Hello to all who participated in the Sustainability Leadership Workshop!

I’m writing to share how far we’ve come on the eve of 2025 and the opportunity for our next big initiative: to create the online home for the alumni community, for online courses, and to draw the rest of the world into joyfully living sustainably.

So far we’ve cobbled together email, text, Zoom, WhatsApp, and more. Despite the hodgepodge, many of you have participated, some for years. I suspect you’d enjoy participating more if the interaction were more seamless and robust, and that more people would participate.

We’re about to do it. It will cost a bit. For participating early, when it was complicated, you’ll be a lifetime member, but I hope you’ll consider supporting the costs. I think you’ll love the results.

I’ll describe what we envision, but first, where we are, along with some pictures of some of your joyful sustainability activities.

Review

Do you all know Conrad Ruiz? He and I are longtime friends who talk sustainability and entrepreneurship. By 2022, I had incorporated the sustainability leadership technique that became the Spodek Method into NYU leadership classes I taught.

I shared an idea with Conrad: “What if we offered this technique to the public?” The doubts came immediately: Could we do it without institutional support? Could we attract participants? What if no one came. What if people quit after a session or two?

We went for it. We solved problems as they arose, continually improving. The team keeps growing. We’ve done seven cohorts with the eighth and ninth in January. More participants are becoming TAs and leading: Evelyn, Joshua M., Hayden, and Jim, with more coming.

Several results suggest we’re on track. Alumni refer friends, take the workshop a second time, and commit to bigger, more joyful life changes. Despite our rudimentary online structure, many of you participate in the alumni community. Nearly a quarter of you are taking the follow-up classes I offered in Initiative and Leadership.

We always envisioned an online platform to host the courses, alumni community, ask-me-anything videos, support groups, discussion forums, scheduling, tools for organizing, and more.

I’ve taught about 100 people the Spodek Method to date. I challenged myself and the growing team to consider reaching 1,000 in 2025, 10,000 in 2026, and 100,000 (maybe a million) in 2027. These bold numbers led to bold thinking. Now seems the time to create an online platform: the courses are mature, the book is out, and the New York Times devoted a two-page spread on the front page of the metro section to us (prompting coverage coming soon across the US and from Europe and Asia).

I had anticipated building and maintaining a platform would cost a lot of time and money. The tools I’d seen to host courses online didn’t support our courses’ interactivity and experiential learning model.

I’m writing today because it turns out such platforms already exist!

2025 Preview

Maybe you’ve participated in a community hosted by Circle, Mighty Networks, or their peers. I only recently learned of them, but found they offer nearly what we want. We’ve been testing them, speaking to the companies, and learning from other users.

Since so much of the world sees sustainability as burdensome, we will be the first to create a community of joyful sustainability. The employees and community builders at these places seem interested in taking our courses, joining our community, and contributing.

Still, we have to start. The platforms offer ranges of support levels and we’re working out which level of which platform serves us best, given our limited resources.

At the low end, we could choose their cheapest plan that meets our needs (about $100/month) and do everything ourselves. The low-end advantages: It costs less and we’ll learn the tools deeply through experience (ie, through making mistakes).

At the high end, their experts do everything for us, train us, and connect us with other community builders with millions of users (up to $thousands per month). The high-end advantages: speed, optimal use of their tools, reach.

We believe we’ll get more-than-usual bang for our buck with any provider because of our uniquely joyful results, the value we offer them, the personal interest we see in them, and from accounts from other users.

As a result, we believe starting at a $200–$300/month level for the first year would balance the advantages. It’s still a lot of money for us now, but we’d love to offer what it would enable:

• An alumni community in one place with videos, forums, follow-up courses, events, and more
• Courses with descriptions, forums, scheduling, office hours, etc all in one place
• Everything in one place, accessible by phone app
• Internally, we can focus on sustainability, leadership, and teaching, so we can improve those things faster

Please Support

The big value to you alumni is community. You all paid plenty to take the course. You were patient while we developed it. You’ll be made a lifetime member of the online community no matter what. I hope you’ll participate, help it grow, and benefit from it.

Am I right that you learned as much from each other as the exercises? … that you would come back more if it were easier and more comprehensive? I believe we can build a space you’ll love coming back to

• To learn from each other
• To share what you’ve learned and done
• To make living more sustainably feel like swimming downstream
• To help build more community
• To show off your latest feats
• To be inspired by theirs

We’ll also be able to attract more people into the workshops, growing more community. You will be part of the founding community, creating a legacy.

How Much? How Soon?

Since the platforms offer discounts for paying annually, we’d like to raise $4,500, ideally in time to enable hosting the cohorts starting January 7, which would mean signing soon.

You all have different abilities to support. Any amount will help, but I hope a few of you can come in for a couple thousand or more. We’re a 501c3, so donations are tax-deductible for Americans.

How to Donate

This is my first time soliciting donations for the nonprofit. Its formal name is “Leadership and the Environment Inc.” No obligation, but if you can support this initiative, here is the form to donate. It will give you a receipt for taxes. If you have any questions, please contact me.

Again, here is the form to donate.

Thank you,

Josh