Introduction
Why combine many kinds of groups into one?
What do members do? (A simplified description)
Where does the power for change come from?
Who can join the Fellowship? What are the requirements
for members?
Is the Fellowship of the Dream religious? Does it
have a political agenda?
What is the "heart" of the Fellowship of the
Dream? Why was it started?
What is the Eight-Lane Highway strategy?
What is the Fellowship's primary structure for
change?
Besides the Eight Lane Highway, what other strategies
do we have?
What is the vision of the Fellowship of the Dream?
What is the cost of being in the Fellowship of the
Dream?
What is the personality and drama of the Fellowship of the
Dream?
What is the relationship between Fellowship of
the Dream, All Around Program, and other superprograms?
Imagine a group whose members support each other to reach their personal
goals and live their dreams. Now imagine a different group, one whose
members dream of creating a better, safer world for all. The Fellowship
of the Dream would be a blending of these two groups. In other words,
our "Dream" is the attainment of our personal dreams in a
world where all people have what they need to achieve their dreams, too.
Why combine many kinds of groups into one?
The simple answer is that it allows you to do
more good for yourself and others. Fellowship of the Dream is
like having a personal goal-attainment support group, a group
to help others, and a group to improve the world, all rolled
into one! It offers many
original methods and structures that help make learning and change more
efficient --
whether you are changing personal habits, or whether the
change is improving part of the world. The structures also promote a
balance between personal development and changing our world. Some
activists and helpers focus too much on their responsibilities to
others, and they neglect personal and family responsibilities.
Meanwhile, many well-meaning people want to make the world a better
place, but they have very little spare time and energy left over after
fulfilling personal needs and desires. Both groups will value our
structures, and the chance to work together.
What do members do? (A simplified description)
Members support each other to reach goals, learn, and grow. Support
can happen through any combination of the following: small group
meetings, telephone support calls, email and chat rooms, and also large
group meetings (meetings of the small groups). These meetings and
contacts provide encouragement to change, useful information, feedback
and suggestions, a chance to meet others on a deep level, and momentum
for change
-- because the program brings together methods
for change, incentives to change and the expectation to change.
It's suggested that members set goals and make plans on regular
basis, such as four or six months. It's also suggested that members
evaluate and appreciate their progress at the end of the time period. We
have written materials for goal-setting, planning and evaluation.
Where does the power for change come from?
One of the main insights of Fellowship of the Dream has to do with
adult learning. Some adults may try to learn through self-help books,
but these don't provide the support and feedback needed. Others
learn through workshops or community college courses, but by the end of
the course, the new learning may not be fully integrated, and so the
improvement is only temporary. What is needed is an ongoing structure to
help you do continuous learning, and to anchor the habits and skills
that you learn elsewhere. Furthermore, most people don't have enough
time to join one ongoing program for their finances, another to learn
health habits, another for relationships, another for politics, another
for environmental action, and another for improving the community.
Fellowship of the Dream can help you move forward in areas where you
don't have the time or inclination to join another group, but you still
need some ongoing support. It's also important to understand that the
Fellowship of the Dream program isn't trying to be a replacement for all
other educational and activist programs. Members still need to go
elsewhere for the knowledge and skills
-- but once they have been
introduced to the learning, even if it is from a book, the Fellowship of
the Dream program will help them get the most value out of the knowledge
they have received.
Much of the power of the program comes from bring together all of the
ingredients of learning. These include: ongoing support, encouragement,
feedback, knowledge, and the expectation to learn. But our program has
many other sources of power, such as our Eight-Lane Highway strategy,
and a strategy to help charities.
Who can join the Fellowship? What do we ask of members?
Adults and teens who can act like adults can be members. All members commit to spending at least five hours a week making
stretches to do more good --
for themselves and for the world. Members also
commit to at least one support contact with another member each week,
whether through a meeting, phone call, email or chat room. No one checks
on members to determine if they are fulfilling the requirements. In
fact, members are welcome to take a week off when needed.
Busy people can work up to the time commitment, by first focusing on
time management. Also, members can count time in which they are doing other
things, if they are consciously upgrading the quality of their actions.
For instance, members can count the time spent with their family if they
are consciously practicing a listening skill or consciously trying to
improve their behavior in some other way. Another example: if members
volunteer for an organization and, instead of doing only what's
expected, they brainstorm and try to optimize their impact, that time
could count toward the five hours.
In addition to the five-hour-a-week commitment, members
must read this Introduction, and the Membership Steps to
learn about our strategies, resources and attitude. This
takes about an hour or two of reading. The attitude that we
encourage you to have, simply put, is not to be satisfied with any action, but to
strive to do the best, most loving things.
Is the Fellowship of the Dream religious? Does it have a political
agenda?
The Fellowship of the Dream is nonsectarian. Anyone of any religion
can join, as can people who have no religion. However, since we want people
to live integrated lives, if you do have a spirituality or religion, we
encourage you to live it. To do this, some people may choose to use the
Fellowship of the Dream structures in combination with their religion.
