2024 Strategic Vision

2024-2025 Sensemaking in our Landscapes

Beginning in October, Regenerate Cascadia will provide grants of $2500 to Steward Leadership Teams for potential Landscape Hubs and $1500 for potential Bioregional Guilds to sensemake what they may need to hold these processes as we enter 2025. 

For Hubs:

We will provide $2500 to 6-10 potential Landscape Hub teams to fund an initial in-person workshop for groups to develop an initial:

  1. Bioregional Framework and Layers of Stewardship: Including physical, ecological, and human geography, layers of stewardship such as animals, plants, marine and regional ecosystems, and place-based culture, technology, history, and geography. 

  2. A Regenerative Project Portfolio: To identify regenerative work and projects happening in the landscape. To share a story of current regeneration and the core challenges that area is facing. What voices are currently at the table? What voices are missing? Who are the indigenous land stewards of this place? To put the regenerative portfolio on a map together. By Sector. Who needs to be involved?

  3. Landscape Vision and Budget: Using the above layers, to create a shared landscape vision for the specified area, to determine steps needed to achieve that vision, and begin a physical vision mapping of that place, and finally to determine a budget for what the Hub would need to support the processes for starting these.  

Each group is responsible for finding a location, adding it to the website, setting a date, helping facilitate the process, and presenting the results back to other hubs and the Regenerate Cascadia community.

The grant can be used for:

  • Facility Rental: Library or Home is recommended when possible.
  • Food and Meals: Though donations of food appreciated when possible.
  • Childcare or other assistance needs during the event itself.
  • Art Supplies and Printing Expenses
  • Paying a Person or Group of Persons for Facilitation, and compiling results for final reporting. 

For Guilds:

We will fund 5-7 sensemaking processes for the creation of Bioregional Guilds, online sessions for guilds to come together, hold initial planning sessions, and then launch online digital spaces designed to facilitate:

  • Create a Vision, Mission, and Description for the Topic using our provided template, and explain why they feel it’s important for the long-term regeneration of the Cascadia Bioregion and landscape leaders. 
  • Host one open space session that invites people to share top priorities they would like to see around this topic in the next year. 
  • Host initial monthly planning meetings that invite people to get more involved. 
  • Launch a monthly speaker series, where they invite and record a presenter to share about their topic, which is planned in advance, and open to the Regenerate Cascaida community.
  • Create a simple “Webpage” on the Regenerate Cascadia Site that will have a description, image gallery, pull report backs, and upcoming events for that topic for the general public.
  • Create a basic 101 Learn Dash Introduction, Orientation or Recorded Presentation about their Topic.
  • Create a 101 Introductory Reading and Article List about their Topic.
  • Create or Manage projects and activities that help in those endeavors and that are important around the topics, or that may be happening online or in communities within Cascadia.
  • Create and manage an online “Group” on the Regenerate Cascadia Site for members, where new members can come, connect, and find new information.

The grant can be used for:

  • Facility Rental: Library or Home is recommended when possible.
  • Food and Meals: Though donations of food appreciated when possible.
  • Childcare or other assistance needs during the event itself.
  • Art Supplies and Printing Expenses
  • Paying a Person or Group of Persons for Facilitation, and compiling results for final reporting. 

Developing a Bioregional Regeneration Strategy

There is a growing group of funders want to move the dial on regeneration and need a conduit and bridge that is able to visualize the work happening on the ground through relational networks of trust, and to grow the capacity for impact onto the collective scale of landscapes, watersheds and bioregions – which does not currently exist. The capacity to do this on the scale needed to regenerate landscapes has yet to be created. Funders need help finding the people doing the work in the landscape dedicated to regeneration. They are building long-term investment into a landscape with the picture of Regenerating an entire watershed and bioregion that provides a long-term relationship. 

Working through Landscape Hubs (which help weave together work happening on the scale of a landscape) and Guilds (which help weave together learning across watersheds), which can visualize, connect, empower and support work happening on the ground, much of what Regenerate Cascadia is trying to do does not currently exist. We recognize that we don’t have the capacity yet to support what is needed in the landscapes or happening on the ground.

Because of this, we are initiating and supporting a 2024-2025 federated grant and sensemaking process. Our goal is to work with Regenerate Cascadia Stewards to design a Bioregional Regeneration Strategy, based around what they need and core challenges they identify, that combines the collective intelligence of the amazing Regenerate Cascadia community, and then to get that strategy funded.

Developing a Federated Granting Request 2025:

Regenerate Cascadia is a conduit and bridge between funders in the landscape and globally, and we aim to be people doing the work in the landscape. Our goal is to build capacity and long-term relationships so that this funding can be allocated by the people doing the work. 

