Structures & Operations

What are the conditions for optimal growth?

We believe that with good soil, anything can grow! For sustainability in our ecosystem on the long term, we consistently tend to the nourishment of our foundation (our soil!) with all the nutrients necessary for growth.

The collective at Faun's Castle currently operates as a heart-centered, compassion-oriented business, moving towards a more horizontal ideal. In an attempt to be as authentic and transparent as possible, we've included an overview of our governance and financial model below.

We designed the following structures and governance model to help guide our collective to stability. If you're thinking of visiting short or long term, or if you're simply curious, we invite you to have a look over this dynamic page before arriving as well as to read up on our living agreements here.

Overview of our Governance Model

Much of our life and work is shared with guests, regardless of their commitment to the project. Visitors are invited to hold space for their passions, given voices to express ideas that will be heard and taken into account, and have equal opportunity to become permanent residents. Any larger decision making in the collective is performed exclusively by permanent residents, who all uphold roles and equity in our licensed agricultural business.

We are currently in the process of formalizing the legal entity which will operate as a collective model, where each member upholds a role and function which contributes to the greater success of the whole project. That way we can emphasize the value we have for the arts, wellness and growing food without having those sectors be stressed by financial pressures. All permanent residents in the collective incorporate an adaptive leadership model, whereby we balance the needs of the business with the needs of the community, allowing us to make informed and empowered decisions and take efficient action steps towards measurable change-making progress.

We operate primarily as an sociocracy customized to highlight adaptive leadership, and utilize polling to allow all voices a vote which will be heard, reflected upon, and then the captain of that domain will make the final decision and report back to the core council. Only equity partners make decisions involving investments and the direction of the business.

While we love the idea of living autonomously off-grid in a horizontal society full of trust and abundance, we admit we are currently still a part of a greater society in a world that values capitalism and comfort. We are moving steadily away from this and back towards source, truth and nature, while abiding by legal frameworks, integrating with the cultures around us, and adhering to our shared values of awareness, collaboration, reciprocity, balance and reverence.

Engineering decentralized & Open-sourced Systems

We acknowledge the many challenges communities may face while attempting to reach resilient, long lasting success. We by no means declare we know the answer, but we are attempting to address these challenges with radical honesty and reasonable transparency.

One of these challenges is how the given community chooses to address financial sovereignty, both as individuals striving to survive in a hardened world, and as a collective working together to achieve something beautiful. We are working diligently to create a financial model that is fundamentally collaborative and decentralized, aiming to be an open-sources, replicable and scalable blueprint for other communities. Our financial success, and therefore ultimately our longevity, is rooted in our capacity to cultivate shared stewardship, distribute equity and decision-making power gradually, and reinvest collective gains back into the people, nature and systems that sustain us. The aim of our financial operations is to use smart tech tools to remove forms of systemic stress that can otherwise contaminate embodied work; that way, we can prioritize time spent directly with the land, arts and each other.

The model we are developing accounts for time equity, allowing contributions of labor and skill to hold value equal to traditional capital. It establishes a pathway for participants to build personal equity through their involvement, creating a structure that softens the unequal nature of conventional money systems, and focuses on reminding us that we are safe, abundant and held. All residents retain full ownership of the equity they have earned, and should they wish to depart from the project, can maintain direct access to their sovereignty.

By aligning individual contribution with communal benefit, we aim to build an ecosystem where prosperity emerges from mutual reinforcement, reciprocity, and transparent accountability, creating conditions for enduring stability and growth.

✧ Explore frameworks for obtaining equity and buy-in-pathways here. ✧

Community Resources

O.R.C.A.

To us, eco building means creating and maintaining spaces that are functional, safe, and long-lasting while minimizing impact on the land. We prioritize recycled and local materials, practical design, and structures that support the daily life and work of the project.