Movement Building

Collaborative Trainings and Retreats at OAEC

When we opened our doors 30 years ago, OAEC invited movement leaders of key organizations to come to OAEC and make with us a highly unique land-based ‘safer space’ to retreat, rethink, be restored by, and depart with new relationships, strategies, and networks built. Since then, we have hosted hundreds of groups and tens of thousands of organizers, teachers, land-stewards, tribal members, farmers, policy makers, government agency staff, philanthropists, and advocates from all over California, the U.S., and around the world to plan solutions for some of the most pressing issues of our time.

We do this broadly in 3 ways:  Convening, Facilitating, and Hosting.


Sustainable Economies Law Center staff retreat. 

Who we work with

OAEC hosts organizations whose work towards environmental and social justice is in line with our strategic priorities

We apply Resilient Community Design methodology with movement groups at their request. Each engagement can be tailored to fit the group’s particular needs, desires, issues, and opportunities, but is always focused on 1) deepening ecological understanding of their place, 2) strengthening practices of self-governance through collaborative decision-making, and 3) increasing social cohesion and personal welfare through collective work.

OAEC is highly accomplished at convening and/or facilitating challenging but necessary strategic planning and other movement conversations. Several OAEC staff are renowned strategic planning, network management, and conflict resolution facilitators and have been sought out by hundreds of organizations to help guide complex questions to a successful result.


Movement Building Retreat Fund

Many of our partner groups are grassroots, community-based organizations with quite modest budgets, but are doing some of the most amazing, impactful work we know of. Many of these groups cannot afford to come to OAEC at our full cost – a price that is very reasonable for larger or national non-profits, but out of reach for so many other smaller but still very important groups. With funding for our Movement Building Retreat Fund, OAEC is able to say yes to our small-but-mighty partner organizations doing key environmental and social justice work to hold their trainings and retreats at OAEC and benefit from the unique inspiration, education, collaboration, and services that we provide.


If you are interested in making a donation or grant to our Movement Building Retreat Fund, please reach out to us at development@oaec.org.