Strategy & mindful governance (2019–20)

Archival document. Extracted from the fund's internal Strategy and Plan (started December 2019). Three parts stand out for publication: the long-term aspiration, the governance design — which is where this fund was most unlike any other — and the concrete launch checklist. Part of the Fund Archive.

The 30-year aspiration

The plan named its deepest aspiration in concrete numbers:

Ten million people engaged with the work, directly or indirectly.
Three million people directly benefited by staying in spaces the fund supported.
Five hundred thousand people each year staying in fund-supported spaces and communities.
One hundred thousand community members in permanent residence at any given time.
At least €5bn in assets under management.

And more intrinsically: that living and working in wise, mindful community becomes readily available, easy to access, and environmentally, socially and financially sustainable — not something unusual, difficult and precarious — and that the very conversation about wiser, weller living is transformed by the existence of numerous concrete examples.

Mindful governance: the distinctive design

Most funds differentiate on strategy. This one differentiated on how it would be governed:

Practice requirements for leadership. All board and management members were required to have received the Five Mindfulness Trainings, to commit to the practice of Beginning Anew (regularly and when needed), and to undertake regular retreats — individually and, where possible, as an organisation.
Collective practices as governance infrastructure: practice-based meetings, Dharma sharing, Shining Light, collective retreats.
Consensus decision-making, underpinned by commitments to deep listening, loving speech, openness and non-attachment to views.
Deadlock resolution by mediation — whether by Plum Village monastics or a professional service.
Stewardship separated from asset ownership: investors own 100% of the assets via revenue shares; voting/management shares held 50/50 by the two founding parties (Life Itself and the partners' NPO), with key-person clauses so neither side could transfer control without the other's agreement.
Non-profit surplus allocation: a rainy-day pot, a development pot, and donations to aligned initiatives. Executive pay pegged below the sector median; a 1% management fee covering all costs, with surplus to worthy causes.

What it actually takes: the launch checklist

The December 2020 working list of "what we need to start receiving money" is a useful reality-check for anyone contemplating this path:

Legal entity + bank account (start with one director/shareholder on day one; add others after).
An agreed name (see the naming brainstorm — harder than it sounds).
Pitch deck in two versions: practitioner-facing and investor-facing.
One-pager, elevator-pitch script, website.
A full FAQ covering: dividend policy; share classes; anti-money-laundering; project assessment; per-project investment (with an internal-ledger allocation design and honest disclosure of its limits); share buy-backs and secondary sales; rent-free periods; what happens when a community struggles; market timing (refused on principle: "we're not market timing — a speculative activity").
Agreed processes for recruiting, rewarding unpaid founding effort, spending investors' money.
At least one concrete project assessed and ready to invest in before launch.
A "7 touches" plan — how you'll reach each prospective investor enough times before the raise.

The phased plan: I.A alignment + materials → I.B pledge drive (€1m pledged through direct conversations, iterating materials) → I.C legal setup, launch, €2m seed → Phase II growth toward REIT status and €50m AUM. The project reached mid-I.B — materials largely done, investor conversations underway — before capacity limits led to the pivot.

From the Fund Archive. Internal-only sections (founder alignment notes, HR drafts, role allocations) remain in the private archive.