 

Regenerate Cascadia is just starting as an organization and movement. We understand that currently we do not have the capacity needed to start to do this work, and right now, don’t even know what we might need to do this work. This provides an excellent opportunity for us to develop a short term process for sensemaking, in which we can cocreate a funding proposal and request for what we need to begin to grow and develop Hubs, Guilds, Learning Centers, Programs and infrastructure needed to administer a Bioregional Financing Facility and see people empowered and supported in the landscape. 

 

We would like to build on this sensemaking and funding request proposal and invite all of our stewards to help us make this request, identify core challenges, and what they would need to do this work. We also have a unique window to sensemake and make a funding request in 2025 for what we need to get started in this work as the beginning of a long-term grant relationship. 

 

Leveraging the Granting Process for Identity Formation and Local Funding

The Novo Foundation grant provides the opportunity to leverage funding and support from other sources. Working together, we can begin to grow a shared sense of identity and purpose, identify core design challenges in landscapes, and then start to think about landscape visions and budgets. Once developed, this will be useful not only for the Novo Grant but also for groups to begin building local funding ecosystems of funders, supporters, and local community foundations.

 

We are sensemaking for a 2025 Novo Foundation Grant and want to get support and funding flowing in small levels to Hubs and Guilds, which can help anchor these processes and learning.

Desired Outcomes:

 

  1. A Story of Deep Time: To Identify what their group focus or bioregional frameworks and layers important to steward are for that place through an initial bioregional mapping workshop. What are the physical, ecosystem, and cultural elements to be aware of that can help guide all other conversations? One system is larger, and what are the smaller?

  2. Regenerative Project Portfolio: To identify regenerative work and projects happening in the landscape. To share a story of current regeneration, as well as the core challenges that area is facing. What voices are currently at the table? What voices are missing? Who are the indigenous land stewards of this place? To put the regenerative portfolio on a map together. By Sector. Who needs to be involved?

 

  1. Landscape Vision and Budget: Come together to create a shared budget we can use as part of our grant application to see if we can get them funded, but also – for them to use in their landscapes, to immediately start to see if they can find support for their work, and create funding ecosystems. To begin to get groups of people meeting together across silos and organizations 

 

Final Outcome: 

To develop a story of that place that we can include in our NOVO Foundation request, and that serves as a standalone program description so they can find localized funding sources. 

 

  1. What would it take to Regenerate the Entire Landscape? What would it take to support and regenerate the entire landscape and watersheds in that area? And to maintain it for a regenerative future?

 

  1. What would it take to start a Regenerate Hub or Guild? What would it take specifically, to develop a Regenerate Guild or Hub which could hold and facilitate those processes?.

Each Landscape Hub Develops And Maintains:

  • a long-term bioregional vision & “North Star”
  • identify voices missing that need to be present
  • a bioregional portfolio of regenerative projects
  • landscape budget
  • hosts regular, in-person events
  • resources
  • a webpage or site tracking regenerative events, updates, and news.
  • Bioregional media, which it creates and curates, relevant to or generated by its members’ offerings and needs;

A Regenerate Hub emerges from a Community Group, a place-based group representing a discrete landscape. It works with on-the-ground communities to administer a bioregional fund within that landscape. It collaborates through a network of ecoregional councils and a Bioregional Congress with long-term vision and governance. Each Hub has a Backbone Team accountable for basic reporting and administrative requirements and can undertake its projects.

 

Bioregional Learning Center

Each Hub stewards a digital Bioregional Learning Center (responsible for stewarding information around the whole landscape), as well as a network of bioregional learning sites (places within the landscape where bioregional learning happens), responsible for maintaining an information commons for the place that the Hub represents, which works to develop and maintain:

  • stories & unique understanding of place, including bioregional and regenerative identity and culture,
  • bioregional frameworks, maps, and layers, especially relating to specific “frameworks of stewardship,”
  • measurements, reporting and verification, and an informational commons for that area, including inputs and outputs, and definable metrics for success, resources, and bioregional educational materials,
  • A directory of resources and bioregional learning assets within an area relevant to its members.

Portfolio Of Regenerative Projects

One of the most important activities a Hub can undertake is creating a portfolio of Regenerative Projects within its landscape. These projects will be funded by the bioregional regeneration fund and part of creating a landscape budget. It is important to work with these groups also to create a map of the discrete landscape and to work with all present groups to weave these areas together in the future.