In other words, there may be a Fellowship of the Dream group whose
members are all Catholics, or all Hindus, etc. When this is the case,
it's essential to let people know that the Fellowship of Dream is
nonsectarian.
Fellowship of the Dream is also nonpartisan, but we do encourage our
members to become active politically because that is part of creating a
better world. You could say that our political agenda is to create
people who are knowledgeable and skilled at the political process so
that they can advocate policies that promote the welfare of all.
What is the "heart" of the Fellowship of the Dream? Why was it
started?
The Fellowship of the Dream was founded by Tim Cimino.
From his youth, Tim was troubled by the great amount of suffering in the
world. This year, for example, about eleven million children five years
old and younger will die from preventable causes. To visualize this,
imagine that 60 jets take off today somewhere around the world. Imagine
each jet has 500 small children and infants aboard, and that all the jets
crash. This is how many children die each day.
This suffering doesn't even speak to the many other forms of suffering
in the world.
Beginning in 1984, Tim asked himself the question "How
much action and what kind of action would be enough to create a world
where unnecessary suffering and premature death would be eliminated?" Although he was a research chemist, Tim began to study
and develop new educational structures. He also began devising a set of
strategies and methods, many of which are described in the Eight-Lane
Highway.
So the heart of the Fellowship of the Dream is to learn how to live a
life that helps eliminate most of the world's preventable suffering, but
without giving up your own dreams and goals. For most people this
requires getting support to make several major and minor lifestyle changes
-- but
gradually. One of our mottos is "Make reasonable stretches, not
kamikaze stretches." Tim has also said, "Act as if your
child's life was on the line, and not someone else's. -- Your Molly,
your
Jason, your Kizito, your Prajhi, your Ling. Act as if you can see their
faces."
What is the Eight-Lane Highway strategy?
In the civil rights era of the 1960s, Martin Luther King, Jr., had a
strategy that he called the two-lane highway: education and legislation.
Those who wanted equality for blacks needed to use both lanes to promote
social change. Without political change, there wouldn't be enough equal
opportunity and funding for education. But without education, blacks
wouldn't be skilled enough to use political power once they got it.
Using the same analogy, Tim Cimino devised an Eight Lane Highway. You
could call it an eight-pronged approach for improving your life and the
world. Each of the eight lanes has a simple description but also a more
advanced description. Here is the simple description of the eight lanes:
Lane One. Since ongoing change requires ongoing support, get ongoing
personal support. This is why our members can use our Goal & Growth
small groups, and/or support each other through phone calls or emails.
Lane Two: With your ongoing support, increase your ability to take
action. For instance, as needed, do time management, money management,
build your physical energy, and learn new skills.
(With your increased time, money and support you can do much more of
the following:)
Lane Three: Work on personal mission and fulfillment: What makes you
feel most alive?
Lane Four: Give to strategic charities: Give some of your newfound
time and money to strategic charities that efficiently work on
life-threatening issues.
Lane Five: Political action. Do much more than vote. Learn how to
analyze the issues and make your voice heard. (Note that we are
nonpartisan.)
Lane Six: Environmental action, including habits that minimize the
damage you do.
Lane Seven: Economic Actions: Influence the economy through actions
like letters to corporations, shareholder resolutions, social
responsible investment, socially responsible shopping and, if needed,
boycotts.
Lane Eight: Empower people individually, such as family, friends and
coworkers, and, when appropriate, invite and support individuals to join
the Fellowship of the Dream. In this way, the individual impact that we
each make can rapidly grow into a worldwide force for change. Imagine
more and more individuals being supported to work on their individual
goals, along with efforts that improve our world politically,
environmentally, economically, and socially (through charities and
community groups.)
The advanced level of each of the lanes is more powerful. For
instance, the simple version of the first lane is to get ongoing
personal support for yourself, but the advanced understanding of the
first lane is to get all of the ingredients of a learning
environment --
not just support, but feedback, the necessary information
and methods, the time set aside for practice, the expectation to learn,
evaluation, etc. Similarly each of the eight lanes has a more advanced
description, one that can produce higher leverage for change.
Now let's reconsider the eleven million children who die each year.
Here's one way to think about that bewildering reality: If you join the
Fellowship of the Dream, you can make it eleven million minus two or
three or five--
by increasing your time and money (lane 2) then by
donating some time and money to a strategic charity (lane four). Your
political and economic actions would add to your impact (lanes 5 and 7.)
And by inviting and supporting friends and associates to join (lane 8)
you multiply your impact as part of a chain reaction of support and
empowerment that rapidly doubles and redoubles. Eventually the figure of
preventable deaths becomes 11 million minus 2, minus 3, minus 1, minus
2, minus 4, minus 1 ... equals something closer to zero
than
to 11 million. And using the same strategies, many
other forms of suffering can be diminished as well.
What is the Fellowship's primary structure for change?
