What if we had the tools, will, and vision needed to solve community problems instead of relying on money, governments, or institutions to fix them? Imagine how it might heal us, our relationships, and the earth. Imagine how it might feel.
The point of Visionary Organizing Lab's Community Self-Reliance (CSR) School is to develop skills and ways of being that allow us to solve community problems by creating self-reliant communities and repairing nature, ourselves, and our relationships. By building community self-reliance projects that meet real needs without relying on money or the larger economy, we can create these communities and grow into them. Think: thriving urban gardens, timebanks where skills are exchanged instead of dollars, Buy-Nothing groups, and neighborhood swaps. These aren't quick fixes, but stepping stones toward community thriving, resilience, sustainability, and an age of repair.
Classes are taught by Matt Birkhold and Angela Kim, and consist of a mixture of large and small group discussion, reflection on our own experiences, case studies of community self-reliance in practice, and imagining new possibilities together.
Dates and Times: Jan 19-March 16 | 6pm - 8pm EST
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18 CLASS HOURS TOTAL
Tuesday, January 19, 2026 | 6p - 8p ESTTuesday, January 26, 2026 | 6p - 8p EST
Tuesday, February 2, 2026 | 6p - 8p EST
Tuesday, February 9, 2026 | 6p - 8p EST
Tuesday, February 16, 2026 | 6p - 8p EST
Tuesday, February 23, 2026 | 6p - 8p EST
Tuesday, March 2, 2026 | 6p - 8p EST
Tuesday, March 9, 2026 | 6p - 8p EST
Tuesday, March 16, 2026 | 6p - 8p EST
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What You'll Learn: Participants who complete the program will leave with a concrete roadmap and the skills to start and/or expand their own projects, including:
Asset-mapping – The ability to identify how your already existing resources and relationships can contribute to a CSR project
Needs Assessment – The ability to identify what additional resources and relationships you need
Narrative Building – Tell stories that moves people to act
Strategic thinking – Envision and map out a CSR project from idea to launch
Systems thinking – See how the pieces connect
What You’ll Walk Away With: The CSR School is rooted in the six components of Visionary Organizing, a framework showing how small acts scale into transformative power. The program works on two levels at once: an inward shift in how you see yourself, your gifts, and this moment, and outward outcomes that help you build something real with, and for, your community. As a result of the program, participants will experience the following:
Inward shifts:
Have a tool to connect to their inner wisdom, and understand that amazing outcomes are possible when we follow it
Write their own systems autobiography and better understand their own gifts and skills
Be able to understand and explain why the world currently feels so chaotic
Have a better understanding of how their life is shaped by the economy and larger culture
Outward outcomes:
Develop a vision and plan for their own community self-reliance project
Be able to name examples of community self-reliant projects and how they meet community needs while depending less on money
Understand the difference between kinds of needs, and how cultivating interdependence can meet them all
Be able to define and explain why community self-reliance projects matter, and how they repair nature, communities, each other, and ourselves
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Module 1 - What is Community Self-Reliance? Why is Visionary Organizing Important to It
Module 2 - Imagining New Possibilities: Putting the Vision in Visionary Organizing
Module 3 - Affirming Dignity: Putting the Organizing in Visionary Organizing
Module 4 - What Do I Devote My Energy to? Connecting to and Trusting Your Inner Wisdom
Module 5 - Where's Our Power Come From? Recognizing and Nurturing Interdependence
Module 6 - How do We Do It?-Experimenting With Transformation?
Module 7 - An Age of Repair--Locating Ourselves in Systems and History
Module 8 - Creating an Age of Repair--Visions and Next Steps
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Matt Birkhold is a cultural worker whose facilitation and teaching practices aim to connect people to their creative capacity to understand and transform the world. He has facilitated project and organizational visioning, planning, execution, and culture building for CSR groups around the US, trained foundations how to fund CSR, is currently writing a book on CSR projects, When Things Stop Working, and has made multiple films on CSR projects. He is a sought after facilitator and groups and people he’s worked with have gone on to better understand their work, deepen it, and create dignity affirming cultures to support it. He lives in Baltimore with his partner of 14 years, loves house music, and has been involved in movements for over twenty years. He is the author of "Black Power Praxis: Theory, Practice, and Activist-Intellectuals in Detroit's Black Power Movement. He also has a PhD in historical sociology.
Angela Kim is a conflict and visionary organizing teacher and facilitator who centers the practices of emergence, transformation, and a life-affirming culture in their workshops. Angela has facilitated conflict transformation and envisioning workshops for communities, nonprofits, and schools where participants walk away feeling more skilled and empowered in bringing the concepts into their daily lives. In this course, Angela brings their facilitation experience as well as their lived experience in community self reliance projects including the communal house they live in and the community garden they tend to and the community building project they co-steward. Angela was born and raised in Brazil to Korean immigrant family and moved to Los Angeles in middle school. As a third culture kid, Angela was shaped by the meeting of various cultures displaced and enriched by these modern times we live in, while continuously reaching towards the ancestral practices and roots they come from.
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Q: Is financial assistance available?
A: Yes! We are committed to making this program as accessible as possible, and do not want cost to be the only thing standing in the way of participating. We have a limited amount of financial assistance available for participants who need support. To learn more or inquire about financial assistance, please email bookings@visionarylab.org.Q: Can I give this as a gift to someone else?
A: Absolutely! Once you order your ticket (after you enter your payment details), you will be able to include the name and email address of the person you wish to receive this gift. The recipient will receive an email notification upon completion of registration.
Q: I bought a ticket, but can no longer attend. Can I transfer my ticket to another person?
A: Yes, you can transfer the ticket to another person. Just email bookings@visionarylab.org with the information of the person you wish to transfer the ticket to, and we will update the information manually. -
Virtual via Zoom.
If you have any issues accessing the registration page, please click here or email bookings@visionarylab.org.