Integra Collective Seed Fund

May 2023 Update:

Hello! We are currently fundraising to offer free Integra Fest tickets to BIPOC community in our area. Specifically, we plan to offer free tickets to folks involved in two extraordinary organizations in the West Sonoma County area: The Cultural Conservancy and The Botanical Bus. Both organizations serve the Native and Latinx community with free food and health care. We are excited to partner with them for Integra Fest to make our event feel inclusive and accessible.

Read below for more information on where your Go Fund Me donations have gone thus far!

WHO WE ARE

 

Hello! We are the Integra Collective, an intergenerational network of social and ecological changemakers that hosts events and educational programs to regenerate the human-earth relationship.

 

Founded in July 2021, we have spent the last two years planning and hosting educational events, building a digital platform to connect likeminded individuals, and collaborating with small scale producers, artists, teachers and healers to weave a web of people and organizations creating more well human and Earth communities. As the Integra Collective, we are dedicated to the supporting the interconnected wellbeing of all beings and will offer our skills in service of that vision.

WHY INTEGRA?

To us, Integra means living in integrity with our values and supporting collective wellbeing. One of our favorite principles in Permaculture is “integrate rather than segregate”, an important reminder that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, and diversity is our greatest ally for resilience. In nature, the healthiest ecosystems are incredibly diverse, incorporating a wide array of interconnected species and elements.

Without diversity of thought, expression, identity, and knowledge, we are more susceptible to illness, injustice, and isolation. Thus, we strive to integrate a beautiful diversity of knowledge systems, communities, people, and ecosystems in our work.

 

YOUR DONATIONS HAVE SUPPORTED:

Your donations to our Gofundme this past year provided the rich compost for the seeds of our dream to actually GROW! Having some start-up money to purchase materials upfront, invest in website infrastructure, and subsidize attendances to our educational programs to make them more financially accessible really helped us get this Collective off the ground.

The money from our Gofundme this year helped:

✨Fund FOUR scholarships to our inaugural Integra Convergence at the permaculture education center Rancho Mastatal in Costa Rica, where we gathered 12 femmes to partake in a week full of programming geared towards nurturing a more regenerative relationship to the earth, our bodies, and each other.

Workshops included:

—The Fermentation Revolution: Capture and Preserve the Harvest

—Permaculture 101: Earth Care, People Care, Fair Share

—Ecological Justice and Just Transition

—Qi Gong: Rhythms of the Earth

—Plant Connection and Herbal Medicine Making with Kis Botanicals

—Regenerative Cacao Farming and Chocolate Tasting with La Iguana Chocolate

—Natural Building: The Art of the Earth

—Nonviolent Communication: Learn to Communicate Your Needs

—Future Crafting and Vision Boarding: Imagining a Regenerative Future

—Cyclical Living: Attune Yourself to Natural Cycles

—Sexi Dance with Sinead Corrigan of Inner Body Data

—Acroyoga and Vinyasa Yoga

It was an awe-inspiring week that affirmed the importance of this work, the beauty in sharing it, and our passion for facilitating it.

✨Launch our Integra Artisans program by enabling us to buy handmade products from artisanal, Indigenous-run small businesses in Mastatal (Kis Botanicals and La Iguana Chocolate) to resell in the States. This is just the start of our fledgling program to support small scale producers and artists through our platform.

✨Buy thrifted clothing pieces from Goodwill to screen print with our original art in collaboration with local Sonoma County based Erin Rose Prints to sell at Integra Fest 2022. This partnership to create upcycled merchandise felt like the true embodiment of Integra COLLECTIVE— uplifting other entrepreneurs and changemakers to make creative livelihoods from work that pioneers a new narrative around sustainability!

✨Buy materials to support Integra Fest upfront before ticket sales came in, such as outdoor lights, sound equipment rentals, and natural dye supplies to create a cozy space for an estimated 100 people to enjoy throughout the course of the day. In collaboration with over a dozen local artists, teachers, musicians, and healers, we facilitated a broad offering of workshops and movement classes relating to sustainability, holistic health, and eco-somatics.

✨Pay for our Squarespace domain and subscription for our beautiful website, which will grow to house even more free educational content and resources for people wanting to get involved in this world of regenerative community building. Check out our growing “Partnerships” page where we are listing some of the incredible organizations in our network with direct ways to get involved with their work.

✨And all the other little bits and pieces that having a seed fund helped buffer!

This work makes us so energized and optimistic about the future, and we plan on honing our business operations in 2023 to make Integra more financially supportive so that the four of us can keep committing to this vision. That being said, we would be so grateful for any amount you are able to give as we continue to learn how to start a social enterprise the good ol’ fashioned way— by jumping in and doing it!

I’m 2023, we plan on offering another weeklong Convergence and day-long Integra fest, plus new offerings like online classes and community calls. We are also offering consulting services in the fields of permaculture design, sustainable community building, nonviolent communication, and holistic health. We will continue to build out our Integra Artisans program and offer sustainably sourced products and original art for sale so that you can vote with your dollar to support a more beautiful future!

Sign up for our newsletter (in the footer of our website) to receive updates on our programs; nutrition, gardening, and herbalism tips; and opportunities from our partner organizations.

We are extremely grateful for your support as we create this organization and look forward to weaving this web with you. Please reach out if you are interested in supporting our vision or joining any of our programs!

 

With love,

 

Abbey, Bailey, Cam and Dewey