It's time for planting seeds. We invite you to plant seeds of transformation with us across the land.
Who knew?! You broadcast seeds – and see what takes root and grows.
In 2000, Mary Rowe from Toronto called us up after the Bioneers conference. “I love Bioneers and I’ve been coming for years,” she told us. “But what I really want is to bring Bioneers home to Toronto. Why don’t you broadcast the morning keynotes, and I can organize our own conference around them, and add local speakers and issues.”
It seemed like a great idea, and it was. Bioneers is like a seed head of solutions, and fertile ground was calling. In 2001, we piloted the first five “Beaming Bioneers” local community conferences. Since then – because of your support - dedicated citizen leaders have organized 100s of local Bioneers community conferences in more than 70 cities, engaging upwards of 85,000 people across the U.S., and in Canada and Europe.
Nature does not favor centralization.
It’s essential to build community resilience from the ground up through local citizen action to create a more decentralized, nature-based society. That imperative has moved from urgency to emergency as our too-big-not-to-fail systems crash and burn around us.
“I call on you, I call on your generosity, and I call on the abundance of the universe, which we all are part of, to think about donating…”
Sister Gloria Rivera of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, a Bioneers Network organizer for Great Lakes Bioneers Detroit, reports they’ve launched the Detroit Food Justice Task Force: 10 organizations now collaborating to take food justice and food sovereignty city-wide. This collaboration stems from the Bioneers Undoing Racism in the Detroit Food System“learnshops.”
Virtually all the Bioneers Resilient Communities Network events have evolved from an annual gathering to a hub of year-round initiatives. They’re igniting the important conversations and putting local solutions into action. Most are associated with colleges, universities, and schools, bringing Bioneers media and ideas into 100s more schools and classrooms.
At Gulf Coast Bioneers in Houston, Texas, the City of Houston’s Code Administrator, Sheila Blake got inspired. “A couple of other people and I formed a local nonprofit to bring diversity to the green movement, thanks to Bioneers National and its diversity in programming. We were able to bring a $3 million grant to Houston for green jobs. Bioneers in Houston is what started the conversation.”
Your gifts make this possible. Thank you! Now, together, we can expand our reach and depth to do more and better.
Building A Network of Networks
After producing a powerful Bioneers 2012 conference intensive on how to create a national network of resilient communities, we realized we needed to go deeper. Networks are nature’s primary form of organization. Mounting research is showing “Global Action Networks” as the emergent form capable of actually responding effectively to the complexity and magnitude of the 21st Century’s “wicked problems.”
So we began to weave our Beaming Bioneers partners into an interconnected learning-and-action network – a living laboratory of communities of practice. The new Bioneers Resilient Communities Network is already circulating key initiatives and producing teleconferences with the organizers on the “how” of turning vision into action, spreading successes locally across the country.
In February we hosted our partners from Spokane, Washington on the breakthrough Community Bill of Rights that Bioneer Tom Linzey helped design and organize there. Along with many other progressive features, it boldly challenges corporate personhood at the local level, and embeds Rights for Nature. On the second try on the ballot, it got 49.2% of the vote in a very conservative city. If not for out-of-state corporate big bucks, it could have passed. Next time!
As a result of the teleconference, our Great Lakes Bioneers ChicagoNetwork partners are bringing it home to the Windy City, and Tom’s group is going to help them. Seeds blowing from Spokane to Chicago!
"This program is so much in line of work that I can hardly stand it. We would like to use this Community Bill of Rights webinar for our next Heartland Coalfield Alliance (HCA) meeting. We (HCA) are an Alliance of groups across the Illinois Coal Basin who are trying to find ways to move beyond coal (and fossil fuels) into a renewable energy economy. We provide support for community groups who are battling with the state government and corporate interests (the likes of whom include Peabody Coal and the Cline Group)."
Nikki has worked for Bioneers since 2008 starting with the Dreaming New Mexico project. Nikki is co-director of Bioneers Resilient Communities Network that works to build resilience from the ground up at local and regional levels by: disseminating breakthrough environmental and social justice innovations, solutions and practices from the annual Bioneers Conference through diverse independent, partner-driven Bioneers network community gatherings and year-round local initiatives; and leveraging the Resilient Communities Network into an action network and a living laboratory of communities of practice.
Teo Grossman
Director of Strategic Initiatives
Over his career, Teo has engaged in diverse efforts including managing youth and educator outreach efforts, conducting state-level assessments of long-range planning efforts, and lead research on topics including climate change adaptation, ecosystem services and ecological networks. Combining a clear-eyed approach to problem solving with a knack for identifying cutting edge trends and approaches, his career goal is to work towards the healthy integration of natural systems and human communities at multiple scales.
John DeCock
Chief Operating & Outreach Officer
John DeCock brings leadership and strategic experience from a career spanning more than 30 years. John served as Executive Director of the Sierra Club Foundation for nine years and was President and CEO of the Clean Water Action & Clean Water Fund. John has an extensive background in building grass roots networks and in advocacy for important environmental and social issues.
You Can Help Us Grow!
You can nourish the seeds of the Bioneers Resilient Communities Network to flourish and keep spreading. We’re planning a powerful slate of teleconference trainings this year on model initiatives for distributed clean energy and public power, localized food systems, food justice models, watershed protection, women’s leadership, and more. We’re also engaging other Bioneers national partners and their networks, and disseminating our rich Media Collections as educational and organizing tools.
Your generous gift feeds the fertile soils of this distributed network. You’re leveraging the amazing resources of Bioneers to grow in multiple communities and networks across the nation.
With your increased and ongoing support, we can do so much more. We’re ready to engage dozens and ultimately hundreds more communities. Please join us in supporting these amazing citizen leaders, these local heroes changing the game and joining forces in a green necklace of community restoration.
At this “once-in-a-civilization” moment when an immediate global shift is imperative, we can’t go wrong by building resilience from the ground up. We’ve got to get connected, spread successes, and shortcut innovation – and bring it home.
Hopefully our grandchildren will look back, and gratefully say, “Who knew? The Bioneers Network did. Together, they planted and nurtured the seeds of transformation.”
With Our Love and Appreciation,
Kenny Ausubel & Nina Simons
Co-Founders
P.S. We really want to thank and honor all of you who support this visionary program and who are working in your own community to build resilience. Please share your knowledge with us!
