By Kenzie Love
In 2020, a group of facilitators and mediators, located in both Vancouver and Nova Scotia but sharing common interests and methodologies in their work, began meeting online weekly amidst the pandemic. The group’s members sensed this time of upheaval could be an opportunity to address the systemic inequalities that had been exposed, even if the path towards doing so wasn’t entirely clear, and that they could do this more effectively together than on their own.
The group thus decided they wanted to come together to offer courses and coaching on group facilitation and conflict mediation, and they needed an organizational framework for this, one to which the co-op model seemed ideally suited. Waterline Co-op emerged from this shared desire, born of its members’ wish for a model that reflected their broader philosophy.
“It was obvious to us from the beginning that we wanted to choose a cooperative governance model,” says member Camille Dumond. “And really try to show in our business structure that we were living our values in the business.”
As practitioners of the deep democracy methodology, Waterline’s members saw a natural overlap with the co-op values. Deep democracy is a psychologically based facilitation methodology particularly useful for working with relationship and group dynamics that are emotionally charged or marked by difference, power dynamics and invisibilised beliefs. A practical method of dialogue and discussion, it actively searches for the wisdom of the minority when faced with conflicts, something akin to the shared governance model found in a co-op.
While choosing the co-op model was a relatively easy decision, the Co-op’s members faced a steep learning curve when it came to the mechanics of launching and running their business. Dumond believes, however, that their work together since has reaffirmed that the co-op model was the right choice.
“We felt we could do it, we could govern together,” she says. “That’s part of what we teach, which is how to make decisions together and how to govern together. So it was a little bit experimental, and idealistic, but it’s worked for us, and we feel really good about it.”
Dumond acknowledges that the Co-op has still encountered challenges, including when or whether to adjust the different conflict engagement courses it offers. But the nature of Waterline’s model means it has confronted these differently from how a conventional business would.
“In the co-op right now we’re cycling around this tension between to what extent do we customize our programs and spend the time and energy being really accessible to different people’s needs, and to what extent do we standardize it?” she says. “So it’s this tension between how much we accommodate the needs of our clients, and how much we accommodate our own needs. And in a way, we’re always going back and forth between it, and I’ve seen in a lot of organizations, this leads to a lot of conflicts and tensions and disagreements, and people leave the organization. And because of our model, and because we have to be in shared governance, I think it really forces us to walk our talk.”
Waterline hopes to continue growing in the coming years, expanding its operations and continuing to build the infrastructure to keep up with demand. Dumond, however, has already grown from participating in the co-op experience far more than she’d envisioned.
“If I had known how much time, energy, stretch and learning that this was going to be for me, I don’t think I would have consciously gone into it,” she says. “But looking back, I’ve learned way more than I ever thought I would. It’s more than doing a business, it’s about growing. For me, it’s growing as a human being, and that I didn’t expect.”