🌍 Umoja Greenlands Constitution

A Self-Organising System for Regeneration, Equity, and Cooperation

🪷 1. Purpose of the System

To enable Umoja Greenlands to thrive as a living, self-organising movement that regenerates land, nurtures life, and empowers communities through distributed leadership, clear roles, and shared responsibility.

🧬 2. Foundations of the System

• Distributed Authority: Power is embedded in clear roles, not in people.

• Clarity: Everyone knows who decides what, based on written mandates.

• Transparency: Roles, mandates, and meetings are open to all participants.

• Adaptability: We evolve by sensing tensions and updating structures.

• Culture: We value humility, interconnection, learning, and service to life.

🌀 3. Circles & Roles

• Circles are teams with a purpose, domains they steward, and accountabilities they fulfill.

• Roles are clearly defined responsibilities within a Circle.

• Circles are fractal — they can contain Sub-Circles, forming a holarchy.

• Each Circle ideally has:

  • An Internal Coordinator (guides flow within the circle)

  • An External Coordinator (represents the circle to the broader system)

All Circle members are encouraged to fill at least one active Role.

📋 4. Roles, Mandates & Domains

• A Role includes:

  • Purpose – Why it exists

  • Accountabilities – What it does

  • Domain – What it controls or protects (e.g., a social media account, budget, or event format)

Roles are defined by the Circle through governance meetings, and anyone in the Circle may propose a new Role.

🗂 5. Policies

• A Policy is a constraint or rule created to align work between Roles or Circles.

• Policies apply only within the Circle that creates them, unless explicitly adopted by other Circles.

• Proposals for new or updated Policies follow the same decision-making process as Role creation (see below).

🧭 6. Meetings

✳️ Tactical Meetings (for doing the work)

• Purpose: Operational coordination, progress updates, tension clearing.

• Format:

  1. Check-in

  2. Checklist review

  3. Metrics review

  4. Project updates

  5. Build agenda (name tensions)

  6. Process each item (ask “What do you need?”)

  7. Capture outputs

  8. Closing round

⚖️ Governance Meetings (for structuring the work)

• Purpose: Define or update Roles, Domains, Sub-Circles, and Policies.

• Format (see Section 7: Integrative Decision-Making)

💚 Tribe or Culture Spaces (for connecting as people)

• Purpose: To care for relationships, values, emotions, and shared purpose.

• Examples: Circling, grief ritual, celebration, storytelling, dialogue.

• Optional but essential for Umoja’s culture.

🔄 7. Integrative Decision-Making (IDM)

Used in Governance Meetings to evolve the structure safely and consciously.

Steps:

1. Present Proposal

2. Clarifying Questions

3. Reaction Round

4. Amend & Clarify (optional)

5. Objection Round

6. Integrate Objections

7. Repeat Objection Round (if needed)

8. Accept Proposal

✅ What makes an objection valid?

• It shows harm to the Circle’s purpose or capacity

• The harm would be caused by the proposal

• It’s based on present data or clearly unsafe to try

• It limits the objector’s own Role’s accountabilities

🛑 Not valid: “I don’t like it,” “It’s incomplete,” “I would do it differently.”

🗳 8. Elections for Elected Roles

Roles like Coordinators may be elected using the Integrative Election Process.

Steps:

1. Describe the Role & Term

2. Private Nomination (1 per person)

3. Nomination Sharing Round

4. Change Round

5. Facilitator Proposal (most nominations)

6. Objection Round

7. Repeat (if blocked)

The Circle may set fixed terms (e.g., 6–12 months) and renew elections by default at term’s end.

📁 9. Documentation & Transparency

Each Circle maintains a shared doc or dashboard that shows:

• Its purpose, roles, accountabilities, domains

• Current policies

• Active projects

• Meeting notes & decisions

• Who fills which role

• How to contact the circle

⚓️ 10. The Anchor Circle

The Anchor Circle is the meta-circle that:

• Stewards the Constitution and structure

• Processes system-wide tensions

• Coordinates cross-circle strategy

• Holds default ownership of shared resources, unless delegated

Changes to this Constitution must be proposed and processed through the Anchor Circle.

🔧 11. Continuous Evolution

This Constitution is a living document. Anyone in Umoja may propose improvements.

Tensions, feedback, or suggested changes can be submitted to the Anchor Circle at:
📧 info@umojagreenlands.org

📖 12. Definitions (Glossary)

• Circle: A team with a shared purpose and set of roles

• Role: A defined responsibility within a Circle

• Domain: What a Role or Circle controls or protects

• Tension: The gap between what is and what could be better

• Policy: A rule that limits or grants authority beyond a Role

• Coordinator: A Role that holds overview and connection

• Governance: The process of defining structure (roles, domains, policies)

• Tribe Space: A space for culture, connection, and care