A slow sunset for CoDesignCo
I’ve made a really tough decision. We’re winding down the Community of Practice I've worked so hard to build. It’s a slow sunset, giving us time to close well and honour members’ commitments to this community.
The current model of CoDesignCo is coming to an end in June 2024.
Despite many members appreciating this unique and vibrant community, it’s not a viable venture.
Endings can be messy, abrupt and anticlimactic. If instead they are designed well, they can be incredibly meaningful. Still hard. But an inevitable part of life.
I’m choosing not to dwell in feelings of guilt, failure or shame. I’m exercising the muscles built in my former ‘Fail Club’ and following the wisdom of Stewarding Loss, who encourage us to get better at letting go, when it is time to do so:
Acknowledge that endings, as with beginnings, are part of the inevitable cycle of renewal for people and organisations engaged in change work
from shame, guilt and other unhelpful emotions we hold around endings and decline
to conviction around the power of better endings to create sustaining legacies and create space for new work that stands on the shoulders of those who’ve come before
This is an updated version of a blog I wrote for members in early November, that included some more specific details relevant to them (if that’s you, check it out on the CoDesignCo Hub on Notion).
This post shares why this decision was made and what might come next.
I also aim to start the composting process, releasing nutrients from this beautiful and challenging experiment into the broader ecosystem. Rather than trying to keep one weak little fledgling alive at all costs, I’d like to offer some bits and pieces that could be weaved into other nests, to be nurtured for the next set of eggs (thanks to Trae Ashlie-Garen for this apt metaphor).
From start to finish - with key figures along the way
From the time we started creating CoDesignCo in 2021, Marina Moreno and I were excited to establish a community of ‘allies and misfits’ (to borrow member Kim Shore’s words), committed to deepening their practice and evolving their understanding of co-design. After our successful launch in March 2022, we endeavoured to build ‘the foundations of flow and flourishing’ to run this community of practice.
People smiling and waving on Zoom tiles. CoDesignCo Welcome Event, May 2022.
Unfortunately, we did not entirely succeed. Despite my determination and full awareness of the need for this to become a viable business model, the current membership set-up isn’t sustainable. Revenue doesn’t cover costs — if you include any of my time. I've tried all I can to make this work: raised prices, streamlined systems, reshaped the one paid role, invested in marketing and business mentoring, established volunteer roles, and subsidised all of this through client work (for two years now).
It’s not that people don’t want what we’re offering. With minimal marketing and a very niche focus, we reached 100 members within our first six months. Membership has remained steady at around 120-130 members for most of this year.
Over a third of our Kea members signed up for an exclusive and important event on Practice Development and Support in September. Around the same time, more than 500 people attended workshops and talks on the Doing Design Differently Tour, which CoDesignCo presented with George Aye of Greater Good Studio (USA) in Australia and Aotearoa.
Frame from Miro Board for CoDesignCo event on Practice Development and Support, September 2023. An illustration by KA McKercher shows two hands holding a map with islands entitled peer mentoring/supervision, coaching, supervision and mentoring.
That’s a good number of people committed to co-creating compassionate systems. I never wanted this to become a huge, impersonal network of strangers.
Many people have told me how much they appreciate being part of this community. Recent member feedback has been overwhelmingly positive, highlighting the variety of relevant, high-quality events we offer across different time zones and our huge range of accessible resources.
We’ve heard, about our resource hub, for instance:
Lots of great material, that's well organised and easy to access.
A recent event participant shared:
A powerful takeaway was the value of a critical community of practice. There were many moments in the room that I sensed the agential value people felt for the space Emma has created for practitioners to learn together.
Even more recently, I got this lovely feedback on the member-only version of this blog:
I'm so incredibly grateful for the dedication, commitment, time, learning and vision you've brought to this community which will live on, just in different ways. I also wish to thank you for your honesty, vulnerability and leadership in sharing the news with the community, it truly embodied the essence of why I love CoDesignCo so much.
We've had some trouble satisfying members on our lower-tier Galah plan, who seem to expect the higher-tier Kea benefits … without paying extra for them. I'd been working on improvements to the model to address these mismatched expectations.
In recent months I sketched out two different options with significant changes we could make to the membership model. But when it came to the numbers, they just didn't add up.
I won’t bore you by recounting all the hours I’ve lost trying to resolve issues with online payment systems (I’m counting down the days until MemberSpace stops stealing fees from me, even though I’ve painstakingly moved every member off that platform) or exactly how little money is left once hard costs are paid. In short, I’ve donated a lot of time to this venture.
Bigger issues of communities in capitalism
The niggles I experience represent broader issues in advanced capitalism. There are inherent tensions in a user-pays model that depends on profit-driven technology companies, when we should really be creating a community and resources in the commons. It’s hard for members not to behave like consumers and treat me as a commercial service provider when I’m charging them to be part of the community.
I’ve shared previously that many members struggle to find the time to take part in activities they’ve asked for. People working in social design are all too often stretched, stressed and exhausted.
Fabian Pfortmüller summed the issues up so well in their very recent post that asked:
How do we weave thriving communities when everyone is stretched thin?
Describing “the non-stop hustle of late-stage capitalism” and the urgency felt in this era of “poly crisis”, Pfortmüller observes how we keep joining groups that we have no capacity to stay connected with, let alone meaningfully contribute to.
CoDesignCo doesn’t exist only to make money - I really believe what we say in our manifesto - but I can't run it if I’m not paid to do so. I work independently, with no salary or government benefits. Any time I spend working on this community of practice is time away from the clients and participants who provide my income; not to mention my personal relationships and health that suffer when I work overly long hours.
I’ve realised that this particular model doesn’t work for a sole trader. If only I hadn’t got so excited about the possibility of making this a profitable product after reading Company of One!
If this Community of Practice was going to continue in any viable and sustainable way, it would require philanthropic funding and/or an established organisation or consortium to support it. I’m happy to share my experience and advice with any values-aligned group that would like to offer something similar in this space. I wouldn’t recommend another independent practitioner or small business try to run it the way I set it up, hence am not trying to pass it on to anyone.
The week after making the hard decision to wind down the current model, I slept a lot better. There’s still a lot of work to do, but I’m relieved I’ve given myself permission to let this go. I’m excited about a couple of new courses I’ll be able to deliver next year. Maybe I could even shift to a four-day work week sooner than I thought possible?
What’s next? The sunset phase
We won’t be destroying everything we’ve created 😅. We’ll maintain the Resource Hub and Slack group for capability building programs. CoDesignCo will live on as an alumni network for participants in programs like Co-Design Practitioners, but we won’t be running regular events or publicly offering membership plans from mid-2024.
We’ve stopped taking annual subscriptions and have set up a ‘sunset plan’ that will expire on 30 June 2024. We’re still offering full membership benefits until April 2024, and will allow new members to join for a quarter until early 2024.
My associate Jessie and I will be doing multiple jobs over the next six months - preparing for closure and transition, while also continuing operations. We’ll support members to make the most of the final months, explore other networks and communities, harvest and celebrate our successes, and prepare to say goodbye.
I’ll also continue offering a range of capability-building programs and customised support in the form of training, coaching and mentoring for people taking creative and participatory approaches to improve outcomes with their colleagues, clients and communities. My core business hasn’t actually changed at all - I’ll just have a bit more headspace for it!
🌇 To all past and current members, thank you so much for being part of this experiment in community-building and peer support.
I look forward to your contributions as we compost, harvest, transition and celebrate. I’m excited to see what might emerge as you seek new opportunities to push your practice and create new structures, knowledge and relationships that support creative and participatory ways of working.
