Common Agency

Imagine if all your needs could be met by your local community.
Imagine if you had a village to help care for your children.
Imagine if you could age in your home knowing your neighborhood would take care of you.It’s possible - but we have to do it together.

Common Agency is a start-up co-creating tools that help neighborhoods become stronger. Our vision is a world where everyone is proud of where they grow up and grow old.

We believe that to tangibly shape where you live, you need to build local power.But not just any power. In a society that often spotlights building power through `divide and conquer`, we need to build power through `trust and connection`.We're all better off when we're all better off.*

To help you build local power through trust and connection, we do two things:1) Help you communicate more effectively with your neighbors.
You've got to start talking to each other to be able to connect and build power, right? We help you pick and adapt digital tools appropriate for your context - whether you or your neighbors are older or younger, prefer English or another language, or want space for gossip or focus on events and facts. We'll also help with the day-to-day challenges that emerge, via our background in conflict resolution/evolution.For three neighborhoods in Wisconsin, we're pairing this work with microgrants for neighbors to implement ideas to hang out and get to know each other. After all, the goal is get from online to on land.If you're interested to get involved, please scroll down to reach out!2) Help you find everything you need in your local community.
We've learned from Google that if you know how to look, you can find all the information you seek - but maybe what you need is not just information but collaboration, wisdom, and companionship. We're re-imagining a 'neighborhood search engine' that prioritizes helping you connect with neighbors who share common interests, ideas, and life stages, to discover more of the latent gifts in your community that can help you actualize your neighborhood dreams.We're currently in 'concept refinement' mode, talking to folks and running small tests to figure out how to do this well. More soon.We'd love to hear your ideas!

We are proud and humbled to be part of the ever increasing humans exploring, dreaming, and building regenerative systems for more of us to become *people of place**: stewarding the lands we live on with other humans and non-human beings who share our space.

In fact, our work would not be possible without collaborations:

- Our pilots are financed by our nonprofit colleagues Community Renewal for Shreveport, LA, and Urban Rural Action for Kenosha, Racine, and Milwaukee, WI, through joint proposals to New Pluralists' Healing Starts Here and Department of Homeland Security's TVTP grant, respectively.- We have received fellowship funding and introductions from Humanity in Action, CoGenerate, and Feedback Labs.- We are fiscally sponsored by our friends at GatherFor doing work in Brownsville, Brooklyn, NY.- Aligned organizations contract us for consulting services in facilitation, experience design, and strategy. This has included work with Sympara in North Carolina and The Horizons Project.- We also benefit from advising from many incredible, kind, thoughtful people sharing their gifts.

Questions, feedback, or ideas? Send us a message! We’re always interested in new ways to work with others.

*We are inspired by so many, including Tomi Hazel Vaarde (Social Forestry) for the beautiful phrase 'people of place' and Eric Liu (Citizen University) for the powerful quote 'We're all better off when we're all better off.'

Imagine if all your needs could be met by your local community. Imagine if you had a village to help care for your children. Imagine if you could age in your home knowing your neighborhood would take care of you.It’s possible - but we have to do it together.

Common Agency is a start-up co-creating tools that help neighborhoods become stronger. Our vision is a world where everyone is proud of where they grow up and grow old.

We believe that to tangibly shape where you live, you need to build local power.But not just any power. In a society that often spotlights building power through divide and conquer, we need to build power through trust and connection.We're all better off when we're all better off.*

We are proud and humbled to be part of the ever increasing humans exploring, dreaming, and building regenerative systems for more of us to become people of place*: stewarding the lands we live on with other humans and non-human beings who share our space.

In fact, our work would not be possible without collaborations:

Questions, feedback, or ideas? Send us a message! We’re always interested in new ways to work with others.

Imagine if all your needs could be met by your local community.
Imagine if you had a village to help care for your children.
Imagine if you could age in your home knowing your neighborhood would take care of you.It’s possible - but we have to do it together.

We believe that to tangibly shape where you live, you need to build local power.But not just any power. In a society that often spotlights building power through `divide and conquer`, we need to build power through `trust and connection`.We're all better off when we're all better off.*

We are proud and humbled to be part of the ever increasing humans exploring, dreaming, and building regenerative systems for more of us to become *people of place**: stewarding the lands we live on with other humans and non-human beings who share our space.