Intro

Godberd is a non-profit social experiment that aims to build healthy communities. We believe that capitalism and money are insufficient tools to provide people with what they need to live happily, healthily, sustainably and artfully. We are trying to create new tools for that purpose.

Mission

To build healthier communities and lives fuelled by local, sustainable practices and products outside the traditional capitalist model.

Vision

That people of all classes, races, denominations, orientations, and beliefs can find practical ways to engage with and enjoy a community based on sharing and benevolence, exploring their potential and finding greater fulfillment.

Values

Agency - Godberd celebrates human agency and the strength of all individuals to improve their lives and the health of their communities. While we are a community of change-makers that champions the needs of the dispossessed and marginalized, we believe completely in the power of all people to create change for themselves.

Artfulness - Helping people access and express their creativity is central to Godberd’s mission. We believe people have a right to lifelong learning and feel that creative expression—and the acts of sharing, collaboration, and networking that grow up around it—are central to improving people’s quality of life.

Benevolence - In an attempt to move away from the mindset of scarcity that so often accompanies capitalist models, we value sharing over owning; donating over hoarding; and are dedicated to making sure all the needs of our community members are met.

Connection - We believe much of the modern world’s misery is provoked by a sense of isolation and disconnection. We are a community-building organization that seeks to help people build meaningful connections and and relationships from the ground up to directly improve their lives.

Education - Godberd sees lifelong education as a basic human right. We help people share their knowledge and skills by connecting interested parties with capable teachers, and aim to enrich the lives of all members of our community by openly learning alongside and from them.

Inclusion - Our community works tirelessly to reprogram all mindsets meant to alienate us from one another. Racism, sexism, classism and discrimination of any kind; nationalism, populism and xenophobia have no place in our community. They are tools of division that we will no longer lend any power.

Sharing - We believe capitalism controls people by controlling the means of production. As such we believe in the radical sharing of those means—physical, intellectual and otherwise. Members of the Godberd community are invited and encouraged to use existing facilities and knowledge and bring their own.

Worldview

We believe firstly in the inherent goodness of people. However, we see capitalism as a system that works to divide people, forcing them to fixate on competition and consumerism. This is at odds with our basic humanity. From this is borne most of the world’s injustice, and many of the mindsets that breed discrimination and estrangement.

Godberd seeks to replace those broken systems with a community that gives people opportunities to be creative and practice benevolence. Even simple things like the sharing of resources and skills, communal creation and enjoyment, and the building of new personal connections can help people build a more sustainable way of life and find freedom.

We are actively trying to create alternatives to this abusive economic structure that liberate instead of enslave and connect instead of divide. As a key part of this effort we try in every way to minimize the exchange of currencies. By minimizing financial exchanges and the inherent beliefs associated with a money-based economy we are building a more open culture of mutual care.

Godberd is inherently a social experiment and as such does not pretend to have all the answers. We are experimental and do not punish failure, but rather reward innovation and creativity. We believe each person has the right to pursue self-fulfillment and to strive to reach their full potential, reinventing and redefining themselves at will.

However, we are a community that aims to also venture beyond our ego-driven concerns and preoccupations and consider the world at large—humans, plants, animals, and environments. We are guided by the ideal of mutual aid and the belief that we should take care of each other and our planet. As we work and play together we enjoy shared security and shared success. As we produce and share goods at the local level we practice livable sustainability. When constellations of individuals succeed the community at large thrives.

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