant until the whole community has decided if the main ideas are worth pursuing.

We are suggesting an integrative approach: integrating what we have with some new ideas, and pulling some of our structures and processes together to provide one unified, flexible governance system that will become more effective and more coherent the more it is used.

3. Main ideas in detail

The most relevant research we have come across with regard to how communities have found successful ways to govern commons are the Prosocial design-principles from the book “Governing the Commons” by Nobel laureate Elinor Ostrom:

1. Shared identity and purpose
2. Fair distribution of contributions and benefits
3. Fair and inclusive decision-making
4. Monitoring of agreed behaviours
5. Graduated responding to helpful and unhelpful behaviour
6. Fast and fair conflict resolution
7. Authority to self-govern
8. Appropriate relations with other groups

With regard to the 3rd point, one approach could be to put major decisions in the hands of the whole collective: to decide major community decisions at meetings or votes of all community members, e.g. using majority vote or consensus. Based on past experience in the FF, in the community and elsewhere, we are not convinced this would result in good or timely decisions. There are 2 problems with such an approach: Firstly, if we use majority voting, then this can result in a “tyranny of the majority”: if 60% are for a proposal and 40% are against, then the 40% feel unacknowledged and disempowered. If we use consensus, then this can result in “the tyranny of the minority”, in which the views of a small number of people can block the wishes of the majority. Addressing this through the use of a “loyal minority” often does not work, e.g. due to conscious or unconscious non-cooperation.

Secondly, many of the matters to be decided are complex and thus require a considerable effort to study and understand. It is not realistic to expect that the majority of community members will have the time or inclination to get informed about all decisions. And so, voting would be based on incomplete understanding, which results in poor decisions. This is exactly the problem we see in majority-vote referendums and elections in the world at large.

3.1 First idea: Community Parliament

Therefore, we believe that good and timely decisions can be better made through the whole community delegating decision-making power to a group of elected representatives – a Community Parliament, who have the ability and willingness to make sure they are well informed about issues that arise, to listen to the voices of their constituents and to the other members of the group, and to make decisions based on understanding, good reasoning and attunement.

We propose 5 mechanisms to ensure that the needs and views of all community members are fully heard and understood by the Community Parliament:

1. Genuine & effective consultation through whole community gatherings and polls whenever a major decision needs to be made: both near the start of the issue, to gather information on the community members needs and ideas, and later on once the community parliament has generated a proposal, to test if the proposal has sufficient support. (E.g. when the Collaboration Circle (ColCi) explored the idea of a new name for the settlement at The Park, it consulted with the community through a live meeting, generated a proposal based on the feedback, and then used a poll to check there was significant support for the proposed solution (“The Park Ecovillage, Findhorn”). The poll showed 92% support.)
2. Each member of the Community Parliament is elected to represent a specific neighbourhood or ward in which they themselves must live. Each neighbourhood elects a single representative – plus one deputy to fill in for the representative when they are unavailable. Each neighbourhood is free to set up whatever mechanisms they require to ensure a 2-way flow of timely and good quality information between the residents and their elected representative. This could, for example, include regular neighbourhood meetings, open “surgeries” or electronic communication. This directly addresses the current problems of a lack of early information on potential new initiatives flowing from organisations to ordinary community members and effective mechanisms for community members to provide decision makers with good quality information on their needs and views.
3. The use of consent to make decisions in the community parliament, which can also be combined with attunement. The sociocratic method of consent decision-making avoids the tyranny of the majority or minority, as the mechanism of reasoned objections ensures that proposals integrate all voices that are relevant to the aims of the community.
4. A community communication system, including an appropriate online system for exclusive use by registered community members that addresses the communication issues that have been identified, and which allows the community parliament and the community organisations to ask for feedback on specific questions.
5. The community parliament could also include representatives for specific groups that we want to be represented in order to influence our evolution in the direction we desire as a community: e.g. “young people” or “families and children” or “the voice of nature” 

 The double-arrowed lines represent “flow of information in both directions”

The Community Parliament (CP) would be a decision-making body for the whole community, empowered to make any decision for the community as the highest authority in the community. We suggest it could perhaps meet once a month. Its responses to community-wide issues could include:

• Engaging the community in gatherings, polls, etc. that gather input on the issue and on whatever proposed solutions subsequently emerge
• Delegating the matter to an existing community group or organisation
• Setting up a subgroup to explore the issue and recommend a solution for the CP or other relevant organisations to consider
• Creating a community policy regarding the matter in question that applies to all individuals and groups formed by individuals
• Making a decision to be implemented by specified community organisations or groups
• Making a decision to be carried out by the staff of an Operational Staff Team (see below).

