Common Ground as a collective is always experimenting with how to make money flow with joy, to where it's most needed. This is why we have taken it on ourselves to start aligning the pricing of our courses with these values and practices.

Since 2023, the pricing for courses shifted to a “Contribution within Capacity” model, also referred to as sharing or gift economy. We learned about this approach from Miki Kashtan, who invites everyone to “give the most they can without overstretching or resentment”.

This model is in alignment with what we teach in the course –  breaking the exchange logic of capitalism. It also stands for values that are relevant to us: partnership, accessibility, sustainability, and needs-based, among others. It also allows us to give more room to both the participants’ and our own needs.

<aside> 🌊

How much should I pay?

To help you decide how much to pay for Intro to Facilitation course, we offer two resources:

Information about our & cost structure & facilitator needs

In the paragraphs below, we share how much it costs us to run this course, the thinking behind the contribution options, as well as our needs as course hosts to offer this in a sustainable way.

📈See here how much revenue we have so far. (to be open soon)

Self-assessment questions

Review the questions below to help your reflection on what contribution is right for you.

Choose your price: Self-assessment questions

Made your decision?

Then head over to our website where you can enroll.

Still unsure?

If you have questions or are unsure about what contribution to make, drop us a line at [email protected]

If you have already enrolled and want to adjust your contribution:

💝 You can make additional contributions here

</aside>

Information about our cost structure & facilitator needs

What does it cost to run this course?

To be able to deliver a high-quality live course, our desired income to run it sustainably is roughly 500 Euros per session (and per facilitator); for this cohort of intro to facilitation would be a net income of 3500€ (Excluding VAT). Kindly note that if you sign up for this program as an individual, you are subject to paying UK VAT. However, if you are an organization outside of the UK and if you need a direct invoice without UK VAT, kindly send us as email on [email protected].

This calculation is based on and includes the work that goes into:

• Re-designing & updating the course based on feedback from previous cohorts
• Facilitation for 2 months with experienced professionals + a stipend for a possible third “learning” facilitator
• Remuneration for guest speakers (if we have them) - we have quite a few videos from the previous cohorts, so we’re not inviting the former speakers again to deliver the same message, we generally invite one speaker per cohort to dive into an unexplored approach/topic.
• Promotion efforts to fill the course - this currently takes as much effort as delivering the course.
• 15% to the Greaterthan commons (read more about Greaterthan’s financial agreements).

We aim for our courses to be delivered with very high quality and to be prioritised alongside the other paid engagements we do at Greaterthan - we mainly do consulting work and courses -  which is why we aim for each facilitator to receive a minimum of 3.000€ net per cohort. Our ideal number would be 5.000€ per facilitator.

The contribution options and what’s behind them

With an ideal aim of 10 participants and 3500€ income per cohort, the average price per person would be approximately 350€. This has led us to create the following ticket options:

How did we arrive at this? The reality that we experienced in previous cohorts though is that about a third of participants need a total or partial scholarship to participate.

To truly make this course accessible and support those with lower financial means, we created the ticket tier Supporter. This is recommended for: a) people whose participation is paid for by their organisation or b) people who ****want to support the sustainability of this course with this specific amount.