I've had some experience with community and project building, and while I'm by no means an expert, here's some things I would want to see before embarking on a big project (e.g., retreat center) with a community: THREAD
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1. A sufficient number of agenty ppl. How many involved have that powerful spark of 'figure it out no matter what the cost', vs ppl who 'think the idea is cool and are down to help if you need it'?
The # of ppl you actually have for this project is the # of agenty ppl
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2. Some beta testing. Have the agenty ppl lived/worked together before? Has there been a successful previous project that they want to grow? Are they aware that they need beta testing, and is iterative, flexible growth baked into their plan? Idealistic visions need small steps.
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3. Some experience with nitty gritty. Are there sufficient ppl to cover the small, annoying parts? Someone who can handle spending hours on the phone with bureaucracy? Ppl willing to build in a hot sun, or do repetitive tasks?
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4. A deep, painfully earned understanding of how important admissions and filtering people are, a really good ability to suss out future-problem people early on. If 'inclusion' is a primary cry of this community, that's a real bad sign.
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5. A good business sense! Projects don't just fund themselves. Is there a clear way to generate new income? Did you work out the numbers?
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6. Good conflict resolution skills among the team, ideally already set into practice. If the members of the team have *already* had disagreements or fights and are still working well together despite this, this is an awesome sign. Being roommates is good experience!
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8. An focus on how to build a culture with rituals or norms that will help welcome new members. A group can easily fuse and solidify in a way that's hard for new penetration later on, which can result in slow death. You need a robust welcoming strategy.
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