Background
Start-up communities within housing communities, collectives and eco-communities express a desire for accessible people with professional skills to support them in the start-up phase. Communities make use of various advisors, consultants and experts, with varying degrees of success. But there is a lack of an overview of needs and supply.

Counseling as a formal need
Both financial institutions, Realdania and the Guidance Unit for Community Communities are aware of the need for and lack of advisors/consultants with the right profiles in the start-up of communities. It will often be a requirement to receive funding that the initiative group has an advisor attached (Merkur, AL, etc.)

Network startup
In the project, LOES is exploring what a consulting network for start-up communities could look like, how it could be framed, and how it could be anchored in the existing organizations; the Danish Association for Eco-Communities (LOES), the Collective Association and Bofællesskab.dk. All in order to be able to serve future communities in the best possible way, so that their chance of realization increases.

Questions for clarification:

• How diverse is the field? Do you specialize or do you try to advise more generally, in several areas? What is the need for specialists and generalists?   
• Do advisors want to work together in networks? Why? When several advisors are affiliated with the same community, what kind of collaborative relationship can they have?   
• What are the communities’ needs for advice? What does it mean to receive advice from a person who lives in the community themselves? 
• Experts – practice experts? How do these two types of advisors work together?

Contact:
If you are interested in being involved in shaping the network, please contact Camilla at camilla@okosamfund.dk

See also the list of consultants at  Bofællesskab.dk and The teaching network at LOES.