At Event Garde, our values are not just words on a page — they’re living commitments that shape how we show up with and for one another. Like every organization, some of our values are aspirational — meaningful, but not always easy to live into. That’s where our community agreements come in.
Community agreements are more than norms. They are a reflection of the behaviors we believe are necessary to practice our values day to day. When values feel lofty or challenging, agreements ground us. They serve as a critical tool for accountability — a way to remind ourselves and one another what it looks like to show up in alignment.
This year, a conversation at one of our monthly directors’ meetings sparked an important reflection: we were trying to decide how best to make decisions — and it raised the question of whether we were truly practicing our commitment to collective decision-making. That led us to look again at our community agreements and recognize a gap.
We brought this insight to the whole team during our annual retreat, and together we co-created and adopted a new agreement:
“As often as possible, use collective decision-making practices when impacting the team.”
This addition reflects our belief that learning is social, trust is earned, and equity is critical to meaningful collaboration. It invites us to slow down, center relationship, and make room for more voices — especially when decisions shape the direction or experience of our team as a whole.
It now joins a broader set of guiding principles we first shared in our original blog post on creating community agreements. These agreements serve as a living framework for how we engage each other with care, honesty, and mutual accountability.
If you’re curious about the full list of updated agreements, you can view them here.
Want to explore how your own team might co-create something similar? Check out our on-demand webinar: Co-Creating Community Agreements: Fostering Collaborative Accountability
Thanks for being in this work with us — we’re grateful to grow alongside you.