An Informational commons

Each hub also contributes to and maintains and informational commons for that place. This is a publicly available archive of information related to the story of place, layers of stewardship, measurements, verification and reporting, and holds the broader vision and budget in a way that is nested, inter-operable, and replicable.

Bioregional Regeneration Fund

Each Hub will be responsible for administering a portion of a Cascadia regeneration fund to projects within their landscapes, as determined by the regenerative communities in that landscape. They are a key point between larger-level funding and the local communities and projects. This includes mapping regenerative communities and projects, identifying projects that may be missing, identifying needed areas of support, and then weaving together these projects collaboratively into a shared vision and portfolio of projects able to receive funding, draft budgets, and planning on a landscape scale.

Process for Starting A Regenerate Hub

Stewardship Team

Fill out the Regenerate Cascadia Hub Application Form, and have at least 3 Stewards who agree to be the Regenerate Guild Stewardship Team, and identify at least one person as a “Backbone Steward” who will take on the responsibility of making sure events and report backs are added to the website.

To become a Regenerate Hub, Guild, or Project, group Stewards must fill out an application on the website that includes the name of the stewards, the name of the Hub,  a basic description of their connection to Regenerate Cascadia’s mission and upload a Group Agreement that lays out and agrees to our terms and conditions for handling people’s data, organizational policies, and the basic requirements of what it means to be a Hub, Guild, or Project, as well as the Backbone Team. 

If the group plans to handle money within its first year, it must also agree to basic nonprofit reporting requirements and identify a “Treasurer.”

Bioregional Mapping Process

This all starts with a sensemaking and bioregional mapping process that a group or coordinator undertakes to help determine the frameworks that will be important to include for this place, which will include filling out a template for what that may look like. This will include:

  • Establish initial bioregional frameworks for the group to use.
  • Establishing initial layers that are important to map within that bioregional framework.
  • Establishing larger regional frameworks in which the area is involved and figuring out how those layers of stewardship may look.
  • Identifying layers that are important to map within that place.
  • Discussing initial governance between individuals and groups within an area.
  • Doing an initial assessment of planetary boundaries within that bioregional context.
  • Creating an initial portfolio of regenerative projects and groups within that place.
  • Establish contact with First Nations who share the area—historically and currently—and begin a dialogue about partnership or highlighting complexities in the field. This can include governments, organizations, and individuals.
  • Undertaking an initial bioregional mapping process with these groups includes laying out a map of the current regenerative areas and layers.

When finished, this document can be used for a broad-based review and opened up to community feedback and critique.

Starting a “Seed” Groups

A Regenerate Cascadia Seed Group is created when you have your first Regenerate Cascadia meetup. It can last for as many meetings as necessary until the group has grown, desires to grow, and becomes organized enough to become a Regenerate Cascadia Hub.

APPLY HERE

Start a Hub

If you would like to start a hub or guild and have 3 more people who can serve as “Stewards” for the group, apply to start a Hub.

Start a Seed Group

If you are just getting started, let us know in the application.

  • Cup of Coffee
  • Hike
  • Campfire
  • Bioregional Salon

We’d love to share an announcement and find people to help get your group off the ground.

After an initial onboarding session, you will be provided a link to the online application and invited to apply.

Steward Responsibilities

  • Make sure events are added to the calendar, reportbacks shared on the website, and that meetings have facilitators, note takers and time keepers as needed. Make sure agendas and notes are shared in a timely manner. 

  • If money is being handled, make sure the group has a treasurer.

Hub Responsibilities

Each Month

  • Host a Regular Organizing Meeting for their Guild, Project, or Circle Stewards at least once a Month. Make sure the event is in the calendar and shared in the newsletter. Share a report-back and recording on the website when finished.

Each Quarter

  • Host a Regular “Bioregional Salon” at least once a quarter, where they invite a topic expert to share more about their work, and then have a discussion.

  • Host a Regular Onboarding Session to Welcome New Members for their Guild, Project, or Circle Stewards at least once a Quarter.

  • If managing funds, file a quarterly expense report.

Each Year

  • Host an Envisioning Session for all Landscape Stewards, and develop an estimated budget for what they need to do their work and any classes they feel would be powerful to offer.

  • Create a Narrative Document of their impact over the past year to be compiled as part of the larger Regenerate Cascadia annual report.

  • If managing funds, file an annual expense statement and budget.

How a Hub is Dissolved

  • Is Inactive for more than three months.

  • The leadership team decides to dissolve the group.

  • If the RC Admin Team or Board of Directors feels the activities harm Regenerate Cascadia or put other projects or groups at risk.

Upon dissolution, the group’s assets will be archived and held for six months, and as long as the group is in good standing, it can be restarted at any time.