Around the globe, people are increasingly aware that the systems that are supposed to serve us are creating unacceptable negative consequences — like the systems around food, energy, healthcare, education, and criminal justice, for example — and that the root of the problems are in the systems, which are inadequate for 21st century realities. We are recognizing that we are fundamentally interdependent — that these large-scale problems cannot be solved by any individual or single entity, no matter how large or powerful. So, we are coming together, working in networks across boundaries and sectors, from the grassroots to the grasstops, challenging the old ways that excluded people from power, and aligning our strategies toward common goals. Our efforts require us to collaborate like never before, in non-hierarchical arenas where top-down decision-making does not work and attempts to do so makes things worse. Our biggest challenge is that we need to scale up the skill-sets and processes for collaborative governance, as quickly as possible, and in sufficient measure, to transform our cultural systems. Tracy Kunkler, Michelle Smith and John Buck created Circle Forward for the specific purpose of scaling up these skill-sets among the people doing the work of fundamental systems change. Circle Forward provides an accessible framework of essential principles and tools to address power dynamics, make decisions, and create adaptive strategies in complex and emergent conditions. We have designed our services so that you can tailor them to be useful for your particular governance context. Circle Forward is a system of collaborative governance, a brand, and a social enterprise that provides networks and organizations the tools and platform to leverage change in our systems at the deepest levels.
