Design School for Regenerating Earth

People all over the world are gathering to regenerate the Earth at the bioregional scale and organize into a planetary network of learning exchanges between landscapes. All of this is being done in service to the regeneration of the entire Planet.

The Design School for Regenerating Earth

When Joe Brewer wrote his book, The Design Pathway for Regenerating Earth, it was to show both the seriousness of the predicament we are in and to demonstrate that it really is possible to regenerate the Earth at the scales needed. The pathway he describes in the book is to organize ourselves around holistic, integrated landscapes known as bioregions, and connect those bioregions into a planetary network of learning exchanges.

Members of the Design School are working together on the ground in bioregions while simultaneously building a planetary network and community engaging in this kind of bioregional work. All of this enables focused actions to arise with clear design and intent so that we can effectively regenerate at the bioregional scale and create interactions and supports between and across bioregions.

The challenges humanity and the Earth are facing now are extremely complex and unlike anything that has come before in the history of the planet. In order to regenerate the Earth at the scales needed, we must consciously and intentionally evolve humanity into a "planetary species" and cooperate at unprecedented levels. Members of the Design School are choosing to step fully into this challenge and do what we can to embody and live out the design pathway for regenerating Earth.

Choose Between Two Levels of Membership

We offer two levels of membership in the Design School
 The Community Level and the Design Level

The Community Level is our basic membership. Community Level members have the opportunity to participate in most activities of the School and have full access to its various resources.

Design Level members receive all Community Level benefits plus the opportunity to apply for funding from the Design School Fund and participate in its governance; the ability to host and lead Design Labs, workgroups, and spaces within the School; the opportunity to apply to offer learning journeys or courses within the School; and the ability to invite and host a "bioregional activation" in their home landscapes.

Membership in the Design School Includes...

1) Access to an online learning environment geared toward sharing knowledge and skills necessary to be highly effective Earth Regenerators, as well as pathways to apply what we learn directly on the ground in our home bioregions or in other bioregions around the world. We blend theory and practice and apply what we learn directly to the real world as we learn it. Design Level Members also have the opportunity to apply to offer courses, learning journeys, and host themed dialogues within the School.

2) Pathways to participate in "bioregional activations" within the regions of our network. The Design School Team plans to travel every 3-4 months to a region of neighboring landscapes to help activate bioregional awareness, weave bioregional dialogues within and between landscapes, and provide shared language and shared tools & resources for organizing for regeneration at the landscape scale. Design Level Members also have the opportunity to invite and host activations in their home bioregions.

3) The opportunity to participate in emergent Design Labs addressing real-world design challenges that members are facing within their bioregions. Design Level Members can host and lead these Design Labs within the School.

4) Participation in the Design School Fund. Design Level Members contribute into the Design School Fund with their membership dues. They then have the opportunity to apply for funding from the Fund as well as participate in its governance. The money in the Fund is redistributed into supporting people and projects associated with the bioregions that we work with and/or to design school members who need support to engage in projects on the ground in their own bioregions.

5) Meaningful connection and collaboration with like-hearted and like-minded peers from around the world.

The Design School Fund

We are creating a community commons and a living system of regenerative finance in the Design School. Design Level Members contribute a small amount into the community fund with their membership dues. These members then have the opportunity to ask for and receive financial support to engage in activities in their own bioregion or a bioregion where they can learn and practice the real work, which in turn provides direct support to the bioregions in our planetary network. Core team members and teams holding the processes on the ground in bioregions can also request and receive funding from the Design School Fund.

At each level of membership, you have the option to pay monthly or at a discounted annual rate

Community Level - $5 per month
- or -
Community Level - $50 per year


Design Level - $50 per month
-or -
Design Level - $500 per year

We have also created a scholarship fund to provide help for those who cannot afford the membership dues. If you have additional resources, please consider contributing to help someone else join who wouldn't otherwise be able to afford it. There are three ways to contribute:

Pay It Forward - Community Level - $100 per year
Pay It Forward - Design Level - $1,000 per year
Contribute to the General Scholarship Fund via PayPal

Please email us at [email protected] if you'd like to gift your donation to a specific person or if you have any other special requests.

Need a scholarship?
Click Here to Apply 

“I call the transformed world toward which we can move ‘sustainable,’ by which I mean a great deal more than a world that merely sustains itself unchanged. I mean a world that evolves, as life on earth has evolved for three billion years, toward ever greater diversity, elegance, beauty, self-awareness, interrelationship, and spiritual realization.”

-Donella Meadows, Co-Author of the Limits to Growth Report