rooted in place.
founded in collaboration.
The Resilient Futures Co-Lab is a place-based initiative focused on strengthening the foundations of local economies so communities can thrive – socially, ecologically, and economically – to support the realization of resilience outcomes.
We work by bringing capital, relationships, and long-term support into alignment around real needs on the ground. Our focus is not on one-off projects, but on how clusters of initiatives, working across different layers of a system, can reinforce one another to unlock durable change.
Across North Carolina, thousands of people are already doing incredible work.
They are building regenerative farms, worker-owned businesses, circular manufacturing models, community land trusts, resilience hubs, cultural institutions, and new forms of care and stewardship. There is no shortage of commitment, creativity, or local leadership.
There is also no shortage of capital in the abstract. And yet, many of the initiatives most critical to long-term resilience struggle to survive, connect, or scale.
We believe that coordination, sequencing, and aligned support – of capital and other critical resources – can help elevate the amazing work that’s already underway, and help mature initiatives that are not currently qualified for financing.
The Resilient Futures Co-Lab exists to help bridge critical gaps by connecting what already exists, strengthening what’s already working, and building the missing conditions that allow local initiatives to thrive together over time.
.png)
Planetary Boundaries, Local Pressures
Planetary boundaries describe the limits of natural systems (air, water, soils) within which human societies can thrive. Today, seven of the nine boundaries defined by scientists have already been exceeded at a global level.
That global reality shows up locally.
Here in the Mountain and Piedmont region, people are already experiencing what it means when systems are stretched beyond their limits: rising costs from disrupted global value chains, housing instability, extreme weather, pressure on land and livelihoods, and difficult trade-offs about how communities grow and endure.
How we work:
learning together, investing over time
The Resilient Futures Co-Lab supports a transition to lower-impact, regenerative ways of living across housing, food, land use, and local industries, while improving health, affordability, and economic security. We’re here to strengthen community-led stewardship and keep value, assets, and decision-making rooted in the region.
We believe lasting change happens when local leaders learn and build together over time, not in isolation. That’s why we support portfolios: connected efforts that operate at different layers of a system and strengthen one another.
Some initiatives may be revenue-generating. Others focus on trust-building, shared infrastructure, skills, policy, or coordination. These “in-between” layers are often essential but rarely funded. We believe they need to be supported together.
Bioregional Lens
We’re taking a bioregional approach because lasting change depends on working with the systems that shape daily life: land, water, ecosystems, and the local economy.
There’s no single way to define a bioregion, but it’s widely understood as a way of looking at place through ecological and cultural context rather than political boundaries.
What matters most is the idea itself: that communities are connected through watersheds, forests, shared infrastructure, local economies, and culture.
Our work is currently focused on the Mountain and Piedmont counties of North Carolina, as a starting point within the broader bioregion of Appalachia
Where our research, partnerships, and early microgrants are currently focused
Where We’re Starting
This 59-county focus area reflects where our research, partnerships, and early investment work are currently centered. It helps us stay grounded and relationship-based while working at a scale that reflects how real regional systems function across rural communities, towns, and cities.
Our aim is to learn deeply here, align initiatives over time, and build a model of coordinated transition that can be expanded to nearby regions.
Philosophy
We believe regions are strongest when people, land, and local economies are cared for together.
Stewardship
over Extraction
Collaboration
over Competition
Long-term resilience
over short term gains
Local knowledge alongside global practices
APPROACH
How the Co-Lab Works
The work of the Co-Lab unfolds through three connected areas:
Community
weaving
Mapping, connecting, and supporting local initiatives, leaders, and organizations. We work to make it easier and simpler for people to work together across sectors and geographies.
Systemic analysis &
transition design
Looking at the region’s economic, ecological, and social systems as a whole to identify opportunities, gaps, and shared priorities for long-term transition towards resilient, healthy communities.
Capital
alignment
Inspiring and designing ways to bring philanthropic, catalytic, and investment capital into the region in ways that support local ownership, collaboration, and durable impact.
Transition Pathways
Transition pathways are the Co-Lab’s evolving areas of focus that connect projects, learning, and investment into coherent regional strategies. We are developing these pathways through regional analysis, early sense-making workshops, ongoing community engagement, and targeted microgrants designed to surface anchor organizations and aligned initiatives.
A transition pathway is a structured sequence of actions designed to:
-
Remove key barriers that prevent systemic change
-
Amplify existing efforts that already move the system in the right direction
-
Fill the missing conditions or capacities needed to shift the whole system toward a circular, regenerative, and equitable economy
At this stage, we are defining pathways at an orientational level while staying transparent that they will continue to sharpen and expand through learning and community input, with a preliminary focus on four outcomes that emerged strongly in our conversations thus far:
A resilient, locally rooted food system
One that produces more food locally, strengthens local value chains, regenerates degraded land and water systems, supports new, existing, and next-generation farmers, and enables shared investment in the infrastructure needed to make all of this viable — from processing and storage to logistics and markets.
Receiving Applications till March 6th, 2026
Micro Grants
Supporting early, place-based work
As part of its early activities, the Resilient Futures Co-Lab is piloting a microgrants program to support initiatives aligned with bioregional resilience across the Mountain and Piedmont counties of North Carolina.
These grants are intended to support learning, experimentation, coordination, and early action, not to fund fully mature or standalone projects. They’re meant to give a boost to promising ideas and the people and teams bringing them to life.
We are looking for initiatives aligned with the Co-Lab’s objectives, values, place-based focus, and commitment to collaboration.
subscribe to our newsletter
Stay connected for updates and future opportunities to get involved.
Collaborators
The Resilient Futures Co-Lab is shaped through collaboration with regional and international partners who bring diverse perspectives, expertise, and lived experience to the work, including:
.png)
As the work grows, additional partners and collaborators will be named and acknowledged along the way.