Disclaimer from Tammi and Chelsea: This blog took us two months to write. Companies *usually* launch stuff and then share it. But we’re a community, so we’re sharing it as it shakes down. Lots of what you’ll read below is already happening, but some is about seeds that are in the process of sprouting. We’re laying it all on the line now because we want you to grow with us.
We’re officially into our last slice of 2017, and we’re super excited to call you, our beloved community, to the flagpole to let you in on the plans we’re hatching.
Five years after we brought Campowerment into the world, we want to echo the mantra we’ve relied on to grow our business, which has since morphed into a movement: It takes a village to raise a village.
Raising Campowerment — with defined values, a moral compass that brings itself home to someplace better; with kinship and brains and brawn and beauty that shines from the inside out — was not always easy. It was also not always linear or chronological, and — let’s be frank: it was not even always logical.
But, baby step by big-girl step, we forged on, and as it grew, you grew (and we did, too!). Fueled by your feedback and your love and your presence and your immense contributions to this community, growth has continued to happen. Evolution has continued to happen. Life has continued to happen.
Because, we’ve come to learn, life happens when you show up…
Since 2013, we’ve been lucky enough to connect with nearly 7,000 purpose-driven people who have experienced, and contributed to, Campowerment’s magic.
We’ve done 20 women’s Weekend Retreats on both coasts. We’ve hosted and co-hosted 40 Mini Camps all across the country, to play with and spark the imaginations of lots of new women who, too, were speaking our language.
We’ve created a community where some of the most powerful, most loving, welcoming, accepting, playful, ambitious, supportive women connect on a level that’s so beyond our wildest dreams. And one that seems to be beyond yours, too!
(That last part was the kicker when things felt hard. The community has continued to push us onward and upward, even when turning this novel idea into a viable business seemed nearly impossible.)
And then our wildest dreams got wilder. Y’all returned to your lives, refueled post-camp, and because you were even more awesome than when you tapped out just four days prior, your bosses and HR departments actually noticed how brightly you lit up the room. They asked you to call us, because they wanted that for their team (yup; even the men!). And that’s opened doors we didn’t even know we were supposed to walk through.
So, we’ve invited groups, companies, and organizations to the party, producing whitelabeled retreats (“Custom Programs”) to shape holistic curriculum that hits culture-building, education-spreading, people-powered goals that companies work so hard to hit. (Hey, ladies! It’s happening! Big change comes to those who stay open to the possibilities!)
Chief Empowerment Officer Tammi Leader Fuller wrote this journal entry at Burning Man in 2012, right after she met Expert Marnie (with her Handel Group family). It’s Tammi’s first time mapping out her dream, which would, in 4 months’ time, become Campowerment.
Though this started as our idea, you gave it legs by continuing to show up. Once it started, Campowerment took off running with all of us, landing us (all) in wide open pastures with no paths but the perfect dirt roads to pave our own.
So, Campers, you know how we say that you can’t get to where you want to go if you have no idea where that is? Well, here’s where we now want to go: (In fact, we’re already en route, windows down, music blaring…)
WEEKEND RETREATS
As you’ll see on the schedule that we lay out here (and on our site), our usual March retreat is going into hibernation so we can apply its big energy and momentum into movement-building for the greater good. We’re committed to changing the way people live together in service of a compassionate, interwoven world. So, if you want to #ReigniteYourLife at a Campowerment retreat before next Fall, this November is your LAST chance! Don’t miss it 😉
November 10-13, 2017. Malibu.
We’re wrapping an incredible year with 17 Experts who are off the chaaaain. We’re theming it HOMECOMING and throwin’ us a disco party to celebrate the journey homeward, into ourselves and into our place within this community we love Meet the Experts, and register here, while there are still bunk spaces left!
September 21-24, 2018. Pocono Mountains of PA.
We’re hopping East for our third year, to fly from a 30-foot slide into a glistening lake; boogie in a dance pavilion embedded in the forest; breathe the fresh mountain air; and live on the bunkline that brings us back to the feeling of being little kids at summer camp.Register for our East Coast 2018 retreat here.
November 9-12, 2018. Malibu.
November brings us back to where it all began: the slice of heaven that is our Malibu location, overlooking the Pacific Ocean, way up where the clouds go to LIVE! We’ll tie the year in a beautiful bow, with so many more reasons to be grateful two weeks before Thanksgiving next year. Register for our West Coast 2018 retreat here.
