The Empowerment Manual

A Transition Town group involved in preparations for peak oil and climate change; an intentional community, founded with the highest ideals; a nonprofit dedicated to social change — millions of such voluntary groups exist around the world. These collaborative organizations have the unique potential to harness their members’ ideals, passions, skills, and knowledge — if they can succeed in getting along together.

The Empowerment Manual is a comprehensive guide for groups seeking to organize with shared power and bottom-up leadership to foster vision, trust, accountability and responsibility. This desperately needed toolkit provides keys to:

• understanding group dynamics
• facilitating communication and collective decision-making
• dealing effectively with difficult people.

Drawing on four decades of experience, Starhawk shows how collaborative groups can generate the cooperation, efficacy and commitment critical to success. Her extensive exploration of group process is woven together with the story of RootBound — a fictional ecovillage mired in conflict — and roundedout with a series of real-life case studies. The included exercises and facilitator’s toolbox show how to establish the necessary structures, ground rules and healthy norms. The Empowerment Manual is required reading for anyone who wants to help their group avoid disagreement and disillusionment and become a wellspring of creativity and innovation.