It's called the Goal and Growth Group format: From three to six
people meet for about an hour or an hour and a half. There are three
rounds in which each person gets to take a turn to speak. In the first
round people talk about what they are learning or studying that will
practically help their lives, or they share an insight that they had, or
they request information. In the second round each person reports on his
progress since the last meeting and his plans for the next meeting. In
the third round, people share briefly on something that they appreciated
since the last meeting. It could be an activity they enjoyed, something
that a friend did for them, or some accomplishment of theirs
-- anything
positive like that. Each report in each round should be about a two
minutes and those listening are allowed to make short comments. After the three
rounds, there is an Interchange portion of the meeting in which the group
either discusses or studies something that seems to be a common theme,
such as time management, maintaining motivation, communication problems
in relationships, or whatever topic seems useful to most of the people
in the group.
A similar format can be used for a twelve-minute phone call: You and
the other person each share on 1) what you're learning or studying; 2a)
what your progress has been since the last phone call; 2b) what your
plans are until your next phone call; and 3) something that you've
appreciated.
Besides the Eight Lane Highway, what other strategies do we have?
We have over a dozen different strategies to make self change,
helping others and changing the world easier. These are summarized
on our Vision and Strategies page.
Most can be applied by you in your life, to increase your
effectiveness. Some strategies apply to organizations, such as the
idea that helps charities do more good. One of the most powerful
strategies is to support a few others as part of a chain reaction of
empowerment.
What is the vision of the Fellowship of the Dream?
We have a vision that may seem unbelievable and far too optimistic to
those who don't understand our strategies. Our vision is in two parts:
First, by the end of the century, decrease the preventable suffering on
Earth a
hundredfold (as compared to the year 2000.) Second, by the
end of this century, balance the Earth's life-support systems.
Martin Luther King, Jr., summed up the universal dream of
humanity when he said, "I have the audacity to believe
that people everywhere can have three meals a day for their
bodies, education and culture for their minds, and dignity,
equality and freedom for their spirits." Let's achieve
this vision by the end of this century.
Any vision is attained through a combination of methods and
incentives. Our general methods can be found on the Vision and
Strategies page, and specific methods are on the Tools for
Change page. Incentives for participants are the ongoing support for personal
development; access to a variety of original self-help tools;
opportunity to meet and interact personally with other people who are
growing and changing; the optimism that comes from strategic action;
and, for those who have children or grandchildren, a desire to leave
them with the best possible world. These are more fully described
on our Benefits page.
What is the cost of being in the Fellowship of the Dream?
Since our expectation is that Fellowships spreads around the
world, there is no cost to participate. However, we encourage members to
make tax-deductible donations to to World Peace One, the
organization that Tim Cimino and friends started in 1989 to develop
these tools. Donations will support the development and promotion of our vision,
superprograms and the contest of superprograms. These other strategies
will multiply the impact that our members have in reducing suffering and
stabilizing the world.
What is the personality and the drama of the Fellowship of the Dream?
Most organizations have a personality and an image. For instance,
both Scouting and the United Nations each have a certain image. We too will
someday have a certain public image, but we want our members to choose
the "personality" they like. There are many personalities to choose from.
"Fellowship" may make you think of a community or religious
group, and "Dream may make you think that the group is idealistic,
but really the personality comes from the values of the people involved.
A useful way for some people to think of participation is as
real-life action drama. Drama happens when you don't know the outcome of
a situation, and a lot is at stake. You can create drama by choosing a
challenging goal, one you don't know whether or not you can do. Since
real life moves more slowly than 100-minute action movies, each area of
action becomes a separate drama: your personal mission, your efforts to
empower a certain person, a goal for improving a personal relationship,
your goals for increasing time or money, perhaps some political action
on an issue that could go either way, and so forth
-- it's as if you are
changing channels between dramas. If you start eight dramas, each week
you will see action and unexpected twists in a few of them. Although your
life may never become as exciting as a blockbuster movie, you will
always be the star.
In any case, participation in the Fellowship of the Dream can become
high drama. Just like NASA had the goal of landing on the moon, we have a historic and lofty
goal. NASA's engineers, scientists and astronauts actually developed so
much enthusiasm for their goal that they named it "Go Fever."
If a group of people go all out, it will create
so much optimism that some others will catch "Go Fever" and be inspired to create a
better life and world.
And they can do it using whatever metaphor they like, be it as
physicians to the world, warriors, artists, movie stars, artists, farmers who are
growing "food" for humanity, or "cooks" of goodness -- using our recipes that combine certain ingredients and
exclude other ingredients.
Perhaps it's best
to use more than one metaphor. But choose the "personality"
that most inspires you.
What is the relationship between Fellowship of the Dream, All Around,
and other superprograms?
Those who use some of our Tools for Change will notice that
some of the resources are on another site, called All Around
(at www.all-around.org.)
If you explore All Around, you'll find that it's a very
similar program. Here are some differences:
Fellowship of the Dream is a smaller and simpler site.
All Around has a lot more materials, but some people have
found it too overwhelming. Fellowship of the Dream has
the "Eight Lane Highway" while All Around has only the
five-part CLEAR method.
Besides Fellowship of the Dream and All Around, there are
currently two other superprograms, Mission
Ball and Climb
Today's Mountain. There is also a nonpartisan voter
empowerment website called Proof
Through The Night. They all aim at the same vision.
