Evolutionary Governance, Part I: Principles

How can nonprofits meet the volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous (VUCA) era that we live in? How can they be governed to support the emergence of the new and different solutions so desperately needed? How can we move beyond old forms of governance that no longer serve?

DreamRider Productions is an environmental education media nonprofit based in Vancouver, BC; we design transformational experiences that inspire children to become changemakers for life. We’ve grown in a few short years from a local, relatively unknown children’s theatre company, to an internationally-recognized innovator in digital educational media, reaching over a million kids in 150+ cities in Canada, the US and India.

One day, we started focusing our playful, emergent design expertise on the issue of our governance and began an experiment. Now, some seven years later, we are happy to report here on our success and to offer other organizations new inspiration and approaches to expand their capacity.