Our Vision
Inspiring a conscious, just, and peaceful world through deep connection to self, community, and nature
About Us
The Goodenough Community is a 50 year old, decentralized community of practice in the Seattle region, focused on personal and relational development. It includes a land-based intentional community and event space, the Sahale Learning Center, on the Kitsap Peninsula, which the community has operated for almost 25 years, and which is the community’s primary vehicle for fulfilling its mission.
We have been in a major transition phase for several years. This has included deep healing from trauma experienced under the now-deceased founders, moving from central leadership to cooperative governance, inviting new people to engage more deeply in leadership, and redeveloping key community systems. It has involved a deep inquiry into the essence of what this community is about, and what needs to be cleared to allow for new growth.
Our Mission
To serve individuals and communities by creating opportunities for lifelong, experiential learning that cultivates personal transformation, deep relationship, and regenerative community.
The essence of Goodenough
The essence of this community can be summed up in this inquiry: What does it mean to be relational? We seek to understand ourselves and grow through our relationships. This work has fostered relationships of deep care, and a culture practiced in showing up for each other and staying constant through conflict.
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Our stewardship of Sahale has been a powerful vehicle for that work, and has expanded our understanding of what it means to be relational to include the natural world. And as the world around us changes, our exploration of relationship is expanding to include our relationship to other communities, movements, and larger society.
Some history
The Goodenough Community began in the early 1970's as a collaboration among leaders of the human potential movement in the Northwest. For many years its primary expression was an annual Human Relations Laboratory that gathered people together to grow, learn, and play. For a week each summer, people attending the annual Labs experienced a way of life based on freedom, respect, and the value of personal growth, and over time they sought a way to continue that experience throughout the year. They discovered that a network of like-minded friends and colleagues was essential for sustaining an authentically improving life style.
After a decade, the community identified itself as intentional and was incorporated as the American Association for the Furtherance of Community in 1981. Throughout this period and in the years following, the community and all of its programs were designed and supported by about 100 friends who desired to help develop one another and share a good quality of life. This practice of experiential learning continued through the next few decades. In time, many of the founding members and leaders passed away, and the group has transformed from a more hierarchical leadership style into a self-led community relying on the elegance of Sociocratic governance. In 2024, the community adopted a formal system of membership and participation, with members declaring their intention to provide governance and financial support.
The Community has always intended to be both a caring, healing environment and a learning/training opportunity. A core of leaders, most of them friends and colleagues for more than 25 years, has developed an approach to community which involves learning-by-doing.
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