About Us
We’re on a mission to foster deeper community connections and greater social impact by delivering programs and resources that give hope, inspiration, resources, more meaning, and deeper connections to individuals and organizations in our community.
Here's how we do that:
- We foster deeper community connections by delivering a whole new community experience under the protection of our Good Human Code of Conduct(tm). We actively create context-relevant, meaningful community experiences in person at our community space and online through the Eos Community Connections Portal.
- We give people hope and inspiration through the power of personal story and our annual Rising Phoenix Awards program celebrating the change agents and their efforts.
- We help people and organizations find the support and resources they need through our easy to use, far-reaching, and creative community-support engines, The Life Transition Zone and the Eos Community Connections Portal.
- We help people find more meaning in life experiences through our Conscious Rites personalized ceremonies and programs and by creating shared experiences with other community members.
- We help people and organizations use creative expression as a way to connect more deeply with themselves and with other community members through our Creative Emergence Center programs.
Here’s what we believe:
With hope and inspiration, all things are possible.
“Hope is being able to see that there is light despite all of the darkness.” – Desmond Tutu
“There’s no need to be perfect to inspire others. Let people get inspired by how you deal with your imperfections.” – Kurt Tasche
We believe that hope can lead to inspiration, inspiration can lead to inspired action, inspired action can lead to personal evolution, and that enough personal evolution can lead to societal revolution.
Life transitions are catalysts for personal growth.
It seems we grow more during times of change because change shakes us out of our comfort zones and forces us to adapt. Major life transitions can shake us to our core and cause us to grow and evolve in character-defining ways. Though we all go through them, we’re all stronger than we know and we will find that strength when tested. We believe that if we keep the light of hope burning, the fire of change will help us become more of who we’re meant to be.
New ways, new systems, and new leaders are needed.
Society as we know it is going through massive shifts right before our eyes – old ways and old systems are breaking down, and some of them can’t and maybe shouldn’t be fixed. New ways and new systems that are built on collaboration, compassion, fairness, generosity, kindness, and love must arise to replace them, and we need to identify and rally around leaders that embody those qualities. We believe that everyone has important roles to play and that one of ours is to provide a safe place where people can belong and to contribute to something better.
Real. Connected. Community. The old way can become a new way, leading to something better.
What passes for “community” today often seems to pale in comparison with what used to be. There’s a knowing inside us that we’ve lost a connection with those around us and maybe even with ourselves; that we’ve traded meaningful relationships with ourselves and others for busy-ness, for things, for distractions, for devices, and for shallow connections online. We believe that compassion, generosity, kindness and meaningful connection are fundamental to our nature and that if we provide a better community, then people will choose to join it when they’re ready.
Our Core Values
We are community
We value all voices and strive for productive and healthy collaborations between all.
We are safe
We speak and act in ways that safeguard or protect each other from harm of all kinds - including physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual.
We act with integrity
We let our actions reflect our values and strive to meet all commitments. We gently and firmly hold ourselves and each other accountable.
We are respectful
We treat others with respect at all times and use language that reflects appreciation of their wisdom and perspective.
We are fair
We are inclusive, fair, and equitable in all our transactions and interactions.
We are supportive and inspiring
We use words and actions that encourage and uplift each other, encouraging everyone to be their best, most authentic selves.
We behave constructively
We address disagreements constructively, giving others the benefit of the doubt and addressing problems in collaborative ways.
Debut of Peaceful Crossings and personal legacy planning
Helping people live more intentionally and with peace of mind through personal legacy planning tools and services. Peaceful Crossings later evolved into Intentional Legacies.
The annual Rising Phoenix Awards take flight
Laying the foundation for a connected community of change agents, we gathered and celebrated local heroes that rose from the ashes to do awesome things in the community and then used their personal stories to give hope and inspiration to others.
Bringing back ceremony and rites of passage through Conscious Rites
Recognizing major life transitions as opportunities for reflection and growth, we launched Conscious Rites as a program to offer rites of passage programs and personalized ceremonies to help people find depth, meaning, and connection through those major life transitions.Lifting up the single moms and their kids through the SMILE program
Recognizing the daily struggle that many single moms face, we started the Single Moms Intentional Living Endowment program to create a community of single moms that support and nurture each other and share resources gathered from the community.Emergence of The Intentional Living Collective
Recognizing we could serve the community more and better as a formal non-profit, we birthed The Intentional Living Collective (TILC Inc.) and received 501c3 status in late 2016. TILC emerged as the home of the Rising Phoenix Awards and Conscious Rites and expanded from there.
Rite and Recognition: exploring the importance and re-emergence of rites of passage
Building on the concept of using major life transitions as opportunities for growth, we launched the Life Transition Zone program to give people a save place to turn to – literally and virtually – for help and resources during life’s most challenging times.The TILC Community Gala: a fabulous Vegas kind of night!
The foundational member organizations of The Intentional Living Collective came together to host a party to introduce TILC to the SE Michigan and NW Ohio communities and raise funds for early programming. Happy first birthday, TILC!
Introducing The Life Transition Zone – offering hope, inspiration, and resources when you need them the most
Building on the concept of using major life transitions as opportunities for growth, we launched the Life Transition Zone to give people a safe place to turn to – literally and virtually – for help and resources during life’s most challenging times.
Extending our reach: embracing East Lansing and far, far beyond!
As TILC extends beyond the SE Michigan / NW Ohio region to embrace East Lansing, WLNZ’s Jack Robbins interviews TILC founder Cal Loo about how the Rising Phoenix Awards and Life Transition Zone help people in the local East Lansing community. The Rising Phoenix Awards reach even further with 2019-20 Rising Phoenixes recognized across the US and as far away as Africa!
Adjusting to a “new normal” with new services and a new website
As the COVID-19 crisis, financial upheaval, and racial protests combined to turn lives upside-down everywhere, we surveyed our members for what they needed most and responded with new and modified programs to meet their most urgent needs and a new website through which to connect with them in the virtual world. We shifted in-person events to virtual where they could still be impactful, we canceled or postponed events that needed to be in-person, we adjusted our staffing to appropriate levels while keeping the core of our team intact, and we secured additional resources where possible to help us weather the storm and be ready to re-emerge when we could do so safely.
Redefining community
After over three years of planning and development, we’ll release the first version of the Eos Community Connections Portal in late 2022! Eos is an online community support and collaborations engine like no other that lets community members support themselves, help each other, and find organizations and programs to collaborate with. In alignment with Eos’ launch, we opened up our first TILC Community Center in Ann Arbor, MI to support the growth of our “In person” community. We offer regular community mixers and open houses, and all our online or in person gatherings are governed by the Good Human Code of Conduct so people can come together in safe and brave spaces
Getting to know us through time
Meet the team
Elisa Guyton
"The Butterfly"
Community Engagement Director Evangelist & Community Engager
[email protected]
To ensure a safe and supportive environment for all of our community members, we ask you to uphold these values and beliefs in your interactions with others in our community.
Get Involved
Become a Volunteer
You've risen from the ashes yourself, you know how hard it can be. Fulfill your role as a change agent by using your...
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