How to Offboard Community Members

Jun 18, 2024

So you want to “break up” with a community member.

How do you do it?

Perhaps even trickier than knowing how to filter for the people most aligned to your community is to handle the process of saying goodbye to those that aren’t.

Sometimes it’s natural and amicable, sometimes it’s sticky and dram-awful.

When someone needs to go, you should be equipped with these tools to handle departures with sensitivity.

Sonia and I with Regen Tribe in Switzerland last year. I’m not currently traveling with the tribe, but you can join them this summer in Berlin.

Reasons People Leave a Community

1. Interpersonal Conflict

For reasons mysterious and silly, sometimes we just don’t get along with others. The way they eat crackers or talk our ear off sometimes just drive us crazy.

Occasionally, it’s more serious. The person says things passive aggressive things that you feel are degrading. They take your food without asking. Their negligence leads to their puppy shitting — more than once — in front of your door.

This is where you learn to distinguish between conflict and incompatibility. The first one can be remediated. The second usually ends in someone leaving.

2. Incompatibility with Community Values

Someone partying late night might not go against the values of a young digital nomad ecovillage in the jungle. An urban coliving unit of young professionals could be a different story.

There are a range of behaviors that may be “unfavorable” but tolerable.

How do you know when someone is violating your community values? Well, this is why you spend so much time exploring your values in the visioning of your community, and clarifying what you stand for. Behavior goes against community values when:

It impedes the community from doing its essential tasks to run itself
It is explicitly the opposite of a behavior you wish to be supported to practice in the creation of your community, such as being plant-based, alcohol-free, etc.
It shows an unwillingness to adopt community aspirations, such as achieving a plastic-free lifestyle or self-sufficiency.

Persistent behavior that disrupts community harmony or violates core values may necessitate offboarding to preserve the community's integrity.

3. Personal Choice

Members may choose to leave due to personal circumstances or changing life goals. Communities often support these decisions, recognizing that personal growth sometimes leads members in different directions.

This may leave the community at a loss — physically, financially, or emotionally.

It’s important to honor a person’s contributions and role in a community if and when they decide to leave.

You might also consider having protocols so that community members don’t leave before their obligations are fulfilled or they can find an adequate replacement.

On that note, I made a personal choice of my own. I have decided to move from Costa Rica to California, from Ecovilla to Wild Seeds. The reasons? I feel squarely incompatible with the tropical climate here, I am craving familiarity, and this new home will be 1.5 hours from where my dad will retire in Mexico.

After traveling communities in Latin America and Europe, I found that where I started was just as much a treasure. If you’re interested, Wild Seeds is accepting new members.

Identifying a Problem

Put in place ways to identify when behavior doesn’t support the health of the community. I’ve seen many examples of how communities give this feedback:

Anonymous Feedback — whether it’s a box, sticky notes, etc. this is one way to make sure people aren’t holding back what they feel, but it can easily get passive aggressive. Just dropping accusations in a group chat somewhat falls into this category, although this can be surprisingly healthy.
Peer resolution — conflict always belongs to the people who it’s between. Have a rule that if you have an issue with someone you need to approach them to resolve it rather than complaining about them to everyone.
Heart-to-heart sessions — It’s useful to have a few designated ambassadors to come to (more than one is good, in case the ambassador is the one the person has an issue with).
Circles — Group process can be incredibly liberating, but can veer to chaos when you don’t have a structure you follow. Well-known processes include “Way of Council”, Tamera’s “Forum”, and tribal justice rituals to express and resolve issues.

Example: The Farm (USA) Conducts regular reviews and feedback sessions. If a member consistently diverges from the community’s core values and ethos, they may be asked to leave.
Example: Los Angeles Eco-Village (USA) Uses a special mediation team to address conflicts. If a resolution isn't possible, the core team helps decide if a member should leave.

Living at a community in Tulum called Portal Ixchel, we came up with a rating process for certain behaviors and how serious they were to us. You can look at this example document of the rating process and copy the template in Notion.

The levels of behavior:

Mild
Medium
Serious

During our time there, we had 2 rather uncomfortable situations where we had to dismiss volunteers. Both were not meeting the required hours, and it was noticeable that the quality of their work was halfhearted (the food they made or the spaces they cleaned).

One kept delaying when she would leave, and we had to make a decision amongst the permanent community members to ask her to leave not just when it was convenient for her, but as soon as possible.

She was one of my closest friends there, so it wasn’t pleasant for me, but I knew it was a necessary choice for the collective — one that I supported.

This was me 1 year and 1 day ago, celebrating my birthday with my community members at Portal Ixchel. I turned 29 on Sunday!

Who Gets the Say

According to me, the only group that should be able to make the final decision is the circle of full-time residents.

My personal reasoning is that these are the people who have to live with the long-term effects of a negative influence in the community, not someone who is just there for the summer.

However, if temporary community members feel important enough to include and you value full transparency, I suggest that you sit in Socratic circles and the core group contemplates the decision, while the outer circle gives input without decision-making power.

Steps in the Offboarding Process

Process feedback
Initiate a review process
Give warnings, adjust
Initiate a separation process
Initiate a removal ceremony
Assist people to transition out

Offboarding Strategies to Implement

1. Transparent and Compassionate Communication

Many communities hold formal meetings to discuss the departure openly, ensuring transparency and reducing any potential misunderstandings.

Example: Findhorn holds farewell rituals or circles where the departing member can share their experiences and the community can express gratitude and best wishes.

2. Practical Arrangements

Address any outstanding financial obligations or dues between you and the member. This is definitely to be done before they leave.

If you’re kind, you help them find alternative housing or assist with the logistics of moving.

There is often a theme about belongings, as people often leave behind many things that are inconvenient to take with them. You either inherit awesome stuff or are stuck with junk, so have some clear boundaries about what you’re comfortable with.

Example: Auroville ensures all financial matters are settled before departure.
Example: Ixchel’s founder would joke about this “hippie fungus”, referring to mysterious junk that would simply accumulate without any real owner. However, his willingness to store things for others helped me out personally when I had to leave a lot of things to go to Japan.

3. Ritual

You want to ritualize someone’s departure.

People need catharsis. Not everybody will be in full agreement about a person leaving, and just like romantic break-ups, you need to make space to find closure.

Example: a closure meeting with final words, final goodbyes, and gratitude is a lovely way to end someone’s time at a community. This can often be done at community circles, as people come and go, or if the member was particularly significant, you can have a separate goodbye ceremony.

3. Maintaining Connections

You might consider creating an alumni network. Some communities establish networks for former members to stay connected, share updates, and possibly contribute to the community in different ways.

Again, just because someone isn’t a fit to live there, doesn’t mean they don’t make a great addition to the community in other ways. Some people move out of the physical community, yet remain part of daily life.

You might consider having an “open door policy” for previous members and visitors.

Example: Communities like Tamera welcome former members to visit, attend events, and remain part of the broader community network.

Just because a person doesn’t fit as a permanent member doesn’t mean they can’t contribute in other ways and maintain an amicable relationship.

Conclusion

Design your onboarding and offboarding processes to maintain harmony, uphold shared values, and ensure mutual benefit.

These processes are integral to the health and sustainability of your community.

By handling departures with care, you can foster good sentiment between the members that stay, and your community can weather any storm while preserving your core mission and spirit.

Do you have any lingering questions about offboarding community members? Drop them below