An excerpt from “True Stories of an Aging Do-Gooder … How cohousing bridges cultural divides” by Alan O’Hashi There are a few terms that get tossed around when it comes to outreach to the broader public. “Publics” is a term I learned while a public relations intern during graduate school. A “public” is a group of individual people... Read More

Raines Cohen lives in Berkeley Cohousing in Berkeley, CA. He gives an overview about why give community open houses. He says there are a couple reasons, when a community has homes for sale or rent, open houses provide a way to give prospective cohousers a chance to “kick the tires.” He suggests taking plenty of...

In his recent WebChat Alan O’Hashi walked us through the process of telling your community story. He gave advice for how to craft your story, what needs to go in the “elevator speech” and some tips for managing social media. See the full webchat here.

WebChat #28 with Raines Cohen and Betsy Morris covered the topics of buying and selling homes in cohousing.  They looked at what you need to know, or find out, how to connect buyers with communities, and what questions both buyers and sellers should be asking each other.  How is buying and selling cohousing different than... Read More

Last week Shelly Parks presented an informative WebChat on hosting great marketing events.  As a key moment when new members are likely to engage with your forming community, it is essential to pay attention to the details and do these events well.  Shelly walks us through the elements of a great marketing event, from venue... Read More

There are certainly many substantive benefits of being an early investor and committed burning soul in the cohousing formative stages. The most important of these are having a strong Influence in the 1. decision making 2. site selection 3. design decisions 4. project budget 6. priority of choice in selecting a lot, site or unit... Read More

There’s a funny thing about cohousing. When you look at typical cohousing marketing, you see messages about what it is like to live in community: private homes, shared common space, know your neighbors. But when you ask people why they live in cohousing, the conversation goes someplace else: Cohousing supports democracy, it makes me a... Read More

“I don’t want to be a used car salesman.” This is the response I most often hear when I ask forming cohousing groups to describe their feelings around using sales techniques in their membership recruitment. And I get it. We tend to stereotype sales people as sleazy movie car salesman: they pounce aggressively and they... Read More

The six degrees of separation theory was first proposed in 1929 by the Hungarian writer Frigyes Karinthy in a short story called “Chains.” Six degrees of separation is the idea that all living things and everything else in the world are six or fewer steps away from each other so that a chain of “a... Read More