Dancing Rabbit's first sub-community, Skyhouse, has been accepted into the Federation of Egalitarian Communities (FEC) as a Community in Dialogue. The FEC is a network of 12 communities which share certain principles: "land, labor and other resources held in common, equality (distributing the products of members' labor and all other goods equally or according to need), non-violence, participatory government, non-discrimination, and environmental responsibility". Its goals are to promote inter-community contact and cooperation, do collective recruitment, support its member communities, and promote egalitarian communities and their values in the wider culture. Founded 20 years ago, it has five full member communities (Acorn, Twin Oaks, and Tekiah in Virginia and East Wind and Sandhill in Missouri) and presently seven Communities in Dialogue (Ganas, Krutsio, Terra Nova, Blackberry, Skyhouse, Common Threads, and Veiled Cliffs). Some Communities in Dialogue are on the path to becoming member communities while others share much of the vision of the FEC but are not ready to become members for various reasons. Skyhouse hopes to become a member at its next opportunity, in June of 1997.
The FEC aids labor exchange (LEX) between member communities by subsidizing travel and helping to negotiate terms of exchange. This allows communitarians to see other communities and how they work, and helps communities share skills and energy in times of need. During sorghum harvest Sandhill gets LEX help from other communities for farmwork and pays back that labor at other times in the year, sometimes lending their special skills in construction, farming, or group process. Skyhouse can make use of LEX as a Community in Dialogue in a similar fashion as we start construction projects and new businesses next year.
For recruitment the FEC produces fliers and brochures sent out to anyone who contacts an FEC community. These give prospective visitors and members information about all 12 communities and many people do choose to visit more than one. Last year the FEC received over 1100 new inquiries from its various ads in local and national publications, the Internet, and of course by word of mouth. Skyhouse will soon produce an insert to go out with the brochures that are mailed out to these first contacts, an amazing recruitment opportunity for a young community.
The FEC promotes itself in the wider culture in a number of ways. The FEC has funding available for communitarians to travel to conferences and gatherings of groups with similar values. Once there, these communitarians might give presentations, show the FEC slide show, and make personal contacts with people interested in community. Last year the FEC funded travel to such groups as the Fellowship for Intentional Community (FIC), NASCO (an organization of student cooperatives), the Shumacher Foundation, the Communal Studies Association, the Society for Utopian Studies, as well as groups where members had particular interests (women, gay men, political activists, new age spirituality, etc.). In addition, the FEC helps fund events such as the Twin Oaks Women's Gathering and the Communities Conference. These events have recently produced positive newspaper coverage nationwide.
FEC member communities are required to pay dues in the form of both labor and money. Labor dues are 10 hours per working member (kids not included) per year, while money dues are $200 plus 1% of net income. Communities in Dialogue pay dues of $100 per year plus $5 per working member and are not required to give labor. This gives the FEC a working budget of roughly 2000 hours and $20,000 per year. The FEC also generates revenue via donations from Friends of the Federation, people who don't live in an FEC community but want to support the FEC's ideals and goals.
Community delegates gather twice a year at FEC Assemblies to run the FEC. There is a complex voting system that balances the power between large and small communities, but in practice decisions are made by consensus. Of course, not all decisions need to go to the assembly, so the FEC has numerous committees and managers. The FEC is very experienced in running a decentralized organization.
Another service the FEC provides for member communities is catastrophic health care insurance. Ten years ago the FEC created the PEACH (Preservation of Equity Accessible for Community Health) fund, a self-insured medical care coverage fund with a $5000 deductible. Communities participating in PEACH pay $10 monthly per enrolled member. In ten years the PEACH fund has amassed over $250,000 and some of this money is made available for loans to both FEC and non-FEC communities. Dancing Rabbit may be looking for a PEACH loan to help in our land purchase.
In summary, Skyhouse is expecting that our affiliation with a mature and well-established group like the FEC will bring us human resources like outreach and labor exchange, as well as health insurance, a measure of legitimacy, and possibly even financial assistance. In return we will give our dues, labor and enthusiasm to a community networking organization with which we share much in common.
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