How realife works
Why do it differently
How realife works is inseparable from what it argues for: the structure, the decisions and the way people are held are the values made operational. We haven't got it perfect - but we are willing to ask a lot of difficult questions, try new ways of working and share how it is going.
Small organisations tend to fall into a trap: everything ends up resting on one or two people, knowledge concentrates, bottlenecks occur, and hierarchy emerges from who happens to know what. realife is built to fight against that. Work moves through four operational circles, each with two coordinators who rotate annually, so that responsibility and knowledge are distributed across the collective rather than settling in any one person. Associates join these circles as well as work on external projects
The four circles
Partnerships and Associates holds external relationships, coordinates the associate community, identifies opportunities, and carries delivery responsibility for partnerships and consultancies.
Learning and Storytelling holds internal learning, shares stories of what is happening, coordinates reporting, and is where realife's evaluation practice is held and applied across the work.
Strategy and Care runs strategic reviews and planning, develops the care mechanisms the collective is building, and holds realife accountable to its values. Pairing strategy and care is deliberate: care shapes strategy and strategy resources care.
Operations and Finance manages budget, forecasting, contracts, payments, compliance and systems. It surfaces the financial and capacity realities the other circles need, so planning, partnership and learning happen with what is actually available made visible.
How decisions get made
Decisions on strategy, partnerships and the use of money are made by consensus, or by consent when consensus is not reached. The circles run the day-to-day within that. Coordinators rotate each year, so that no one holds the same accountability, or the same knowledge, indefinitely.
How people are held
The intentional community, and embedded associates, work at an equal flat rate across everything they do. Work undertaken includes external project and consultancy work and the work of holding the collective. realife cannot argue for fair compensation across the sector while reproducing wage hierarchies inside itself. More about the people →
How the work grows
realife does not grow by doing more itself. It grows by collectively building capacity with partner organisations, movements and networks within the landscapes we work in. This is why the realife collective stays deliberately small, and why partnership, rather than expansion, is the model. More about partnership →