If this idea is adopted, then it is important that the whole of the community is involved, and not just Park residents. The Park Ecovillage is not just a residential estate. It is also the hub of a community and plays host to a multitude of spiritual and other special interest groups, all of whom draw from both the ethos and the facilities of The Park, and whose members are often mainly resident outside The Park, and who interweave with the Park residents in all these activities. Similarly, many of the people working in the Park-based organisations and businesses are not residents of The Park. Just like residents, non-residents would continue to enjoy the benefits of the community activities and facilities, and would also contribute with their energy and with the financing of the community’s assets.

So we are initially suggesting 6 neighbourhoods: 4 neighbourhoods for Park residents, one neighbourhood for Forres and one neighbourhood for the combined villages of Findhorn and Kinloss.

3.1.1 Who decides what?

This approach of inclusiveness brings up a major question: who decides what?

First we need to distinguish between governance and operations:

• Governance is the process of setting objectives and making decisions that guide people towards achieving those objectives. And it includes the process of reviewing and evolving these decision-making systems.
• Operations, on the other hand, is doing the work and organising day-to-day activities within the constraints defined through governance.

The role of the community parliament would be to make governance decisions: policies and strategies. Operational decisions would be made by the staff of the community organisations.

Secondly, in the work of the Commons Subgroup of the Collaboration Circle, they created a principle to guide them in answering this question:

Principle of Alignment: Those who

• use, or benefit from, the existence of a facility, a place, a group, or an organisation

should also be the ones who

• have influence on how it is “operated”
• are responsible for it (e.g. ensuring it is preserved and maintained)
• provide the financing to keep it running and in existence.

This principle could be used to ensure that, for example, in matters that are only relevant for Park residents, only Park residents have the right of consent. <<This matter may need to be fleshed out with some more detail.>>

We wish to make it clear that whatever decision-making system the community decides upon, it is vital that this system is reviewed after a predefined period – e.g. one year. If it turns out not to work well enough, then the whole community should always have the power to remove whatever mandate it has delegated out and replace it with another system. So any new governance system should include a to-be-defined safeguard mechanism that enshrines this community right to self-determination.

3.1.2 Neighbourhoods

How each neighbourhood organises itself would be up to its residents. The one requirement we are suggesting is that each neighbourhood elects one representative (plus a deputy) to serve on the Community Parliament using the sociocratic selection process. This process facilitates the wisdom of the whole group to inform the election based on how well the representative would match the criteria given in the role description, hereunder their ability to represent the residents of the neighbourhood. It does not rely on people volunteering for the role, which can result in the people with the most time available or the most eagerness to influence decision-making being elected ahead of those who are actually most suited.

Part of the inspiration for this proposal has been the movement of “neighbourhood parliaments”, which was started by Edwin M John in southern India, where it has now become wide-spread, involving hundreds of thousands of neighbourhood parliaments. See this excellent short video. This idea has also spread to Europe resulting in the SoNeC handbook that has been produced under the EU’s Erasmus programme, and which incorporates the Prosocial design-principles mentioned earlier.

The basic idea is to break things down into a human scale. Much research has shown there is a limit to how many people we each can maintain a stable relationship with. The “Dunbar number” puts this at an approximate maximum of 150. In neighbourhood parliaments a community forms sociocratic circles of 20-40 households (so under 150 people in total). 

This kind of neighbourhood mechanism has already arisen naturally at The Park: various neighbourhoods at The Park already have social structures: e.g. East Whins, Soillse, Barrel cluster. Most recently the Emergency Resilience groups set up by Maggie La Tourelle and the Cool Blocks groups set up by Marilyn Hamilton have been organised around 4 areas at The Park.

We propose that each neighbourhood organises itself in whatever way is most appropriate for its residents. We recommend that each neighbourhood holds some regular gatherings – both to socialise and to discuss any issues that are up for the residents: either in their own neighbourhood or in the community at large. Meeting in this way would have the advantage that it strengthens the relationships and social network within each neighbourhood.

We also recommend the use of appropriate elements of the Sociocracy framework: such as consent decision making, keeping a record of decisions and using the selection process for appointing people to specific roles. But each district would be free to use whatever methods or tools they see fit. 

