#302 'Building Community By Design', Simone Woodland, Co-founder, Circle Living

And what's been the impact on your children, like in your family, like living in a circle living way?

So as my blood family is all on the other side of the world, it's really beautiful that my children have, you know, aunties, uncles and grandparents that they have that kind of relationship with that people go really out of their way to support and help them.

My partner had taken my children away for a couple of days and I was supposed to drive to Nelson, which is an hour and a half drive over a mountain, to pick them up.

And that morning I got vertigo, so I couldn't drive.

So I just phoned one of my neighbors and he said, sure, I'll just go now.

And he just jumped in my car and drove for an hour and a half to pick up my children and come back, you know, like...

It's the kind of thing you don't think you can ask your neighbors to do unless you live in this really connected way where, you know, essentially he's their uncle.

Of course he'll do it.

It wasn't expected from me, but it was given very generously to say yes, of course.

And if he wasn't able to, I have another 30 households of people to phone to say, can somebody help me with this? Because I, you know, me and my partner can't both do this, but we still need this to happen.

Yeah.

what's also wonderful is that one of my other is a paramedic and came and sorted out my vertigo for me the benefits of living in community are vast and unknown and always surprising and yeah

Because I think the power of reciprocity is huge, right? And if you live in a very connected way with other people, so you would have given free sugar, you would have looked out for some of those people that helped you in return.

Like there's all that interconnection leads to reciprocity and then people just do stuff for people, right? And they're really happy to do it for them.

Yeah, absolutely.

And like learning, like the feeling that you get from giving as well, like the joy, like people, we've actually had to train a lot of our community to ask for things that they need because people feel like, oh, I shouldn't ask, you know, and it's like, actually think about the joy that you get when you give something to somebody and you do something for someone, uh, without expecting something in return.

And like your ask for help is giving somebody the opportunity to step in and have that joy.

and that feeling of, you know, I helped somebody.

So yeah, I think we're just not good at asking for help, but it's actually great when you do.

And you've moved on to other developments, and there's an element of fundraising to do.

It's a commercial transaction with the participants in the community and then in the house, but you're also looking for philanthropic money as well.

Tell us a bit about why you need the philanthropic money, because I'm getting and seeding these projects, these constructions, and then getting up to scale is going to be the challenge of it.

Yeah, so our aim is to get impact investment to help us secure land.

We either do that through loans or coming together for a joint project venture, or we ask the landlord to go for a deferred settlement.

So we work with impact investors or landowners to really secure that first part of the equity that we need before the bank will set.

And what's been the impact on your children, like in your family, like living in a circle living way?

So as my blood family is all on the other side of the world, it's really beautiful that my children have, you know, aunties, uncles and grandparents that they have that kind of relationship with that people go really out of their way to support and help them.

My partner had taken my children away for a couple of days and I was supposed to drive to Nelson, which is an hour and a half drive over a mountain, to pick them up.

And that morning I got vertigo, so I couldn't drive.

So I just phoned one of my neighbors and he said, sure, I'll just go now.

And he just jumped in my car and drove for an hour and a half to pick up my children and come back, you know, like...

It's the kind of thing you don't think you can ask your neighbors to do unless you live in this really connected way where, you know, essentially he's their uncle.

Of course he'll do it.

It wasn't expected from me, but it was given very generously to say yes, of course.

And if he wasn't able to, I have another 30 households of people to phone to say, can somebody help me with this? Because I, you know, me and my partner can't both do this, but we still need this to happen.

Yeah.

what's also wonderful is that one of my other is a paramedic and came and sorted out my vertigo for me the benefits of living in community are vast and unknown and always surprising and yeah

Because I think the power of reciprocity is huge, right? And if you live in a very connected way with other people, so you would have given free sugar, you would have looked out for some of those people that helped you in return.

Like there's all that interconnection leads to reciprocity and then people just do stuff for people, right? And they're really happy to do it for them.

Yeah, absolutely.

And like learning, like the feeling that you get from giving as well, like the joy, like people, we've actually had to train a lot of our community to ask for things that they need because people feel like, oh, I shouldn't ask, you know, and it's like, actually think about the joy that you get when you give something to somebody and you do something for someone, uh, without expecting something in return.

And like your ask for help is giving somebody the opportunity to step in and have that joy.

and that feeling of, you know, I helped somebody.

So yeah, I think we're just not good at asking for help, but it's actually great when you do.

And you've moved on to other developments, and there's an element of fundraising to do.

It's a commercial transaction with the participants in the community and then in the house, but you're also looking for philanthropic money as well.

Tell us a bit about why you need the philanthropic money, because I'm getting and seeding these projects, these constructions, and then getting up to scale is going to be the challenge of it.

Yeah, so our aim is to get impact investment to help us secure land.

We either do that through loans or coming together for a joint project venture, or we ask the landlord to go for a deferred settlement.

So we work with impact investors or landowners to really secure that first part of the equity that we need before the bank will set.