PLAY FOR ALL FESTIVAL:
Sebastopol, September 27, 11 AM – 9 PM

Partnering nature, science, play, and wisdom to reimagine what it means to be human.

MISSION: Catalyze the development of communities and innovations to advance wellbeing for people and the planet. 

VISION: Create the conditions for becoming wise ancestors, by confronting our unique time in history—with all of its challenges and opportunities—and responding to the polycrisis with life-affirming solutions that work for everyone.

Origin Story

Rock Creek Institute is pioneering a new way to conceptualize, organize, and deploy capital—financial, human, social, produced, and natural—to address the deep-rooted gap between humanity’s highest aspirations and how we act in our work, service, and daily life. Discover how we got here.

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Humanity at a Crossroads

Humanity is at an inflection point. For the first time in human history the impacts of our success might catalyze our decline. We have a small window to create the foundation for a sustainable and desirable world, which is fair and equitable for all of humanity, other species, and future generations.

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Wellbeing Innovation

New operating instructions are needed to break the logjam dividing humanity’s highest aspirations from how innovation and investment typically happen today. Our Platform for Change is designed to make the status quo obsolete by ushering in a new, life-affirming approach to innovation.

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Model & Value Proposition

At RCI, we strike a balance between naïve optimism and analysis paralysis. The Platform for Change is powered by our curated Communities of Passion, Purpose, and Practice; facilitated by our Model of the Innovation Process; and guided by our Design Principles for Wellbeing Acceleration.

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“We have the power to marry our hope with our action. We have the power to pay forward the love, sweat, and sacrifice of our mothers and fathers and all those who came before us…. Let us work like our lives depend on it!”

Michelle Obama,
2024 Democratic National Convention

“Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. Maybe many of us won’t be here to greet her, but on a quiet day, if I listen carefully, I can hear her breathing.”

Arundhati Roy,
War Talk

“Plans are useless, planning is indispensable.”

Dwight D. Eisenhower

“We are at a point in the course of social evolution when the demands of survival converge with the highest aspirations of humankind. It is up to us to see that we navigate this transition successfully, emerging, and even flourishing, in a new reality, one in which the core value is the well-being of all.”

Jonathan Salk,
Planetary Health: A New Reality

“It is not that we have a short time to live, but that we waste a lot of it. Life is long enough, and a sufficiently generous amount has been given to us for the highest achievements if it were all well invested. But when it is wasted in heedless luxury and spent on no good activity, we are forced at last by death’s final constraint to realize that it has passed away before we knew it was passing… Life is long if you know how to use it.”

Seneca (4 BC-AD 65),
On the Shortness of Life

“Life on our planet is in trouble. It is hard to go anywhere without being confronted by the wounding of our world, the tearing of the very fabric of life…. Our planet is sending us signals of distress that are so continual now they seem almost normal… These are warning signals that we live in a world that can end, at least as a home for conscious life. This is not to say that it will end, but it can end. That very possibility changes everything for us.”

Joanna Macy
World as Lover, World as Self

“The three aspects of [the head of the community] are to see that working for the benefit of others benefits oneself; to understand that through making every effort for the prosperity of the community one revitalizes one’s own character; and to know that endeavoring to succeed and to surpass the patriarchs of past generations means to learn from their lives and to value their examples.”   

Eihei DōgenZenji (1200-1253),
Instructions for the Zen Cook

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