3.2 Second idea: Integrating the Community Organisations 

Our community is already rich in organisations and self-organising groups, each of which is responsible for one or more functions within the community, and who generally make their own decisions. This delegation or distribution of responsibility can be highly effective, as it facilitates people to engage with the things that they are passionate about, and for which they have the appropriate skills. The NFA encompasses many of these groups through the 8 petal model: Cradle-to-grave, Nature/rewilding/ecology, Education, Communication, Arts/Rituals/Celebrations, Peace-keeping and Economy.

We are therefore proposing an integrative approach to governance, where we find a way to embrace these organisations and groups as they are. If we use the metaphor of the human body, then the community organisations are the various organs that each perform a vital function, and the governance system is the nervous system that allows information to flow between the organs so they are all dynamically responding to the needs of the whole body.

Our second proposal is that the Community Parliament includes a single representative for each of the groups or organisations that provide major functions within the community.

Double-arrowed lines represent “flow of information in both directions”

Exactly which organisations or groups would be represented in the Community Parliament needs a broader discussion. It is important to keep the parliament at a size that can work effectively.

We also propose that mechanisms be built into the Community Parliament so that organisations, groups or individuals who have a special interest or expertise in a particular matter are invited to agenda items relating to that matter. E.g. if an agenda item could have a significant impact on mobile home owners in particular, then they should be represented during that agenda item. Therefore transparency of the agenda for CP meetings is vital.

3.2.1 Distribution of Power, Flow of Information and Resources

The key advantage of our suggestion is the increased flow of information in both directions through:

• The underlying principle that anyone affected by a decision has to have the ability to raise an objection, articulate their reasoning and suggest an alternative solution;
• Community engagement at the neighbourhood level, where information and points of view can be shared in a smaller-scale context that attracts higher levels of participation, and then passed on through the district representatives to the Community Parliament;
• Increased community engagement at the whole community level through more frequent polling and a dedicated community communication system;
• The inclusion of the key community organisations in the Community Parliament ensures that decisions are well informed and realistic, connecting the community organisations with the community members in a well-balanced way.

3.3 Third idea: Operational Staff Team

The running of an effective governance system will require employed staff who

• support the running of the Neighbourhood circles and the Community Parliament,
• can also start new initiatives and apply for funding for new and existing projects. 

The Operational Staff Team would have a focaliser (or co-focalisers), appointed by the Community Parliament, who would automatically be members of the CP.

Double-arrowed lines represent “flow of information in both directions”

3.3.1 The Role of the Operational Staff Team

This could include:

• Secretary for the Community Parliament: calling and organising meetings, creating agendas, writing minutes, following up on points delegated to them;
• Supporting the neighbourhoods: helping them to get started, providing facilitation when required, supporting them with problems that arise;
• Community communication and engagement: this is the most important part of the role: the engagement processes need to be fun and they need to be aligned with our spiritual values, so people want to engage because it feels nourishing to do so; it includes preparing and disseminating information about what is happening in the community to all community members via various media and arranging and running ways for the community to engage in all relevant issues (e.g. physical gatherings using attunement, creative processes, questionnaires, polls, etc.); 
• Fundraising: preparing and following up on grant applications for new projects and existing operations and development;
• Start-up support for new projects: e.g. hiring staff, inducting staff, liaising with appropriate parties during start up;
• Deal appropriately with urgent community issues that arise which cannot be dealt with by any of the other organisations or groups until responsibility is delegated to a new or existing entity.

4. Relationships to Existing Organisations

We believe that any new governance structure would need to sit within one of our existing organisations, rather than being a free-floating system. As the aim of these ideas is to help unite and strengthen the community through one unified, overarching governance system, we suggest that the most obvious home for it would be our existing community association – the NFA.

The administration of the Community Parliament could potentially be considered as a new role for the NFA, with the NFA Council evolving into a Community Parliament, and the Listener-Convener roles evolving into an Operational Staff Team staffed by at least 3 people.

The Community Parliament could continue to hold the functions currently held by the NFA Council under the 8 petal model, including overseeing all the various groups that hold functions within the community, like the General Office, the Visitor Centre, the Rainbow Bridge, the Boutique, Children and Youth, etc.

