A non-profit organization connecting varied interests around environmental issues and providing a safe harbor where different groups can identify common values and move forward together.
Activities
An integrated set of programs are focused on individual, organizational, and community-wide levels. Six-day Whole Thinking Retreats bring together diverse players in the land community – conservationists, housing advocates, town planners, farmers, environmental justice advocates, writers and elected officials – to find the common assets and courage necessary for fundamentally different approaches to the use of land and to the creation of healthy communities. Visions and Values Workshops help organizations and coalitions re-align their practices with their vision and values, expanding the scope and effectiveness of their work. The Center for Whole Communities also developed and uses Measures of Health (MOH), an assessment tool and change process that helps organizations and communities adopt new definitions of success that link economy, community and the land.
Relevant Project(s)
The MOH guide is not as a set of static rules or standards that must be adopted as they are, but more a launching pad for each organization and community to use as needed in order to take themselves forward into new and important territory. The intent of Measures of Health is to be accessible, flexible, and adaptable for different uses and users. As of Fall 2006, over 400 people representing over well over 150 different organizations have downloaded and begun to engage with earlier versions of Measures of Health. The Center is in the process of developing a map that will show the different organizations and places that are using Measures of Health.
Relevant Methodologies
Measures of Health is a values-based, community-focused tool and guide for describing, assessing, and nurturing healthy relationships among people, land and community. This practical tool strengthens a group’s ability to articulate the healthy relationships that it seeks to create. Organizations use the Measures of Health online and printed tools in a variety ways: evaluating specific projects, judging the effectiveness of coalitions, abd helping develop and assess strategic plans. Within a framework of guiding principles, Measures of Health expresses a clear vision of interconnected big picture values such as biodiversity, social equity, human rights, civic engagement and landscape-scale conservation.
Region
National; based in Mad River Valley, Vermont
More Information
http://www.wholecommunities.org/
Knoll Farm
700 Bragg Rd.
Fayston, VT 05673
802-496-5690 (phone)