What Kavana offers

I\'ve worked with 78 residential community groups as of this writing, and visited over 100. I also work with nonprofits, small businesses, government agencies, activists, and other organizations as a freelance facilitator, trainer, and organizational development consultant. My deepest expertise is in group skills (consensus, communication, conflict resolution, etc.) and i especially enjoy work on visioning, policy, and governance structures. I have a lot of additional nuts and bolts knowledge and experience that is useful for new start-up groups--while i\'m neither a lawyer nor a banker, i\'m familiar with finance options, legal types, and bylaws. Located in Oregon, willing to travel.

Training & certification

While i have taken a bunch of workshops, my core training in this field comes from living in community for over a decade and facilitating a LOT of meetings, plus a ton of work experience.

I lived 4.5 years at Acorn, 1 year at Du-ma, and co-founded Walnut St. Co-op and lived there the first 7 years, then moved into an informal group house with shared meals. At the time of this writing, i presently live alone. I served 2 terms on FIC\'s board (1997-2003) and also served as Secretary (chief border collie) of the FEC during a transition period for that organization (2001-2003). I led the conversion process moving Walnut St. from private ownership by a departing resident into a limited equity co-op, including raising substantial capital and creating a revolving loan fund to finance the conversion. More recently i worked for a few years as the Cooperative Development Specialist for SquareOne Villages, and helped launch Peace Village which at 70 units is the largest housing cooperative in Oregon and quite affordable (25% of AMI).

Along the way i started a nonprofit 501c3 called the Group Pattern Language Project (we publish the deck Group Works: A Pattern Language for Bringing Life to Meetings and Other Gatherings, which is in use around the world) and co-founded Cascadia Song Rise which started as an LLC and then transitioned to nonprofit status. I also have a lot of experience volunteering and/or helping organize various initiatives focused on supporting community outside of residential ICs.

I took Caroline Estes\' & Lysbeth Borie\'s 6-day training in consensus & facilitation in 1998 and have been practicing professionally since then.