If the NFA members decided to expand the role of the NFA to take on the role of providing a unified governance system for the whole community, then it would give the NFA a greater gravitas and therefore attract more members, which in turn would generate extra income to support a higher level of staffing. Of course, any change of this magnitude would need to be a staged process that was well planned and well resourced. 

Back in 2017 the Community Change Group recommended the setting up of an experiment, the so-called Enquiry Circle, to coordinate the various activities of the community organisations. After a couple of years, this was deemed a success by the participating organisations. It therefore adjusted and formalised its own remit and renamed itself as the Collaboration Circle. This experiment has never been reviewed or formally ratified by the community. It does not have any direct decision-making power, but it does coordinate activities and make recommendations to its member organisations, who do have decision-making power.

The Collaboration Circle can be thought of as an entity that filled the vacuum which arose because NFA’s Forum of Organisations never managed to function successfully. The next step in this evolution could be merging the individual organisations of the Collaboration Circle into the Community Parliament, and thus providing community members with a stronger sense of engagement with and influence on the main community organisations. This would also integrate and simplify existing structures, which we perceive as something many people are asking for.

The NFA could run this governance system on its own. But we also believe there are other opportunities to integrate, simplify and strengthen.

The NFA was set up as a kind of membrane to encompass the whole of the spiritual community centred around The Findhorn Foundation, and to exist in tandem with the FF, which owned and managed most of the community’s assets. At the time when the community bought the caravan park, the Foundation and the community were one and the same thing. But that has not been the case for several decades. The Foundation has now realised that it had become entangled in a double role:

1. Being a spiritual education centre based in a community setting
2. Being the steward of the commons that the surrounding community relied upon.

It has therefore now decided to release this second role and hand over stewardship of some of the commons and some of the land to the community, both because it allows the Foundation to focus on its educational activities (under the new SCIO), and because it makes more sense for the community to own its own common assets – to reflect the natural order of things.

Thus, we are entering a new phase in the community’s evolution, where The Park Ecovillage feels more like the central hub of the community.

If the Ecovillage Findhorn BenCom takes over ownership of most of the commons (infrastructure, land and buildings) at The Park, then it will also have a very significant role in the community, providing a kind of backbone of community resources just like the Foundation has done. The question then arises as to whether the BenCom could merge with the NFA, so that it was directly governed by a unified governance system. One advantage of this is that it would ensure we do not recreate the split that was sometimes perceived to exist between the FF and the rest of the community.

Instead we would have one main community organisation that had a strong gravitas, as it would actually own and manage many community resources. And this might attract all who take part in the community in some way or another into one unified membership. If the THA was also included into the BenCom in some way, then this would further simplify and unite the community.

Another advantage of merging some organisations is that it is more efficient and effective not to duplicate the same roles in multiple organisations: e.g. book-keeping, financial management, fund-raising, staff administration, community engagement, etc.

It could also be considered whether the Findhorn Hinterland Trust or PET might be interested in being part of such a merger if it were seen to be of mutual benefit.

5. Further Work, Communication & Education

We have not addressed the question of all the different, special purpose and working groups that exist or will be created within the community. In particular, there is the question of how to ensure that the most appropriate people participate in working groups, so we ensure optimal sharing of knowledge and coherence.

Then there is the question of how to pay for the running of these new structures.

And there is the question of whether elected representatives who sit in the community parliament should be paid for this work. This would make the role more accessible to all. Otherwise it might be unrealistic for parents, younger people and those on low income.

We also need to define systems to ensure transparency, accountability and appropriate consequences when rules or agreements are breached.

Another aspect we are aware of is that the success of the proposed system would require a better knowledge of some aspects of Sociocracy within the community. It would be vital that a variety of good quality training courses were made easily available to community members and organisations on a regular basis. This could include the building up of a pool of good facilitators.

Regarding improved communication systems, our first step has been to send out a questionnaire to all the community organisations, which includes questions on what communication issues they experience and how these might be addressed. We have also restructured the Groups, Projects and Organisations parts of the NFA website (www.findhorn.cc) and populated it with some initial information. And we have started experimenting with an online community communication tool called Loomio.

Finally, here are some other aspects that could be included in our governance system: Shared Values and Vision, Ecological Ethics, Nature-based Decision Making, Lifelong Place-based Learning, Leadership Development, Transparent Communication, Roles and Responsibilities, Conflict Resolution, Equitable Resource Distribution, Legal and Regulatory Compliance, Flexibility together with Regular Reflection, Evaluation and Adaptation.