Open, Participatory Leadership

At Creating the Future, all our strategy meetings and board meetings are open for anyone to not only watch, but participate in fully. Because our decision-making is all done by consensus, our community members add to the discussion AND become part of the actual decision-making.

You'll find guidelines for participating in our meetings,
as well as the link to subscribe to be notified of upcoming meetings,
at this link.

You'll find recordings of all our past meetings at this link. If you are planning to join in any of our conversations, watching one of our past meetings will give you a sense of how we be together, and what to expect - so that you feel comfortable and prepared to join in the conversation!

Our open meetings are such an important part of our culture and our values that it is included in our Guiding Document / bylaws. 

The list of what this has made possible for our work is so long that it's been covered at The Chronicle of Philanthropy,  Stanford Social Innovation Review and at the Foundation Center's GlassPockets site. Here is just a sampling:

  • A broad variety of wisdom, experience, and observations add to the discussion and the decisions
  • People not only feel engaged in our work – it becomes their work!
  • We never have to worry about “representing” our community, because they are right there in the discussion.
  • This walks our talk of creating a world where people are more engaged in their own communities and the issues that are important to them.

Our meetings all happen online via video. We announce those meetings via social media and via our blog, inviting anyone who is interested in the topic to join the discussion (one more reason to follow us on Twitter or Facebook!). During the meeting, you can join us right there inside the meeting on the screen, or watch in real time and tweet to us. All those meetings are also archived online, for anyone to watch later.

To learn about what led to our opening our doors in this way, and the amazing benefits of doing so, CLICK HERE.

To read our bylaws re: those rare times when we keep the doors closed, CLICK HERE.

To watch our meetings (and be part of our next one!), CLICK HERE.