Back-to-School With Creative Financing
by Nancy Wood,
August 11, 2011, page 8.....

Misha Bailey has a clear vision of her future. She wants to help “the world create durable, effective and wise solutions for the problems of our time.” To achieve that vision, she is attending Vermont Law School’s Masters in Environmental Law and Policy program this fall in order to become an effective environmental facilitator.

Misha’s tuition and living expenses at Vermont Law School will be about $55,000. She received a merit scholarship of $15,000 in recognition of her commitment to public service over the past five years, and has received $12,000 in support from private donors Financing the remaining $28,000 was a hurdle.

Undaunted, Misha came up with a plan. She said, “I was looking for creative ways to finance my education, with community support and in a way that would share my excitement about this field and type of work.” She brainstormed with her partner, Jonathan Cardozo, and her parents, and they came up with an Internet fundraising idea. She wrote a proposal, they chose the domain name durablesolutions.org, and Jonathan put up the website. Misha also mailed her message to businesses, organizations and individuals who might be interested in supporting her.

In part, her message reads, “We are at an important point in history where working together successfully is more necessary than ever. The world’s environmental and social issues are now global, including climate change, nuclear waste, air, land and water pollution, and environmental justice issues.  Our best chance for crafting wise, sustainable solutions is through meaningful problem-solving and effective collaboration.”  Misha said, “My fundraising has been going well, as I’ve received generous support from a local philanthropist, and others I know.” However, she added, “One of the most important pieces for me in doing the creative fundraising project, was truly to share my enthusiasm with others, and let people know about this important work being done in the world. One of my favorite experiences so far was running into an acquaintance who had somehow seen my letter and was so excited and inspired from reading what I had written that he had already gone to the library to research it more, and bought a book to learn more. That meant so much to me because it shows that other people see the significance of learning how to function effectively in groups and the strength of decisions that come from skillfully held discussions. This is the direction the world needs to, and already is moving in, I believe.” 

Misha grew up in Sebastopol, California. She graduated from UC Berkeley with Honors in 2007, with an interdisciplinary B.S. in Community Empowerment, Soil Science and Ecology. Now 26 years old, she has lived at Ten Stones in Charlotte since 2009. She said, “Being part of intentional communities has definitely influenced my interest in process-design, facilitation and group decision making. I moved to Ten Stones with a lot of prior experience in cooperative groups and specifically wanted to live here because it is an intentional, cohousing community. I lived in a cooperative household (nine people) in Berkeley when I was in college and afterwards, lived for a few months in Findhorn (an intentional ecovillage community in Scotland), and was a central part of multiple cooperative student organizations in college. The cooperative student groups and household I lived in are where I began practicing facilitation, and got a felt sense for the ability of ‘group process’ to either make or break the success of the group.” 

While living in Charlotte, she has volunteered as an environmental facilitator and process-designer for the Lewis Creek Association. She said, “I connected with them at an invasive plant workshop in Hinesburg put on by The Nature Conservancy. This has been very rewarding and I’ve already learned so much! We are just in the middle of it, so it will continue for a few more months.” She has also practiced mediating at the Small Claims mediation program in Burlington. She said, “I’ve been coming to mediate there as much as possible since last Summer. That is so much fun, and such an educational opportunity. This has really given me great skills for helping people work through conflict, talk to each other, and come up with their own innovative solutions to their problems.”  Misha’s vision is of a “future where groups converge to solve crucial environmental and social problems using skillfully held collaborative processes.” She’s headed back-to-school with that goal in mind.