Over the last few years, I have been trying to figure out a way to explain what permaculture is to those who have never spent the 100 hours for the basic course. Many people use the Holmgren statement of principles because they are easily found on the internet. But permaculture the way the main creator Bill Mollison taught it was much more tightly tied to ecological principles and those that impressed him about non-fossil fuel societies that lasted for millennia.
The attached is a slide presentation that I have been gradually improving over time. It shows the main ideas and their justification as I understand them. They may form an outline for a more extensive explanation on day. Please see the attached
200903 Longwood h
In 2009, I was invited by the Graduate Public Gardens Masters Program of the University of Delaware to talk at the Longwood Gardens in Pennsylvania about our community engagement experiences in Houston. The attached pdf is the program I produced. It runs in several parts, the first summarizing what Urban Harvest did as of 2009, then how we created it, and finally some of the permaculture design ideas we used in designing the organization. For recent Urban Harvest activity see http://urbanharvest.org
The attachment is in powerpoint mainly because my free version of acrobat turns the small pptx file into a giant pdf file.
Most people wouldn’t dream of building a house or bridge or retirement fund without a design–a carefully constructed written plan using well-thought out principles. But it is shocking that many non-profit organizations (and many for-profits too) do this. As well, when non-profits get around to a strategic plan, they often take their cues from consultants and advice books whose main experience is for-profit efforts. The article attached sets out some of the ideas I developed over many years about planning in non-profit organizations.
20121215 Strategic Planning
