High Desert Institute

What We Do

The High Desert Institute is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization dedicated to building a foundation for the survival of humanity. We are focused on accomplishing this through off-grid land projects, libraries, and guilds.

A group of seasoned experts from the off-grid community-building world are fundraising to create a series of new land projects in the high deserts of the southwest. These outposts will be centers for permaculture and mutual aid, designed to build a foundation for the survival of humanity. These new land projects will facilitate research, development, and distribution of free, open-source solutions to basic human needs like housing and off-grid infrastructure.

None of us are getting paid, every dollar goes to the mission. The entire process will be completely transparent and open source. Every dollar donated means the world and makes a huge difference!

The Library

HDI will publish a vast, free, open-source library containing everything we learn as well as many other sources we have collected on the topic of how to live well off-grid. This idea started as a request from one of the communities our team helped build in the past; to enable off-grid communities to host their own private intranets with libraries of useful knowledge. This library will be completely free and open to anyone and everyone.

Learn more about the library →

The Cyberpony Express

HDI is partnering with Burners Without Borders and the Multiverse School to build a free, secure, public mesh network using Meshtastic nodes to enable anyone to securely communicate. The Cyberpony Express also allows communication between the outposts of the High Desert Institute as well as other intentional communities without relying on the fragile infrastructure of the public internet and cell phone towers. This is vital disaster response infrastructure which will make people safer and make communities better prepared for the many disasters that are coming.

Learn more about the Cyberpony Express →

Guilds

Guilds are groups within the High Desert Institute that focus on particular topics or aspects of community development. These are semi-atonomous organizations which start out as ad-hoc committees with a degree of self-governance ability including their own budget and fundraising ability, plus broad authority to decide how their projects happen, including spending. The goal is that these guilds will grow beyond the High Desert Institute, and eventually take on a life of their own, all over the world.

View all guilds →

High Desert Community Land Trust

The High Desert Community Land Trust is a separate nonprofit we will create as an owner of the lands we buy. This new nonprofit will have an extremely narrow focus and extremely careful rules and bylaws. It will exist simply to own the land and administer the land trusts that govern how the land can be used.

This insulates risk and improves separation of concerns so that the ownership of the lands can be separaetly secured forever within an institution designed for the purpose of protecting the land for the community.

Note: Julia and CJ will be leading an upcoming workshop series about this project. Stay tuned for details.

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High Desert Community Development Fund

The High Desert Community Development Fund is a planned, separate nonprofit which provides reliable, long-term support for the High Desert Institute’s programs and land purchases. By creating a nonprofit endowment fund, we ensure that HDI will be able to continue buying land and building outposts, giving out critical infrastructure for free, paying for workshops, and all the other projects that are in the works. In this way, the fund transforms one-off donations and bequests into a self-sustaining financial engine, empowering our outposts and the surrounding communities to thrive through what's coming.

The essential mission and purpose of the fund will be to build and maintain a safe and diversified portfolio of passive index-fund ETFs and index-dividend ETFs which deliver returns that can fund things like our property taxes, land aquisitions, and maintenance of any essential infrastructure. Any additional returns can be allocated to fund the programs of the High Desert Institute or for reinvestment back into the fund.

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