Courage in the Cracks
An invitation to the work of re-making an economy that sustains life and living things
I’ve been sitting with a truth I’ve avoided naming out loud:
Collapse has reached my sector.
For years I’ve watched the slow unraveling of the nonprofit and purpose-driven world — grants thinning, donors vanishing, funders talking about “efficiencies” and “core work” while programs quietly fold. I kept hoping at some point the pattern would reverse itself. But this isn’t a drought. It’s a change in the weather pattern.
The money that once kept good work afloat is drying up because the larger system that produced it is collapsing under its own logic. The old economy doesn’t just fail to support change — it depends on withholding the resources that could make change possible.
And now it’s reached my doorstep. My last major contract is ending, and for the first time in decades I don’t know where the next steady income will come from.
It’s tempting to frame that as a personal crisis, but it feels truer to call it a mirror. What’s happening to me is happening to lots of us who’ve been trying to do the “right” work inside a system built to reward extraction. The future is already here; collapse is just unevenly distributed.
From Panic to Pattern
In a navigation session this week, I brought my money tension to the circle. Roland reminded me that insecurity can be a kind of fire — a motivator. He’s right, to a point. Panic can wake you up. But it can’t build courage.
Courage only grows in relationship, not isolation. It’s the momma-bear instinct turned toward the village — that fierce energy that says we protect what we love, even when the math doesn’t add up.
That’s where our work at the Farmastery and Lifeboat Academy comes in. These projects are, at their core, about practicing relational economics — not theory but muscle memory.
We use what we call the 1-9-90 frame:
1s are the core stewards who hold the pattern,
9s are the active contributors who bring energy and skill,
90s are the wider circle whose light touch — attention, goodwill, a timely share — still matters immensely.
That’s the real economy of change. Not dollars, but relationship density.
When enough people lean in — each at the level that’s real for them — the system tips from scarcity to sufficiency. That’s what we mean by a return on relationship: the shared wealth that appears when belonging becomes the primary currency.
The Invitation
So this is my ask — and my offer.
Not charity. Not a bailout.
Company. Companionship in the work of re-making an economy that sustains life and living things.
If you’ve been following the Farmastery and Lifeboat Academy experiments, you know we’ve been building small-scale prototypes of a post-collapse economy — bubbles of reciprocity where resources and skills are shared, not hoarded. They’re not just gardens and workshops; they’re living laboratories for a culture that might outlast the current one.
To keep that work going through this next lean season, I’m inviting direct support — contributions, collaborations, introductions, ideas — whatever form generosity can take. Think of it less as a donation, more as joining the test crew for the next economy.
If collapse has already reached us, then so has the opportunity to practice what comes next.
We’re doing it, quietly, in the cracks.
And every bit of courage, coin, and companionship helps.
With gratitude and stubborn hope,
— Ben