Our consciousness in using NVC is that money is a strategy to meet needs. When we offer workshops, we meet a variety of our own needs, including for contribution, meaning, connection, and growth. We want to also meet our need for support in our livelihood through our teaching of NVC because that way we can contribute most of our time and energy without seeking other work through which to sustain ourselves and our families. Hoping to meet these needs, we ask that each person contribute the most they are open to giving.

At the same time, we have a deep joy in and commitment to making NVC available to all people regardless of their financial means. We are particularly interested in reaching people of color and low-income people for whom our requested contribution would be prohibitive. This meets our needs for inclusion, hope, and concrete action toward bringing peace to our world. Hoping to meet these needs, we ask that each person only contribute what they are willing to give with open-heartedness after considering their own needs.

We are aware that “money” is a charged issue for most of us in this culture. In this context, we want to maximize our own and others’ opportunities to consider how to shift our relationships to money through NVC. One of our strategies is to create a wide sliding-scale rather than the usual quite narrow sliding-scales. We hope that each person will consider our sliding-scale an opportunity to consider the variety of needs that exist within your relationship to money – your needs for sustainability, security, ease, comfort, and contribution, among others. We hope that each person would consider those needs of yours along with ours which we described above, and arrive at an amount that reflects your financial reality grounded in your needs. Hoping to meet all of our needs, we ask that each person contribute the most that you would like to.

We are excited about this approach as we predict that, over time, it will contribute to meeting all of our needs for learning and for moving toward a society in which everyone’s needs can be met.

This statement was adopted with permission from BayNVC’s approach to money, at www.baynvc.org, with some modification.