To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.

Buckminster Fuller

Polymath

Keep pointing at the failures in the old paradigm. Keep speaking and acting, loudly and with assurance, from the new one.

Donella Meadows

Scholar and Author

To change our realities, we also have to change our myths.

Riane Eisler

President, Center for Partnership Systems

We tend to attach dignity only to wage, labor, and work. What if we attach it to our personhood?

Dorian Warren

Founder, The Economic Security Project

Denizen brings together leaders across disciplines to accelerate systemic change

From the personal to the global, our work spans six themes:

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Change From Within

Bobby Klein
Spiritual Elder and Writer
Bobby Klein
Spiritual Elder and Writer

Bobby Klein was a multi-modal spiritual elder who integrated clinical psychology, Jungian analysis, Tibetan Buddhism, Chinese medicine, and many indigenous traditions.  He died a year ago; this episode honors his legacy.

Grief

Carla Fernandez
Co-Founder, The Dinner Party
Carla Fernandez
Co-Founder, The Dinner Party

This episodes explores a very personal and universal topic: grief.  We explore the experience of grief at the individual level and then draw out the implications of society's relationship to grief and death for systems change.

Post-Growth Economics

Donnie MacLurcan
Founder and Executive Director, Post Growth Institute
Donnie MacLurcan
Founder and Executive Director, Post Growth Institute

What are some of the fundamental flaws of capitalism? How might we instantiate a market-based economy that is growth agnostic?

Steward Ownership

Camille Canon
Founder, apiary
Camille Canon
Founder, apiary
Derek Razo
Partner, Purpose US
Derek Razo
Partner, Purpose US

Steward ownership is form of corporate governance that truly instantiates a purpose driven economy and addresses capitalisms most fatal flaws. For anyone interested in redesigning our economic institutions, this is a must listen.

Co-ops

Jessica Mason
Executive Director, Start.coop
Jessica Mason
Executive Director, Start.coop
Greg Brodsky
Founder, Start.coop
Greg Brodsky
Founder, Start.coop

What is a co-op? How does this corporate governance model enable a more equitable, just economy? What distinguishes co-ops from other forms of multi-stakeholder corporate governance?

Beyond the Enlightenment

Robert Gilman
Founder and President, The Context Institute
Robert Gilman
Founder and President, The Context Institute

What mindsets took hold in Western culture during the Age of Enlightenment? What are the their blind spots that inhibit our ability to address the greatest challenges of today?  How might we expand on what The Enlightenment had to offer?

Nonviolent Communication

Danny Cohen
Educator and Coach
Danny Cohen
Educator and Coach

How do pervasive paradigms of patriarchy, dominance, competition, and scarcity influence the way we relate to one another? How might we engage in a way that stems from paradigms of interconnection, cooperation, and abundance?

Guaranteed Income

Natalie Foster
President, The Economic Security Project
Natalie Foster
President, The Economic Security Project
Dorian Warren
Co-Founder, The Economic Security Project
Dorian Warren
Co-Founder, The Economic Security Project

What is the distinction between universal basic income and guaranteed income? What are the theoretical and practical arguments for these policies? What experiments and evidence are underway in the United States today?

Systems Thinking

Marta Ceroni
Co-Director, Academy for Systems Change
Marta Ceroni
Co-Director, Academy for Systems Change

What is systems thinking? How does one design interventions to influence a system? How do the systems underlying our socio-economic structures reflect our traumas, beliefs, and values?

Decentralized Social Media

Evan Henshaw-Plath
Founder and CEO, Planetary
Evan Henshaw-Plath
Founder and CEO, Planetary

Can decentralized social media address the ailments of the dominant, centralized model of social media today? What are the big debates in this nascent and rapidly evolving ecosystem?

Partnerism

Riane Eisler
Founder and President, Center for Partnership Systems
Riane Eisler
Founder and President, Center for Partnership Systems

Partnerism is a socio-economic system where all relationships, institutions, policies, and organizations are based on principles of equitable partnership that supports hierarchies of actualization rather than hierarchies of domination.

Social Media Governance

Sudhir Venkatesh
Sociologist
Sudhir Venkatesh
Sociologist
Tracey Meares
Legal Scholar and Author
Tracey Meares
Legal Scholar and Author

How are social media platforms governed? How might we design products and processes to revitalize community and cultivate values that are essential to civic discourse? What can we learn from the fields of sociology and criminal justice?

Governance

Forrest Landry
Philosopher, Inventor, Social Architect
Forrest Landry
Philosopher, Inventor, Social Architect

What is governance? What are the attributes of the governance processes necessary to address the challenges humanity faces today? How might we acknowledge the limitations of human cognition while enabling collective action at scale?

Buckminster Fuller

Amanda Joy Ravenhill
Entrepreneur, Activist, Public Speaker
Amanda Joy Ravenhill
Entrepreneur, Activist, Public Speaker

Buckminster Fuller was one of the most prolific and prescient systems thinkers of the 20th century.  What essential ideas of his should we be aware of as we consider changing our socio-economic systems?

Modern Monetary Theory

Andres Bernal
Policy Expert and MMT Advocate
Andres Bernal
Policy Expert and MMT Advocate

What is Modern Monetary Theory? How does it challenge how we think about money, government spending, federal deficit and debt, taxes and bonds, unemployment, and monetary policy?

Parenting

Jordan Hall
Co-Founder, Game B
Jordan Hall
Co-Founder, Game B

How does our role as parents relate to our desire to foster systemic change? Why don't we value parenting in our current cultural context? How might we propagate new narratives that see parenting as essential for creating a better future?

Art and Activism

Aaron Huey
Founder, Amplifier Art
Aaron Huey
Founder, Amplifier Art

What role does art play in activism? What makes street art especially impactful? How can artists achieve their goals with limited budgets?

Atonement and Reparations

Denise Hamilton
Entrepreneur and DEI Leader
Denise Hamilton
Entrepreneur and DEI Leader
Sam Lewis
Executive Director, Anti-Recidivism Coalition
Sam Lewis
Executive Director, Anti-Recidivism Coalition
Zaheer Ali
Oral Historian and Educator
Zaheer Ali
Oral Historian and Educator

If we care about having a just society, we must acknowledge and repair from harms of the past. How can atone, especially for injustices that have perpetuated for hundreds of years?


Gift Economics

Charles Eisenstein
Writer & Speaker
Charles Eisenstein
Writer & Speaker

What attributes define gift economies? How do they establish an economy that is relational vs. transactional, facilitating interconnection vs. individualism? How do gift economies mirror nature?

Learn / THE ESSENTIALS

We distill the critical topics of our time

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Co-ops

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Delegative Democracy

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Wealth Taxes

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Permaculture

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The Circular Economy

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Lessons from Buckminster Fuller

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Free Speech & Social Media

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Long-Term Capitalism

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Steward Ownership

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Universal Basic Income

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Stakeholder Capitalism

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Capitalism & Inequality

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The Epistemic Crisis

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Post-Growth Economics

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Lessons from Donella Meadows

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Decentralized Social Media

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Modern Monetary Theory

Partners / Our ecosystem

We collaborate with organizations at the forefront of systemic change

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