Cohousing-L Mailing List: Recruiting/Marketing to New members

[Joani Blank (jeblank]

To Mike from Commonweal,

There has been a lot of discussion of various ways to recruit new
households on this list (check the archives), and in the Cohousing Journal.
But it's always good for another go 'round. 

If you think it is hard  to recruit new folks when you have a site (and in
your case, I believe you also have a preliminary design and even a model!),
you can imagine how much harder it is when the group is just visioning
where they'd like to be and with whom.  

I'm not sure that I agree with your typing of kinds of Cohousing, but let
me assure you that groups of all kinds have had trouble finding members.
Think about it. Ya have to find very hardy souls who want to and can afford
to put in a great deal of time, money, and energy  to create a way of
housing/living that they hope (but are not sure) is going to work for them. 

Sure, there are a lot of folks who "love the concept," and many can even
imagine themselves living in cohousing, but can't see making their way from
here to there. You say you are in a conservative area,  and I agree, but
even here in the very progressive immediate SF Bay Area, which is also the
home of Katei and Chuck and the Cohousing Company, there are still only two
existing quite small communities (12 and 14 units respectively), and one
only one other that is anywhere near the construction stage.  

I've heard it said many times in the past years (I think Katie said it
first), that living in Cohousing is easy, but building Cohousing is hard.
Rest assured that some of he burning souls among us are committed to
helping make it easier for those who are in the earlier stages of core
group formation, site search, etc.  We oldtimers know that you newer folk
have a hard enough road ahead of you without also having to reinvent the
wheel. So please do us the honor of learning from our successes and
failures.   In particular, at the moment, I can refer you to the posting
entitled Why Groups Fail that Rob Sandelin contributed here a couple of
months back. I admit I've never gone hunting for something in the archives,
so if you are like me, you may want to contact Rob for a "copy" of it. 

Joani Blank