“Powerful, tangible, and empowering organizing has never been more needed. Here is a gentle, stepwise guide for how to begin. Drawing on many years of experience and teaching, Ted Rau takes the mystery out of forming effective groups.”
How to start a group so everyone can have a voice!
To get off to a good start, start by defining the purpose, and put the infrastructure and practices in place that you will need to decide together so all voices can be heard.
This booklet shows you and your group exactly how to do that.
Any group can form itself using the template outlined in this book. It works especially well if the founders and early members want to grow and nourish an organization that gives every member a voice and is effective.
Why does this matter?
So many groups form. And so many groups fade. What distinguishes those groups that grow and flourish from those that fade and fail?
The success factors are well-studied, even though the lessons learned hardly make it into the design of those who start groups. That makes sense – groups form because people feel the urgency for change in an area of their attention, not because they are experts in how to start a group.
Yet, starting a group can be learned – and this book is your guide into the unknown!
Sociocracy for All (SoFA): A Nonprofit Bringing Sociocracy to the World
Sociocracy For All is a nonprofit social enterprise that provides easy access to resources, training and implementation of sociocracy. Learn more about this governance and decision making tool.
About the Author
Ted Rau is the Operational Leader for Sociocracy for All.
Ted spends most of his time training and consulting in sociocracy and leading SoFA as an organization. Ted is co-author of the sociocracy handbook Many Voices, One Song. He enjoys writing articles, and teaching meeting facilitation. People and their universal need to connect and move things are at the center of his attention. He pays attention to the co-housing movement, transgender rights, and non-violent communication.
Outside of SoFA work, Ted is a parent of 5, former linguist, and singer-songwriter. The training in linguistics taught Ted to find patterns that work well for the human mind, to work empirically, and break things down so they can be understood. Being a parent of 5 had taught him to be extremely pragmatic… maybe this earned him the label of being a “manifestor”; at the end of the day, dinner must be on the table no matter whether the new vision statement is done.