Why we're here
Why? The complexity of the evolving world calls us to be wise enough to handle our power. As humans and humanity, our technological evolution is racing our cultural evolution, and the impact of our power-held-foolishly is growing large enough to threaten the whole infinite game. The world is changing fast and continues to accelerate, creating a huge amount of unintentional suffering and impact already. We seek a future where we and our descendants can both survive and thrive, which requires the capacity to hold the complexity and wisely choose paths of goodness and love.
About the name
The name "Intentional Society" is a pointer. It's a finger pointing to the moon, pointing to a future of human flourishing. To be intentional is to see clearly, move freely, and choose wisely. IS (we say the letters aloud, like "eye ess") is thus an idea, a set of people who share a story, and an ecosystem of groups and activities. We are both "the society for intentionality" and "those intentionally evolving society" — the inner and outer dimensions of unfolding into more beautiful futures.
About how
The three mental moves of growth
Our big claim: We know how to grow.
- Awareness (noun) / Noticing (verb)
- Acceptance (noun) / Welcoming (verb)
- Integrity (noun) / Cohering (verb)
We start with inner development (aka Adult Development), and have realized a "three moves" mantra for the mechanics of personal growth. First, we become aware of the shape of something we were formerly lost inside of. Then, we accept the truth of what already is, and welcome it to be as it already is, freeing us to choose how we relate to it. Finally, we are free to choose how we show up in the world as our best and biggest self.
Three scopes and strategies for flourishing
- I — Inner development
- We — Relational culture
- World — Wise action
Zooming out, we see three scopes in which we are growing: an "I, We, World" fractal that starts inside ourselves, spreads between us, and out into contact with systems and the world at large. These are co-equal and interdependent components of flourishing. Relational culture is our primary "theory of change", the catalyst for both inner and outer work. Yet inner development is our primary equipping focus, as everything we do flows from who and how we are. And action in the world is where we connect with meaning and purpose, as well as where we are called into new challenges and further growth.
About the spaces
Intentional Society is an ecosystem of capacity-building spaces, not a single place, practice, or people. These spaces range from public to friends to by-application, and all of them are free of charge to participate.
If you're interested in training through developmental-relational practices, we recommend Relational Dojo, an open learning space with multiple practice groups.
The path to entry is through our open Connection Calls, and/or existing relationships.
As of 2026, you can be a member of the IS Web network to be intentionally connected and affiliated with the IS ecosystem — there's an app for that, and we gather the web together once per season.
Within the Web, you have access to our Relational Programs and Community Calls, a neighborhood of kind adventurers engaging in practices and projects across an ecosystem of activity.
Intentional Ventures is a high-trust system of relational and financial support for livelihood generation and economic interweaving.
About the people
We are a globally distributed constellation of friends with a penchant for connecting predominantly through face-to-face video calls. We generally identify as "post-conventional" in a developmental or perspectival sense, not feeling strong identification with conventional cultural tribes such as political parties or traditional religious groups. We relish our diversity across gender, generation, nation, ethnicity, religious (or non-) background, socioeconomic status, and other perspectives.
About the vibe
The cornerstone of our culture is first and foremost that we are each on a path of growing and becoming, and that we value that for ourselves and each other. It also takes an attitude of openness, humility, and of respect toward every human and the things that we can learn from interacting with them. We don't teach each other as instructors or lecturers, but rather reflect our experience of being with each other. When reflected in an honest and compassionate way, we are able to self-teach with relationally-expanded perspective and insight. We generally have a fairly high degree of tolerance for nebulosity and uncertainty, and we're making up structures that serve us as we go. We love building and "builders", yet we resonate most with a "post-achiever" kind of ambition that isn't saving the world as a way to save themselves.
Having read that, if you're feeling any imposter syndrome or are worried about whether you're "enough"… please notice that fear, and know that we hope you can move past it! We care about where we're going, not what you've already achieved.
About time(s)
"IS Time" for globally-targeted events is 1pm Pacific, which is 8pm or 9pm UTC depending on DST. This serves our primary time zones in the Americas, and secondarily includes Europe and Africa slightly more than AU+NZ. Small groups can of course meet whenever they prefer.
Deliberately developmental details for geeks
To use more precise but technical language, what we're doing together is authoring a developmental community of practice with a culture of expanded awareness. There's a conventional script for "becoming an adult" that goes something like "finish school, get a job, get married and have 2.5 kids, buy a house and then acquire more toys while climbing the corporate ladder." This also seems like a recipe for having a mid-life crisis of meaning. The conventional script sells us short: we can, and do, keep developing throughout our whole lives.
How does one practice development, or build a culture around it? We think a large part of the answer comes from relational practices. A recent renaissance in group practices illustrates how powerful the adoption of different norms and "rules" of interaction can be. From the T-groups of the 1950s, to 21st century Circling, to the growth of Authentic Relating and Social Meditation in the last decade, this movement has been growing rapidly. People around the world are discovering that it's actually fairly easy to bypass the usual "how's the weather" social scripts of general society with a bit of intentionality and shared agreements that create a space for deeper, more meaningful connection.
To go even deeper into the theoretical model, developmental constructivism is a fancy way to say that we make meaning, inside ourselves, from our experiences. The field of adult development has shown that we can — and do — keep developing throughout our whole lives. The stage models of Robert Kegan, Bill Torbert, and Susanne Cook-Greuter provide a coherent perspective on typical (Western-shaded) developmental progressions. Off to the collective side of this domain is Spiral Dynamics, in a lineage from Graves to Beck and Cowan to Wilber, which helps us to see and make sense of the values of various political groups and social tribes in this polarized age.
A lot of theory and thought has gone into what we do together. But it's also what people everywhere have known and done for millennia, in villages, tribes, and crews of belonging and support. There is wisdom in both science and woo, in the latest discoveries and in ancient traditions. We thrive as social, relational beings, growing in small groups of high trust — and even as we're faced with global challenges that demand coordination across humanity to meet, we think that any future of global unity must emerge fractally outward from interpersonal trust and cooperation at local scale.