CUSTOM PROGRAMS: CORPORATE + GROUP RETREATS
Dear Campers: Imagine a world where your colleagues or clients can experience the magic you got from Campowerment. What new possibilities could your company or group uncover if they actually had each other’s backs…and…wait for it…felt connected to one another and the entity that unites them?!
With strategic, trailblazing partners (like lululemon and Nestlé USA), we have thoughtfully and methodically been applying our learnings and curating off-the-charts retreats for groups of 70+ people. We infuse companies’, groups’ and organizations’ culture-, education-, or innovation-driven agendas into our formula for perspective-shifting programs that we wrap around the power of playtime. We deliver tangible results for men and women, leaders and middle managers, mentors, mentees, salespeople, ambassadors, young adults and seniors. The Campowerment method really works for all those bold enough to play within it!
Do you know a brand, business, organization or group whose people could use their own custom-tailored Campowerment experience? Pay it forward, and click here to connect us, wouldya please?! If they book a retreat, your bunk space at one of ours in 2018 is on us!
Single-sex or co-ed; on weekends or weeknights; multi-day or one-day; at various levels of luxury (from “bunking” in cabins to higher-end “camp plus” experiences), our Custom Programs spark systemic transformation by empowering individuals and weaving an authentic, connective web to generate electricity around a culture or a mission or a set of sky-high goals.
Reach out to Meryl Russo (Meryl@Campowerment.com), our Director of Custom Programs, and let’s start a conversation. There’s not much we can’t do in this highly customizable, highly effective, and highly more-enjoyable-than-a-traditional-convention setting!
EXPERIENCES TO KEEP YOU CONNECTED BEYOND THE CAMPFIRE
Those of you who’ve felt the feels of Campowerment have told us that your 3.5 days was broadening; soul-boosting; enriching; magical; thought-provoking; powerful; fun; transformative; loving; warm; judgment-free; happy; renewing; totally game-changing; and fan-f***ing-tastic.
We’ve been humbled by your love and praise and continued feedback that you’re hungry for s’more support to stay in the halo long after you leave camp’s gates. September camp was a humbling (and LOUD) reminder of that. So, we decided to fast-track the launch of our digital Campowerment experience, designed to keep fanning the flames of this community’s campfire long after we spray down the real-life embers (safety first, kids…)
We’re taking the party #BeyondTheCampfire, and unleashing the magic on the interwebz in a way that meets you, past Campers,* right where you are, right now….which probably isn’t where you were when we said goodbye to you on that hilltop or by the lake.
We can hardly wait to relay all the details after we introduce it at our upcoming Malibu camp! Open our email on November 14th!
*Important caveat: these live, online experiences will be open exclusively to those who’ve attended a Campowerment Weekend Retreat (for now, at least). So if you know you’re going to want in, come to camp this November!
& LAST BUT NOT OUR LEAST WARM AND FUZZY: OUR NON-PROFIT GIVE HER CAMP, WHICH IS OFFICIALLY UP, RUNNING & SENDING LOTS OF WOMEN TO CAMPOWERMENT!
This exceptional milestone in our journey was big-time inspired by November 2013’s self-proclaimed “Bug Juice Bitchezzz,” a group of women who came to Campowerment as strangers and left as an eclectic crew of new best friends, aged 21 to 60-something, from 6 different states.
In 2014, the BJB’s started pooling resources to send one deserving woman (chosen by group vote) to camp every year. In 2016, they tragically lost Raquel “Rocky” Lima, one of their bunkmates, to cancer. After that, in their own beautiful, organic way, they funded more bunk spaces for women whom they found to be exceptional (like Rocky), and, in the BJB’s honor, we matched those.
Eventually, we made it official, morphing what was once the “Bella Rocky Fund” into our sister 501(C)3: Give Her Camp, created to help women who’ve faced trying times come to camp to feed their own souls, grow their ideas and receive a fraction of what they give to others.
This year alone, we’ll have awarded 19 scholarships, thanks to the generosity of our Campers, Experts and Campower Rangers who so lovingly donate resources to make this magic happen. Your consideration for others is beyond.
Learn more about how Give Her Camp came to be. Make a donation or nominate a kind, uniquely inspiring woman to receive a scholarship in 2018. Visit GiveHerCamp.org for all of it.
XXOO
Thank you for being in this with us. It’s been a hell of a journey to get this far, and, with you next to us, we’re so ready for the twists and turns that lie ahead. Let’s keep riding, shall we????
From the campfire & way far beyond,
Your Campowerment Crew
