In times past, when there was a fire in the village or a field in drought, everyone who lived in the village formed a line between it and the village well, and started passing buckets full of water down the line until splashing them on the fire or the field. The key is that everyone was involved--no one stood around and watched their fellow villagers face the challenge.

In today's world, there are a few frantically running from the well to the fire, and many standing about who bear no witness to their work, and who don't know how to engage or where to engage. And it's not just fires--democracy, education--that need putting out--there are things growing--sustainable energy, we media--things needing value and attention to help us all grow and succeed as a civilization.

Bucketworks is a health club for the brain. It's a place and a methodology for directly connecting people to one another and to the wider world through their values and passions, so they transform their community. It's a local place with a global strategy, because if we build healthy localities, our whole world will grow. We focus on the individual first, because until someone understands their values and their passions, they're not likely to join in sharing interest in the wider world.

In Milwaukee, Bucketworks is strategically placed between the wealthy white community of our downtown area and the mostly poor urban areas surrounding it. In a 22,000 square foot facility with a cafe, art gallery, theatre, business combinator, a fab lab with woodworking, pottery, painting, sewing, silkscreening, computer labs, print shop, library, and garden we gather together and grow Milwaukee's existing and yet-to-be actors, attorneys, artists, accountants, dancers, designers, educators, engineers, families, farmers, growers, healers, inventors, painters, parents, plumbers, photographers, programmers, writers and more to create their inspirations together. They are teens through elders, amateurs through professionals, and they come together through our programming and activities to form a new kind of 'trickle-across' economy that stimulates the wider economy of the community and the region.

In the last five years our 700 members have created 28 new companies, 65 new jobs, a highschool, a student film festival, 7 theatre companies, 3 technology companies, and innumerable pieces of art, items for sale, performances, gatherings, shows, and events--there were over 863 events at Bucketworks in 2006.

We've developed our business model under an open Creative Commons license because we want other people around the world to copy and paste Bucketworks into their community, to engage their community in itself. The American city is the fire and the garden. Bucketworks gathers us together to grow their value!