Projects
Regeneration Centers
Purpose: Regeneration Centers are community-owned hubs built inside vacant malls, civic buildings, and underutilized sites to create shared economic infrastructure, dignified work, and place-based resilience. They act as launchpads for regenerative businesses, civic learning, and clean energy.
Stage: Build & Execute
Regeneration Centers are our flagship initiative—transforming underutilized spaces like abandoned malls or civic buildings into cooperatively governed ecosystems that generate revenue, train future leaders, and restore local resilience.
After years of planning, modeling, and civic engagement, we’re now entering the Build & Execute phase. That means locking in land use agreements, finalizing the waste-to-energy partnership, onboarding stakeholders, and laying the foundation for our pilot Center.
This isn’t a blueprint we drop from above—it’s a collaborative build. We’re embedding systems for governance, circular economics, and education that communities will ultimately run themselves.
What’s Next (Regeneratively):
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Secure an aligned site: The priority is not just land—it’s a location with civic will, community readiness, and cross-sector partners who understand the model.
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Activate local ecosystem engagement: Begin relationship-building with city/county actors who can shape permitting, land use, and grant alignment.
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Refine adaptive phasing: Adjust sequencing to allow for early activation (education, advisory board, marketing incubator) even without WTE infrastructure in place.
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Signal early co-stewardship: Invite prospective Groundkeepers and local organizations into orientation dialogues to shape their role in the build.
Regenerative Modeling Platform (AI-Powered Planning Tool)
Purpose: This tool is designed to help planners, communities, and policymakers model regenerative systems—combining spatial data, resource mapping, and equity logic to guide implementation strategy.
Stage: Plan & Design
The Regenerative Modeling Platform is our original AI initiative—built to help communities, planners, and policymakers simulate regenerative systems before breaking ground. It combines spatial data, policy layers, resource availability, and economic flows to model place-based interventions.
We’ve completed the core architecture and mapped essential inputs across waste, energy, education, and land use. But due to resource prioritization, the platform is currently paused mid-design while we focus on live implementation projects.
Still, the need is clear: communities lack planning tools that align regeneration with local realities. When revived, this platform will serve as a decision-making engine for site selection, incentive alignment, and adaptive reuse strategies. We’ll combine Regeneration Center IoT data with geo-spetial data to support real-world modeling scenarios (natural disaster response, population migrations, post-war recovery, etc…).
This project is paused, but its scaffolding remains ready to serve.
What’s Next (Regeneratively):
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Reconnect with civic-use cases: Determine who the platform actually serves (e.g., counties managing landfill data, nonprofits prioritizing grants).
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Match tool to a living project: Rather than building it generically, pair it with a current Regeneration Center or stakeholder need.
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Secure co-design allies: Identify 2–3 orgs willing to shape use cases and data types
Employee-Owned (EO) Co-op Exit Strategy
Purpose: This strategy helps retiring business owners convert their companies into employee-owned cooperatives—preserving jobs, redistributing wealth, and keeping essential services local.
Stage: Test & Validate
There’s a Silver Tsunami of Baby Boomers retiring from their service businesses, which are unable to find viable buyers or operators. When there is no viable buyer, these successful businesses will often dissolve or be acquired by corporations.
The EO Co-op Exit Strategy supports business brokers, owners, and frontline teams in transitioning small service businesses—like HVAC, moving, or trades—into employee-owned cooperatives. It’s a replicable model designed to preserve legacy, redistribute equity, and embed long-term resilience in local economies.
We’ve completed the model architecture, onboarding pathways, governance templates, and marketing funnel design. We’re now entering the Test & Validate phase, running early pilot engagements with brokers and business owners to refine the messaging, timing, and support layers.
Unlike abstract co-op toolkits, this model is field-tested in live exit scenarios and supported by coaching, policy navigation, and post-transition support. The long-term goal is to link these virtual transitions into Regeneration Centers as place-based anchors.
What’s Next (Regeneratively):
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Close a full pilot: Walk one business fully through the transition with cooperative governance, financial model, and cultural handoff.
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Clarify post-transition support: Map how Mindful Living’s role steps down over time—what do EO businesses need at 3, 6, and 12 months?
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Document values-fit assessment: Identify the traits that make a business a regenerative-fit for this transition path (vs. a poor candidate).
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Develop peer validation: Begin forming a small peer circle of exited founders to shape what “success” looks like from their POV.
Mindful Living Community Co-op (Post-Transition Support Platform)
Purpose: This is a long-term mutual aid system for cooperative businesses and mission-aligned ventures to access mentorship, shared staffing, and back-office support post EO Co-op Transition.
Stage: Plan & Design
The Mindful Living Community Co-op is our long-term vision for what happens after a successful regenerative transition. It’s a shared infrastructure for cooperative businesses and mission-aligned ventures to access mentorship, education, shared staffing, ED pathways, and back-office support—without giving up autonomy or equity.
This platform is designed to support new leaders in co-ops and regenerative enterprises as they grow into their roles, navigate real-world challenges, and avoid burnout. It also creates pathways for apprenticeships, sponsorships, and career mobility within a network of values-aligned businesses.
We’re currently in the Plan & Design stage—mapping core offerings, testing feasibility with partners, and aligning it with the governance and fiscal models of the Regeneration Centers. Once launched, this co-op will act as a mutual aid system for builders, not a top-down manager.
What’s Next (Regeneratively):
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Clarify membership roles: Define how former founders, current employees, educators, and apprentices engage as co-stewards.
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Identify pilot learning pathways: Which regenerative skills will be taught first (e.g., governance, land use, marketing co-ops)?
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Test mutual aid layer: Prototype how surplus time, funds, or services flow between businesses and learners across the co-op.
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Design decay and renewal cycle: Ensure the platform knows when to step back, re-seed, or refresh participation.
Regenerative Agriculture Transition Co-op
Purpose: This co-op is designed to help traditional farmers make the transition to regenerative agriculture by connecting them with experienced regenerative producers, peer mentorship, pooled tools and infrastructure, and direct access to grants—delivered through a support network led by the regen ag community itself.
Stage: Listen & Understand
The Regenerative Agriculture Transition Co-op is not a consultancy or certification body—it’s a peer-led, place-based infrastructure that helps working farmers shift to regenerative practices on their own terms. It provides hands-on support, shared knowledge, pooled resources, and funding pathways to make the transition achievable and resilient.
We’re currently in the Listen & Understand phase, engaging with regenerative farmers, rural leaders, and co-ops to ensure this model addresses real-world gaps. That includes identifying missing support systems, validating funding mechanisms, and co-developing governance with those most affected by the transition.
This isn’t a theoretical concept—it’s a practical framework for transitioning operations and restoring land health. By grounding this work in real needs, we aim to build a lasting system that supports farmer wellbeing, ecological repair, and long-term rural resilience.
What’s Next (Regeneratively):
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Map existing trust networks: Who do these farmers already rely on? What support structures already work? Build from that.
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Prototype peer pods: Start testing small “regeneration pods” of 3–5 farmers who co-support each other on new practices.
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Reframe funding pitch: Position funding around transition infrastructure (shared tools, advisors, timebanking), not external consulting.
