Designing Systems for Resilient Communities

2013 Annual Report of the Donella Meadows Institute

Letter from the Board

Friends and colleagues of Donella Meadows, Please join with us in writing a new chapter of the story that Dana began telling forty years ago. The Sustainability Institute, now renamed the Donella Meadows Institute, has entered an era in which it makes two important commitments. The first of these is to secure Danas enormous legacy as an inspiring leader, scholar, writer, and teacher. The process of cataloging and archiving all of Danas writings and research began in 2011 under the dedicated leadership of the Institutes Interim Executive Director, Jeanne Bragdon. Today it continues through a collaboration with Dartmouth College, where Dana served as Professor of Environmental Studies and the Colleges first full-time tenured female faculty member. As her writings emerge from storage, the Institute is making them available on its website. Much work remains to be done. Our second commitment is to use northern New England as a learning laboratory where we can test and apply the tools and processes of systems thinking for moving the world closer to sustainability. In charting a new course for the Institute, the Board agreed that the New Economy and regional resilience movements were the ideal points of engagement for applying systems thinking to the challenges of sustainability. That work is now underway as we focus on Vermont as a model and build networks to help achieve collective impact. We are now seeing our efforts come to fruition. In October, we contributed to New Economy Week by coordinating the airing of commentaries on Vermont Public Radio and publishing Vermonts New Economy: A look at the New Economy by the numbers. Both of these efforts helped introduce a new type of economy to a wide audience of Vermonters, an economy that focuses first and foremost on peoples wellbeing and happiness. In addition, we brought Dana Meadowss thoughts to bear on the question of the commonalities among the multitude of economic experiments emerging in communities across the country: What constitutes a sustainable economy? It has been a great privilege to have helped prepare the way for the Institutes new era. All of us at the Donella Meadows Institute recognize that we have a central role to play in accelerating the shift to sustainability. Yours sincerely,

Bill Bittinger Former Chair

Wayne Barstad Chair

Financial Report
The 2012-2013 fiscal year marked the rebirth of our Institute as a learning lab and active community organization. As part of launching our Sustainable Economies Program and renewing our Donella Meadows Legacy work, we hired new staff, made significant updates to our website, and laid the foundations for grantwriting and fundraising to support our programs. Although the income we brought in from these fledgling programs was not enough to completely cover their start-up expenses, we are confident that our investment in these program and increased fundraising efforts will pay off in the near future. In fact, we welcomed fiscal year 2013-2014 with a $50,000 donation from a private foundation to support our Sustainable Economies work.

Our Sustainable Economies Program builds on success stories such as farmers markets to help promote similar models of vibrant local economy across other sectors like forest and agritourism.

Operating Income

Contributions . . . . . . . . $28,473 Contract Fees . . . . . . . . . 94,008 Royalties & Copyright . . . . 36,012 Speaking & Events . . . . . . . 8,670 Rental Income . . . . . . . . . 24,812 Endowment . . . . . . . . . .193,467 Total Income & Endowment Funding . . $385,442

Operating Expenses

Administration . . . . . . . $120,475 Programs . . . . . . . . . . . 114,371 Organizational Dev . . . . . . 17,086 Subcontracts . . . . . . . . . . 78,843 Rent & Other . . . . . . . . . . 50,508 Fundraising . . . . . . . . . . . 4,159 Total Operating Expenses . . . . . . . . . $385,442

A very heartfelt thank you to all of the individuals and organizations who helped make our many accomplishments possible this year! Your generous contributions allow us to carry forward Danas sustainability work.

Donella Meadows Legacy

One of our primary goals is to maintain Danas invaluable legacy by providing a comprehensive, free, and easily accessible archive of her work online. We also strive to keep her work alive and inspiring by developing resources that extend access to Danas ideas to an ever-larger audience and apply them to current issues.

Limits to Growth is now fully accessible online!

A real highlight for 2013 was working with the Dartmouth College Library to digitize the entirety of Danas groundbreaking 1972 study. The complete text and graphics are now available to read, search, and download online. Since the online version launched in June 2013, nearly 600 people have accessed this amazing resource.

I recently came across Dana's work during my research and it has been an inspiration, genuinely changing the way I view the research-implementation gap. Her nonexclusive style of writing is also so refreshing, something that I've always been an advocate of as a secondary school teacher. I simply wanted to share this with people involved in her legacy. I am thankful that she existed. Ben Palmer Fry Doctoral researcher, London

What can you find in our Donella Meadows Archive?

Articles and Papers:

32

Dear Folks Letters:

Global Citizens Columns: Quotations:

17

738

Videos:

167

Radio Interviews:

Help us add to our archive! Were always looking for stories, photos, and writings about Dana. How did Donella Meadows influence your life?

Sustainable Economies
Our Sustainable Economies Program focuses on accelerating the transition to an economy that serves our communities and preserves our natural assets. In Danas words, we aim to speak and act, loudly and with assurance, from the new paradigm. This new economic paradigm is embodied by socially responsible businesses, food and energy networks, local investment, and more. We provide a common narrative to these diverse initiatives, convene systems changers, and develop metrics to measure genuine progress. Highlights from this year include:

The New Economy in Vermont

We wrote Vermonts New Economy: A look at the New Economy by the numbers and distributed 600 copies during New Economy Week in October. The booklet shares stories and statistics about innovations shifting Vermont to new economic models. In addition, we collaborated with Vermont Public Radio and leaders of key Vermont organizations to produce and air a series of New Economy commentaries. They explored solutions for encouraging local food and energy systems, facilitating community wealth, and promoting and measuring wellbeing. Storytelling grounded in sound data will continue to be an important part of our work going forward.

Social Entrepreneurship Hothouse

Our workshop for social entrepreneurs emphasized embedding business into values and values into business. Each participant worked closely with visiting faculty to test their ideas and help their initiatives gain traction. They left with new strategies, articulated next steps, and peers with whom to continue collaborating. We see empowering networks of leaders as our next level of engagement for social change.

Vermonts New Economy Conference

In December 2012 we teamed up with Global Community Initiatives and the Public Banking Institute to put on Vermonts New Economy. The conference allowed participants to propose topics of their choice for discussion, including alternative measures of wellbeing, complementary currencies, and cooperative ownership models. It drew 110 people from across New England and resulted in a coalition of Vermonters dedicated to building a more inclusive and resilient economy.

Conference attendees discussing cooperative businesses as one potential engine for a local economy.

About Our Institute

Our Mission: to bring economic, social and environmental systems into closer harmony with the realities of a finite planet and a globally powerful human race by using the disciplines of systems thinking, system dynamics, and collaborative learning that were pioneered by our founder, Donella Meadows.
Its a big task, but as Dana herself said, we have exactly enough timestarting now. Help us continue to grow and fulfill our mission! Tell your friends about us and the work we do Join our online community through Facebook, Twitter, and our newsletter Consider making a financial gift to support our programs

Get in touch!

Donella Meadows Institute PO Box 1012 2 Beaver Meadow Rd Norwich, VT 05055

Phone: +1-802-649-7250 Web: www.donellameadows.org Email: info@donellameadows.org Twitter: @DanaMeadowsInst

Institute Staff:

Marta Ceroni, Sustainable Economies Director (above right) Becky Cook, Office Manager (center) Sarah Parkinson, Communications & Programs (left)

Board Members:

Wayne Barstad (Chair), Jay Bragdon (Treasurer), Erik Esselstyn (Secretary), William Bittinger, Gwendolyn Hallsmith, Hal Hamilton

November 2013