The Foundation for Community Encouragement

FCE
PO Box 17210
Seattle, WA 98107-0910

Phone: (888) 784-9001 (toll-free)
Fax: (206) 784-9077
inquire@fce-community.org

The Foundation for Community Encouragement (FCE), a non-profit, educational foundation, teaches the principles and values of community to individuals, groups and organizations.

As a tax exempt, non-profit, national education foundation, FCE has grown dramatically since 1984. More than 375 workshops, conferences, seminars, and speaking engagements have been conducted for thousands of participants in the USA, Canada, the UK, and Australia. The focus of these events has been to teach groups how to achieve a sense of community or collective spirit and how, as a community, to identify a common purpose and accomplish agreed upon goals.

FCE has a national office in Seattle, Washington. Its business is directed by a volunteer Board, a full-time paid staff, volunteer corps for fund-raising and other FCE projects, and hundreds of associate members. FCE has 76 facilitators, professionals in a wide range of occupations, who live in many parts of the United States and Canada, and who have been trained to work with groups and lead the community building process. Facilitators and clients are carefully matched.

A community is a group of two or more people who have been able to accept and transcend their differences regardless of the diversity of their backgrounds (social, spiritual, educational, ethnic, economic, political, etc.). This enables them to communicate effectively and openly and to work together toward goals identified as being for their common good.

The word "community" is used in many different ways. It can refer to a specific group of people (a geographical community, a church congregation) or it can describe a quality of relationship based on certain values and principles. For example, many people are familiar with a unique phenomenon that frequently emerges between individuals during a crisis like a hurricane or flood. In such situations, people tend to drop their pretenses, overcome obstacles and reach out to help or emotionally support one another and, in the process, find surprising strength, tolerance and acceptance. FCE calls this phenomenon or collective spirit, that emerges during a crisis, community.

The formation of community is not an accident nor does it happen only in response to crisis. FCE has developed techniques, or a "technology" to intentionally assist groups in experiencing community. This technology is called Community Building. The Community Building model is experiential in nature because it is through the experience of community that its power can be more fully understood and appreciated.

Through this educational group process, the ways people communicate with one another can literally be transformed.

	[ Community Described ] [ History of FCE ] [ Mission Statement ] [ Programs & Services ] [ Back to the Top ] There is a yearning in the heart for peace. Because of the wounds - the rejections - we have received in past relationships, we are frightened by the risk of disarming ourselves. In our fear, we discount the dream of authentic community as merely visionary. But there are methods by which people can come back together, by which the old wounds are healed. It is the mission of FCE to teach these new and liberating traditions - to make hope real again - to make the vision actually manifest in a world which has almost forgotten the glory of what it means to be human.
	In Community Building, we can: learn the skills necessary for effective communication appreciate and respect differences revitalize to create new solutions locate resources and knowledge within the group overcome obstacles to working together effectively make remarkably effective consensual decisions accomplish specific tasks or goals experience personal and group empowerment

FCE consults with groups who want to use community as a tool to achieve specific goals, as well as groups who are dealing with social or organizational problems. Using the community building model, trained FCE facilitators assist groups to bring to consciousness knowledge and resources that they already have. Unlike other organizations who may offer solutions to problems, FCE's role is to facilitate groups as they discover solutions to their own problems.

The Foundation for Community Encouragement, Inc. (FCE) was founded by eleven individuals in December 1984 in response to a need for community as perceived by one of the founding members, Dr. M. Scott Peck, author of The Road Less Traveled, The Different Drum, and A World Waiting to Be Born. Lecturing throughout the country, Dr. Peck found vast numbers of people, organizations and institutions expressing concerns which were characterized by their longing for and lack of community.

[ More about M. Scott Peck ]

Public Workshops

FCE and FCE-trained leaders offer workshops and seminars throughout the USA and Canada year round. These are open to the public and focus on the experience of community.

Workshops for private groups

Workshops are custom designed for groups. These workshops run usually three to five days depending on the group's purpose and goals.

Consulting

FCE offers consulting services for organizations and other groups who want to explore the benefits of more authentic and respectful communication on an on-going basis.

Speakers and presenters

FCE offers speakers and presenters for meetings, conferences, and conventions. This can be an excellent way to introduce a group to the concept of community.

Conferences

Working with major organizations and leaders in the areas of education, business, religion, health care, community services, and government, FCE conducts major national conferences.

Meeting/Conference Management

FCE can assist your group in the presentation of a conference or meeting in the context of community.

LEP (Leadership Education Program)

An eight-day intensive program which teaches community based principles of leadership and facilitation.

CBSS (Community Building Skills Seminar)

The purpose of the Skills Seminar is to teach and reinforce community principles, behaviors and skills. Participants reflect on their individual and group process in terms of barriers to community. The experiential work is generally highly creative and provides practice in process and task assessment.

1. To discern distinctions in group dynamics in the various stages of community building.
2. To understand the four stages of the community building process.
3. To identify obstacles groups create to avoid emptiness and learn facilitative skills and options to address them.
4. To be able to assess the health of your community.

Pre-requisite: Community-Building Workshop attendance.