Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Cohousing Benefits Presentation -- any ideas?

[Sharon Villines (sharon]

> On Mar 26, 2015, at 8:28 AM, Ann Zabaldo <zabaldo [at] earthlink.net> wrote:
> 
> CohoUS through its Research and Writers group is well positioned to collect 
> data and PUBLISH information for all of us to use.

How can we get more information about this group? Who is on it? Do they have 
web conferences?

> What most people on this list may not know or understand is that CohoUS 
> exists on an almost totally anorexic voluntary budget — I don’t even know 
> what the figure is — plus whatever it makes through ads on the website and 
> its conferences. 

Does CohoUS have a grant writing group? Has it courted foundations support?

Alice is a very impressive person. It seems if a foundation took on the project 
and funded on a continuing basis, that would provide a foundation (!). 

> — Help develop ways to get CohoUS financially stable.

One of the problems with focusing fundraising on built communities is that the 
end product is to live one's life is to live happily ever after. AND to my 
shock when I moved into Takoma Village, most of the people had never read a 
book on cohousing. They signed on because they liked the concept. Ann said it 
was called cohousing and she said we can do this. None of them were on 
Cohousing-L. I think 2 may have signed on out of 50? 

It's hard to get a whole community to include in their budget something that 
they aren't interested in as a cause.

Just living in a community takes a lot of time, said she after volunteering on 
Monday to oversee the replacement of a 10-ton geothermal unit, repositioning of 
3 geothermal units, all new duct work and loop configuration. And finishing  a 
book revision, starting another book, maintaining 15 websites, etc., all in her 
spare time.

Individual memberships I think would be better than organizational memberships. 
Developing individual cohousing supporters into a community of advocates.

> Meanwhile, when you ask for data … you might have to generate it yourself. 

There must be grants for this kind of thing somewhere. There are people out 
there who fund stuff like this everyday. And I'm signing off before I volunteer 
for anything else.

Sharon
----
Sharon Villines
Takoma Village Cohousing, Washington DC
http://www.takomavillage.org