Stewarding a Prosperous
Northern New Mexico
November 12–14
Northern Rio Grande Corridor, New Mexico
Join land stewards, community leaders, economic developers and regional entrepreneurs for a gathering about stewardship economies and the relational infrastructure that sustains them.
Together, we’ll move beyond abstract dialogue to explore the lived experiences, hidden drivers, and systemic shifts shaping Northern New Mexico’s regional stewardship economy.
Creating the conditions from which solutions emerge we'll explore how caring for land and shifting our relational orientation can support local livelihoods, strengthen communities and create lasting economic opportunity.
Presented In Partnership with:
The Dilemma
Economic development is increasingly about consequential choices under complexity, not simply attracting investment or generating jobs. Communities have to reconcile economic opportunity, identity, power, ecological constraints, competing stakeholders, uncertainty and long-term consequences.
We have gotten much better at expanding who participates in economic-development decisions. We have done less work on improving the actual quality of collective judgment once those people are in the room.
What we’ll exploreThrough facilitated conversations and working sessions, we’ll ask:
A stewardship economy connects the well-being of our communities with the health of the lands and waters around us. Through facilitated conversations and working sessions, we’ll examine the rules we live by, the courses we set across generations and how we navigate distributed systems together.
FOCUS 1
Reveal
What implicit rules, leverage points, and relational patterns are currently organizing stewardship-based economic development across the region?
FOCUS 2
Reorient
What hidden drivers or institutional barriers pull us off course, and how can we shift our vantage point toward long-term generational stewardship?
FOCUS 3
Steer
How can we navigate resource flows, align competing interests, and fund this work together when no single actor sees the whole field?
The Gathering at a Glance
Three days.
One shared field.
Venue and additional details will be shared as plans are finalized.
NOVEMBER 12
Welcome Dinner & Orientation
Meet fellow participants, uncover hidden leverage points and establish a shared relational foundation
NOVEMBER 13
Working Sessions
Map system dynamics, explore systemic pressures, and unlock new avenues for collective strategy via relational cartography and other methods of group work.
NOVEMBER 14 · OPTIONAL
Field Day
Translate insights into practice out in the landscape and broaden our perspective on regional resilience.
Featured Facilitator
Natalie (Gaia Ma) Fraley
Founder of InanItah + Better Compass | Facilitator + Learning Architect
Natalie aka Gaia Ma is a facilitator, learning architect, and founder of InanItah, an ecological living and learning community in Nicaragua she has led since 2008. For more than two decades, her work has explored personal transformation, relational healing, and planetary evolution through experiential learning and community practice. She leads Transformational Facilitator Trainings, alongside work in regenerative culture, embodied practice, and collective intelligence. She is currently developing Better Compass, a suite of experiential approaches designed to expand the forms of intelligence people and institutions can access when navigating complexity, consequential decisions and change.
Join the Stewardship Economy Conversation
Connect with rural leaders, practitioners, and partners exploring how stewardship can strengthen local economies. Get invitations to monthly calls, resources, and opportunities to learn from communities across the country.
