This is a call into the work most people skip
and why most communities fail
Not land. Not funding. Not the legalities of who owns what.
It's the part underneath all of that - whether the values you hold match the values of the people you're building with.
Two people can want the same project and it still falls apart, because they never checked if they wanted it for the same reasons.
Come to this workshop on Values-Based Decision-Making, where you'll name what you actually value, separate it from what you were taught to want, and leave with a way to check any decision from here on out — whether you're founding a community, already in one, or working out if you belong in something that already exists. Are you ready to get under the surface, and design your life in community from the inside-out?
Date: October 8, 2026
Time: 18:00 UTC
Price: $15
A recording will be shared with everyone who signs up.
No One Taught You How to Be the Villager
You've sat in a meeting where everyone nodded at the same word, and you wondered if you were the only one who meant something different by it.
You've watched a group spend months fixating on the land, the funding, or the right legal structure - and never once ask whether the people were actually aligned on what they were building.
You've felt the slow drift, where a project that started with real excitement turns into something you're not sure you still believe in, and nobody can say exactly when that happened.
You've wondered whether to join a community that says all the right things, and had no real way to test if you fit.
You've watched something you helped build come apart, and told yourself it was bad luck, or bad timing, but never if it was a mismatch in values.
None of this is unusual. It's the pattern. Nine out of ten intentional communities never make it - and almost never for the reasons people expect. Yet knowing your own values on a deep level, and using them to filter community decisions through them, allows you to design from the inside-out.
Design Your Community
A 90-MINUTE VALUES-BASED DECISION-MAKING WORKSHOP WITH TRISTAN HOLME
Live Session (recording available)
$15
In this workshop, you will:
- Learn what values are, and why they are foundational to designing your community life.
- Name what you actually value, separate it from what you were taught to want, and leave with a way to check any decision against it.
- See the framework that has been tried and tested in other intentional communities.
Online format:
- 1 x 90-min live session with Tristan Holme, with 30 mins Q&A afterwards
- Recording sent afterwards to all registrants
Date & Time:
October 8th 2026, 18:00 UCT
Testimonials
“Money, egos and opinions enter the equation and things get real fast. After 30 years of working it all out, I look back and wish we had had Tristan all along.”
Ruby Ovenstone, Founder of Kuthumba Ecovillage, South Africa
“This tool shows the shiny possibilities inherent in a deep dive into the values that drive our work and life. When we are clear about our values, and keep them front & centre, we can't help but make better decisions with our time.”
Erin Newell, Quiet Day Land Co-op, Canada
“One of the most effective, truly personalized and context-driven systems for decision-making that is out there. Through nearly a decade of systems thinking, analytical work and strategic planning, I've yet to come across a more thorough but also practical and straightforward approach to making decisions.”
Susan Cousineau, USA
We teach for the moment the vision meets its first real disagreement.
We teach for the values you didn't know you held, until they collided with someone else's.
We teach so the heartbreak so often felt after a community fails - doesn't have to repeat itself.
We teach because Values-Based Decision-Making is sovereignty and care in action.
We teach because we create our reality one moment, one decision, at a time.
Meet your Facilitator
Tristan Holme is a VBDM Facilitator, Regenerative Life Designer, previous trustee of Kuthumba Ecovillage, and Father.
Tristan apprenticed for three years under Javan Bernakevitch, the originator of Values-Based Decision-Making, and now teaches two different VBDM courses alongside him. In 2019 he co-founded an intentional community using the VBDM framework, and he has continued to adapt the tool for use in cooperative governance - both in communities and other collaborative settings.
After training in facilitation, conflict and cooperative governance under Laird Schaub and Diana Leafe Christian - two of the most experienced consultants in the American community movement - he serves as a community facilitator, and offers workshops on conflict to cooperative groups.
He spent over a decade as a sports journalist, covering some of the biggest cricket matches in the world before a Permaculture Design Certificate turned his attention from cricket pitches to garden beds, and then from land design to life design.
Tristan co-founded an intentional community of parents interested in creating an environment for their kids that matched their values. This led them to merge with the preexisting Kuthumba Ecovillage, where they have grown from four families to nine. He has presented Values-Based Decision-Making to the Foundation for Intentional Communities, and still lives at Kuthumba today.
Meet your Co-Host
Ceri Flook is co-host for this webinar. She runs Elephant House, a gathering space at Kuthumba Ecovillage where events center on cultivating community, creativity, and care for the land.
Ceri has a background in soil ecology and has applied that work at intentional communities across Germany, South Africa, and Egypt.
She'll be speaking about the in-person Design Your Community course that she and Tristan are running at Elephant House in January 2027.
This is for you if:
You're founding a community, and every decision feels too big to hold.
You're already inside one, and missing the tools that keep group decisions from stalling out.
You're weighing whether to join one, with no way to know where to start.
You're a parent, asking what kind of life you actually want for your kids.
You're a business or non-profit founder who's felt a team agree on paper, and drift apart in practice.
You've already lived through the heartbreak of a community conflict, and you don't want a redo.
You lean too hard on intuition, or too hard on logic, and want a framework that finally merges both head and heart.
FAQ
VBDM was developed by Javan Bernakevitch, inspired by Allan Savory's Holistic Context - a framework built for land management, where every decision gets tested against a clearly defined set of values before it's made.
Bernakevitch adapted Savory’s work to make it more accessible and practical for individuals, couples, businesses, and communities.
Instead of deciding on instinct, or on whatever's easiest in the moment, you name what you actually value first, and test decisions against that, on purpose, every time.