Vision in Action

Vision in Action: Working with Soul & Spirit in Small Organizations

“We recognize that we have moved into a new globalism: that the world is one, economically and geopolitically; and that futurists extol the possibilities opened up by the new complex of silicon-based electronic interactive networks. Yet, at the same time, our thinking about who we are and what we are capable of as human beings remains pitifully inadequate and largely determined by nineteenth-century models. Thus, all talk of ‘family values,’ of ‘virtues,’ of new forms of collaboration and cooperation tends either to miss the point for to reinforce the most regressive aspects of our technology.” (“Spirituality and Social Renewal series introduction)

How can we foster the development of initiatives?

How can enterprises such as community projects, schools, farms, and businesses be established in the best possible ways?

How can we work as equals, sharing responsibilities and encouraging one another in our development while offering the highest-quality product or service?

Vision in Action is a workbook for all who are involved in social creation—collaborative actions that can influence the social environment within which we live and where our ideas and actions can make a difference.

This volume is a user-friendly, hands-on guide for developing healthy small organizations—ones with soul and spirit.

C O N T E N T S:

Introduction to the Second Revised Edition

PART ONE: HISTORICAL AND ORGANIZATIONAL CONTEXT

1. The Human Being and Organizational Life
2. The Conscious Development of Initiatives

PART TWO: BUILDING THE ORGANIZATION

3. Starting Initiatives
4. Getting Going: The Growing Pains and Childhood Diseases of Initiatives
6. Ways of Working Together in the Developing Organization
7. Re-creating the Organization: Vision, Mission, and Long-range Planning
8. Development and Fund-raising in Non-profit Institutions

PART THREE: SIGNS OF HOPE: IMAGINATIONS FOR A BETTER FUTURE

9. Initiatives and Individual Development
10. Signs of Hope: Imaginations for the Future

About the Author

Christopher Schaefer, Ph.D., is a founding member of the Social Science Section of the Goetheanum School of Spiritual Science in North America, a faculty member at Sunbridge College, and Director of the Waldorf School Administration and Community Development program. He is also an organization development consultant, and the Executive Director of High Tor Alliance.

Tÿno Voors, lecturer at the Centre for Social Development, Emerson College in England, worked as a consultant on issues of community and organizational development for many years. He has been closely involved with Mercury Provident Society, Ltd., in England and Triodos NV in Holland—two new banking initiatives on approaches to handling money. He also worked for many years as a management consultant with the N.P.I. Institute for Organization Development in Holland. He lives in Sussex, England.