Who We Serve

Through nomination and application, we serve diverse groups of leaders who are recognized among their peers for the catalytic role they play in moving us toward a healthy, just and sustainable society.

Our leadership renewal retreats are appealing to a broad range of professionals in every sphere, including: education, business, government, health, science and technology, religion, the arts, law, philanthropy, the media, the family, and community. Participants include urban and rural conservationists, community and regional development practitioners, social and business entrepreneurs, elected leaders, public health officials, environmental justice and public interest lawyers, farmers and food advocates, faith-based activists and leaders from all traditions, youth, writers and artists, educators at every level, and others, like you!

Here you can read more about the leaders we serve – especially those working upstream – and our focus on sustaining the sustainers. You can also learn more about our main service territory. Do you see yourself and your work described here? Consider joining us for one of our programs.

LEADERS WORKING UPSTREAM

(A note from Executive Director Benjamin S. Webb)

Not long ago at a conference of religious leaders that I attended, much of our time the last morning was devoted to flood relief, tornado relief, and immigration raid relief efforts, what I sometimes call our “downstream” work. This is work so many of us – both religious and secular leaders and citizens – do reasonably well and must continue out of compassion. There is no end to the need for solace and healing for our friends, neighbors and strangers living in the river of woe.

But we also have some collective “upstream” work to do. Every so often we need to step out of the river of woe, walk upstream, and see who’s throwing everyone in. Sometimes when we go upstream to examine the sources of our troubles and begin connecting the dots, we discover patterns to our problems that also suggest patterns to the solutions. One way we “solve for pattern” today involves spending more time upstream working for a just and sustainable society and economy. A just and sustainable economy is the plumb line by which human beings and human societies can reliably measure and align themselves. No economy can long endure without the principles of social justice and care for all creation being widely practiced, as we should be increasingly aware given our own precarious situation in America and in the world.

The Center for Regenerative Society therefore aims to serve and support those who are primarily working and witnessing upstream, laboring against the current and often meeting resistance, yet who by helping us solve problems at their source are creating a more just and sustainable society that improves the health and well being of everyone living downstream, both today and for generations to come.

SUSTAINING THE SUSTAINERS

As President Obama said in recognizing America’s social innovation leaders who are helping us find solutions to challenges unlike any we’ve seen in our lifetime,

“You are helping us find new solutions to some of our oldest and toughest problems. What you do is not easy. The hours are long and the pay could be better. We recognize the difference each of you makes and the lives you change every day. You teach us that there is no such thing as a lost cause if you’re willing to be creative and challenge the conventional wisdom and take some risks. If you are willing to try and fail and try again until you find something that works.”

We all share in common the work of mending our world. There are some leaders among us who are making it easier for the rest of us to take up our tasks. They represent the advance guard, leading the way towards a just and sustainable society, often taking the first slings and arrows of withering criticism that come our way whenever we meet with public resistance. While these social change leaders are not faint of heart, their calling and role can be a lonely one at times. To persevere effectively they need colleagues and community and a strong center of internal gravity, a strong inner beacon, including personal practices that help us learn to live and lead from within. Because these dedicated people are national treasures when it comes to much-needed social change and innovation, they are the primary focus of our leadership renewal programs.

In this age of disintegration, when so much is broken and in need of repair, our response at the Center for Regenerative Society is to contribute to,

“renewing the leaders restoring our world.”

We are here to sustain the sustainers, by supporting those who play such a significant role in the growing movement for spiritual, environmental, and community health and renewal.

The role of leaders shaping our institutions is pivotal. As one of our Advisors states,

“If we want our culture to change from unsustainable to sustainable, we have to work on ourselves and our institutions first, creating that worldview and [those values] that lie at the heart of sustainable systems. The self-cultivation that will ultimately transform the culture also results in a healthier environment and a just society.”

We might ask, how can an institution that is of this culture ever hope to transform it? Admittedly, if our institutions continue to cling to the same worldview and values that generated an unsustainable society, they are not likely to help generate a sustainable one. However, while institutions do shape us, we also shape them. We live through them, and all of them have, or should have, moral purposes.

With this in mind, the Center for Regenerative Society is not here to affirm American society as it is, but to transform it from the inside out, beginning with ourselves and the institutions through which we live. Check out our programs to see how!

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