Governance for Healthy Communities
4-Week Online Course | Starts May 6, 2025
Learn how to get your communities’ needs met through governance systems that skillfully direct energy and resources toward fulfilling the community’s mission in the Governance for Healthy Communities course with Yana Ludwig.
Course fee: $80-$160 USD
Individual class fee: $20-$50 USD
On this page:
Governance for Healthy Communities Course: May 2025
Classes in this course are suitable for:
Community Newcomers | 
Community Starters | 
Community Residents
Course description and syllabus
Governance is essentially about how we get our needs met – or don’t. Strong governance aligns energy around a mission, clearly defines who we are as a group, and directs attention and resources toward fulfilling those needs and the community’s mission.
A comprehensive community governance system will answer 4 core questions.
Collectively, how do we:
- make decisions
- self-regulate/resolve tensions
- make meaning
- care for one another’s needs at a level that is mission-appropriate
Community conversations are made complicated by the mix of social, economic and ecological considerations that living together on a piece of property entails and by the need to balance individual rights and responsibilities with the collective mission fulfillment. In the Governance for Healthy Communities course, instructor Yana Ludwig will untangle the pieces that make such conversations hard and give guidance on how to make clearer decisions.
This course will feature a mix of presentation, conversation, small groups, exercises and Q&A to help us explore what direct democracy means at the community scale.
Classes and topics in the [course title] syllabus include:
Individual classes starting at US $20
May 6: What is Good Governance?
- Community as a practice of Direct Democracy
- It’s about meeting people’s needs
- It’s more than just our decision-making method
- Why are we here? And other primal questions
May 13: Hierarchy Lite and Other Structures
- Deliberate culture and deliberate structure
- Inclusion and Justice and Balancing Power
- Consensus, vote or rule
- What is happening and what we think is happening
May 20: Meeting Community and Individual Needs
- Balancing Rights and responsibilities
- Why unaddressed privilege muddies the waters
- Six questions to clarify the boundaries
May 27: Bringing the Elements of Governance Together
- Making decisions
- Self-regulating/resolving tensions
- Making meaning
- Caring for one another’s needs at a level that is mission-appropriate
- Integrating your main elements into a coherent system
All Governance for Healthy Community course classes are held on Tuesdays from 8-9:30am Pacific / 9-10:30am Mountain / 10-11:30am Central/ 11-12:30pm Eastern. You can view your local time here.
June 3:Q&A Session
- Ask any additional questions
- Get personalized help
- Networking
The Q&A session is optional and will take place from 8-9am Pacific / 9-10am Mountain / 10-11am Central/ 11-12pm Eastern. You must register for the full course to attend the Q&A session. The Q&A session will NOT be recorded.
Your instructor
Yana Ludwig
Yana served on the Board of Directors of the Foundation for Intentional Community for over a decade. She lived in community for 26 years and has been both a founder and a joiner: all of her work is grounded in deep community experience. Her writing includes The Cooperative Culture Handbook (co-authored with Karen Gimnig) focuses on articulating a vision and practical pathway for intentional culture building; and many articles in Communities magazine. Her new book, Building Belonging: Your Guide to Starting a Residential Intentional Community, was released in May 2023.
Yana is the former Executive Director of the Center for Sustainable and Cooperative Culture at Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage and North Coast Food Web. Taking the lessons of community into the nonprofit and worker co-op sectors is one of her passions. Yana is a dynamic, compassionate and thoughtful speaker, writer and teacher, committed to creating a more just and resilient world.
Learn more about Yana here.
Testimonials
Registration
You might also be interested in:
- The Cooperative Culture Handbook (book)
- Power & Leadership in Community (10-hour pre-recorded course)
- Best of Communities III: Leadership, Power & Membership (book)
- Working with Conflict in Community (10-hour pre-recorded course)
The elements of an online course
Online learning platform
Once you register, you’ll get access to our learning area that includes:
- class video recordings, audio files, and transcripts for learning on the go
- interactive presentations
- recommended books with access to course participant discount
- class slides and other course materials
Live interactive sessions
Each week you join a ~2-hour live class with the course instructor, where you learn in a group setting with:
- the opportunity for questions and answers, and personalized support
- break out sessions
- group discussions
Classes are recorded if you miss one, and you will have 30 days after the last class to view recordings.
Journey with a cohort
You’ll join participants from around the world how, like you, want to learn how to be better communitarians. Benefits include:
- opportunities to connect with like-minded people
- opportunities to share ideas and stories
- a network of support to carry your community project forward
