Village Life and the Nonprofit

Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage is a complex creature. The number of subcommunities, co-ops, committees, organizations, and acronyms that one must be acquainted with to fully grasp the ins and outs of life at DR is enough to make any Rabbit's head spin. This is not entirely by accident; from the beginning DR was intended to be a “community of communities,” creating the container (a village in this case) to allow for a diversity of passions and approaches to sustainable living to be explored and realized.

One of the heads of this hydra is the Center for Sustainable and Cooperative Culture (CSCC), a nonprofit organization whose mission is to grow and strengthen the community of Dancing Rabbit, and provide sustainable living resources and education to the wider world. This is all done with the broader goal of sparking societal transformation towards community-centered resiliency, and harmony with natural systems. 

In pursuit of these goals, we’ve engaged in a variety of programs, projects, and pursuits throughout the years. In next week’s post I’ll cover specific developments and accomplishments in 2025, both from CSCC and the village. However, this week I thought it would be interesting to examine some of the ways in which the nonprofit impacts daily life and sentiment in the village.

First though, I want to put on your radar that we’ve just begun our End of Year Fundraiser. This year, thanks to the Hothem Family, we’ve got an ambitious matching target of $20,000! Every dollar up to this target will be fully matched! 

Support the transformation to a community-centered, resilient future!

To help understand the impact of CSCC on daily life here, I broke it down into three main categories: work/life integration, community empowerment, and institutional robustness. 

Work/Life Integration 

Working for the nonprofit has given me, and many others, a job that is rich in meaning. Not only do I get to live in an ecovillage, but through my work, I get to work towards bringing into being that better world that we’re all here living. It’s also the number one employer in the village. Between the office staff, Mercantile staff, and program staff (cooks, workshop leaders, childcare, etc.) there are lots of opportunities for new people to plug in, as well as stable (though part-time) employment for long-term villagers. 

This year’s Natural Building workshop led, in part, by Mae (also CSCC’s correspondent, and all star member of the Dairy Co-op).

Navigating paid versus unpaid labor in the village can be tricky. The culture we are creating seeks to value all types of labor, moving away from transactional labor towards reciprocity, gift giving, and doing what needs to be done based on your ability and interest, and trusting that others will do the same. That said, Rabbits still need money, though admittedly, a heck of a lot less. The nonprofit provides wage labor that allows Rabbits to engage in values-aligned work while remaining in the village. Having stable income allows villagers to engage in more unpaid work which contributes to building community and fulfilling their passions.   

Community Empowerment

There are many ways in which CSCC helps to make the visions and dreams of Dancing Rabbit members a reality. The visitor programs we run are, far and away, the main avenue by which new residents land at DR, contributing to the growth and influence of our village. In the last few years, our internal grant program has provided tangible support to a number of transformative projects (more on that next week). I feel that this is creating a shift towards an empowerment mindset at DR: if you can dream it (and it aligns with the overarching vision for the community), you can do it!

Apple preparing to apply a new covering on Dan’s old Hoophouse. Funded by CSCC’s Resilient Systems grant.

CSCC itself is remarkably nonhierarchical. We operate within Holocracy, a decentralized structure in which power is distributed across roles and teams. At our bi-weekly staff meetings it really feels like we’re all players on the same team, each with a high degree of autonomy in their role. Anyone can propose new policies, projects, programs and strategies to the group and be sure that their ideas are considered as carefully as anyone else's.

Institutional Robustness

One of the things which has contributed to DR’s success is the health of various institutions within the village. CSCC is a key institution here, originally conceived as the outreach and educational wing of the village. It now also provides tangible support to projects on the ground at DR. It has enabled us to welcome researchers and documentary filmmakers into our community to elevate the understanding of what it is we’re doing. Finally, it allows us to be in conversation with a knowledgeable and engaged Board of Directors, consistently bringing in outside perspectives and expertise, holding us accountable to our mission, and ensuring that we balance ambition and impact with fiscal responsibility.

This year’s “on farm” board retreat.

Over the years, many Rabbits have worked hard to help CSCC become a stable and effective nonprofit. This success has allowed us to take on big, impactful projects, like the purchase and operation of the Milkweed Mercantile Inn. This was a risky (though measured) decision, but the success of the Mercantile was deemed essential for the health of the village, and the nonprofit the best suited entity to take it on. Even though we expected to run the Mercantile at a loss for the first few years, the mission alignment was high enough that we chose to move forward. It has been well worth it! The Mercantile is once again a bustling hub of community operations and the perfect place to welcome guests interested in sustainable living, and we’re already (about) breaking even!

There’s always more to say, but at the end of the day, CSCC is key to our mission to realize the dream of Dancing Rabbit. To those on the outside, it’s how you interact with DR: through our visitor programs, research papers, documentaries, or a stay at the Mercantile. To us, it’s how we grow our village, an opportunity for values-aligned employment, and a mechanism for supporting transformative projects. For all of us, it’s a bridge between your world and ours, and both our worlds and the future.

Next week, we’ll look at some of the big happenings from 2025. If you’d like to support us in our work, donate now to double your impact.

In community,

Eric Mease

Villager // Land Steward // Development Lead

Center for Sustainable and Cooperative Culture at