The Ojai Foundation :: Council :: Council Governance

As Spiritual Practice

COUNCIL GOVERNANCE

As a practice, Council defines the ethos, or values, by which we aspire to live and relate. Council embodies guiding principles that we use to consciously shape and inform our business strategies and our community life.

Council is also used as an organizational form: Individual departments - finance, program design, operations, marketing, maintenance, etc. - are structured as separate councils that meet regularly as a team with a coordinator or point-person focused on a set of tasks or responsibilities that need to get done.

We're a hybrid of an extended intentional community and a non-profit educational business. Council is how we govern ourselves, from the Staff to the Board of Directors.

Rather than a single executive leader, we have a leadership council, with shared authority and responsibility. We make decisions using a dynamic version of consensus.

Group functioning is, again, largely a matter of using council to weigh options, assess experience, explore scenarios, and make choices to be creative and empower our individual members.

Reporting is to the Circle, rather than a "Boss". Performance reviews, personal goal setting, annual evaluations, etc., are done as peer reviews in council with the entire team or staff, not in private with a manager.

The paradox of communal governance is that its strength lies in the empowerment of individuals. Empowering individuals to bring the best of who they are to the community or circle strengthens the whole.

We are invited to surrender to the wisdom of the Council. And the wisdom of the Council in turn is to empower its members individually. It is through the decisions and actions of each member of the community that the wisdom of the circle finds its fruitful expression.