Common Questions
A few of the questions people ask us most often. If yours isn’t here, let us know.
About · The Pledge · After You Sign · Membership · Gatherings · Essays · Get Involved
Human Flourishing is a civic movement built around a Pledge of seven pillars and seven commitments to honest inquiry and civil disagreement. People across the political and ideological spectrum can think hard, meaningful thoughts together if they share a common practice. Our work is the Pledge itself, the essays and conversations that develop its ideas, and the gatherings — circles, salons, forums, and the annual convening — where people put it into practice.
No. The Pledge is designed to be signable by thoughtful people on the left, the right, and everywhere in between. We don’t take positions on contested political questions as an organization. Our commitment is to the practice of inquiry, not to any particular conclusions. We do take a stance in evidence-backed topics such as those included in the Pledge, and the essays we write. We welcome pushback and look forward to the conversation.
No. The Pledge does not require any religious commitment, nor does it rule any out. Signers include people of many faiths and none.
“Human flourishing” is an old idea with a long lineage, and other organizations and academic centers use the phrase. What’s distinctive about us is the form: a public Pledge, seven articulated commitments, an essay series that develops the ideas, and a set of gathering formats that put the practice into rooms. We’re a civic movement, not an academic center or a research institute.
Yes. Human Flourishing is a registered 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. Donations are tax-deductible to the extent allowed by law.
Through founding contributions and membership. We prefer to build a sustainable model from member support and program revenue rather than from donations or grants. When we do accept donations, fifty percent is designated for scholarships so cost is never the reason someone doesn’t participate.
Arizona, with signers across the country and beyond.
The Pledge is a public commitment to the seven pillars and the seven practices that together describe what it looks like to seek truth in good company. You can read it in full at humanflourishing.us/pledge.
Fair instinct. Most pledges are loyalty oaths, marketing devices, or commitments to conclusions someone else has already drawn. Ours is none of those. The Pledge doesn’t ask you to agree with a political program, adopt a worldview, or align with a tribe. It asks you to commit to a way of engaging — listening carefully, examining your own views honestly, staying in the room when conversations get difficult. If that’s the kind of practice you’d want more of in your own life and in the world, the Pledge is a public way of saying so.
Signing also does collective work. Every name on the Pledge is public evidence that the people who want things to be different aren’t alone — and the more of us there are, the harder that becomes to dismiss.
We ask that you read the Pledge carefully and sign honestly. If a commitment doesn’t sit right, that’s worth knowing — for you and for us. The Pledge is meant to be lived, not just endorsed.
If you decide not to sign, you are still welcome to join us by staying informed and receiving our updates.
Not without your permission. We don’t publish a list of signers. We may share aggregate counts and, with explicit consent, individual stories.
You can withdraw at any time by emailing hello@humanflourishing.us, and we’ll remove you from our records.
You’ll receive a welcome email with the Pledge as a PDF you can keep, along with a short Beliefs and Commitments survey to help us understand what brought you here. You’ll then receive occasional emails and updates.
Signing adds your name to a growing community of people committed to honest inquiry across difference. You’ll receive our newsletter and access to everything we publish on the public site — the founding essay series, The Conversation, and updates on our work. You will also receive an invitation to our Human Flourishing Community on Circle.
Membership is a separate decision for signers who want to go deeper and support the work directly.
Occasionally. We will send a weekly digest of the things we’ve written, general updates, and upcoming events. If something unique pops up we may send a specific broadcast email, but we aim to be useful rather than frequent.
No. Never. We use it only to communicate with you about Human Flourishing.
No. Signing the Pledge is free and always will be.
Signing is the public commitment, and it’s free. Membership is a paid relationship for signers who want to invest in the work and engage more deeply. Members receive benefits and access that signers don’t.
- Advocate — $100 per year.
- Digital certificate of advocacy.
- Listed as a supporter in HF community communications.
- Access to all public forums and convenings at standard registration.
- The Inner Work tools — identity tools to strengthen your internal foundation.
- Access to the Positive Intelligence Saboteur Assessment, the tool we use to surface internal patterns that get in the way of honest conversation.
- Invitations to member-only workshops.
- Access to new Topic Circle Guides. The Host-Your-Own Circle design template.
- Access to the host community and quarterly host calls with Scott and Angela.
- A standing invitation to help shape what comes next.
- Fellow — $750 per year.
- Everything in Advocate, plus
- Named acknowledgment on a dedicated Fellows page
- Named recognition in all convening programs
- An annual letter from Scott written specifically for Fellows
- Priority registration for salons and forums before public release
- Invitation to one Fellows-only virtual gathering per year
- A printed annual keepsake mailed to you
- Discounted tickets to the annual Convening.
- Founding Patron — $1,000 one-time, available through December 31, 2026. The founding cohort.
- Everything in Fellow for life, plus
- A founding keepsake
- Permanent Founding Patron designation on the website
- Named recognition in all convening programs in perpetuity.
Founding Patron is a launch-year designation that recognizes the people who made the work possible at the start. After December 31, 2026, the window closes and does not reopen. Fellow and Advocate tiers continue indefinitely.
Programming, curriculum, technology, and the operations behind them. Fifty percent of any unrestricted donation, separate from membership, is designated for scholarships.
- The Circle — a small group meeting for an honest conversation on a single question, using a Topic Circle Guide we provide. Any signer can host one. The first Circle Guide will be available for free to any signer. Additional Topic Circle Guides are available to members as they are released.
- The Salon — an intimate, invitation-only conversation on a single question that matters, curated for depth across genuinely different perspectives. These gatherings will produce non-attributed content that will be shared with the greater community.
- The Forum — a larger public gathering, moderated, designed to model civil disagreement at scale. Recorded for publication.
- The Convening — our annual flagship event, beginning in 2027. Cross-sector and cross-ideological, part intellectual summit and part community celebration.
Any Pledge signer can host a Circle. The first Topic Circle Guide will be released in October 2026, as part of our official Human Flourishing Launch event, and will be available for free. Subsequent Topic Circle Guides will be released on a regular basis, and will be available to members only. A Host-Your-Own design template for hosting Circles on questions specific to their community will also be available to members, as well as access to a host community, and quarterly host calls.
The Conversation is our editorial platform — essays, syntheses, and shorter pieces that develop the ideas behind the Pledge and report from the rooms where the work is happening. It’s distinct from the Seven Pillars essay series, which is the foundational body of writing.
We take this seriously. Our essays draw from a range of academic, philosophical, and lived sources, and we publish reference lists at the end of each major piece rather than crowding the text with in-text citations. Our editorial standard is to attribute ideas honestly, distinguish our own claims from those of the writers we draw on, and avoid quoting selectively to make a source appear to support something it does not.
The most useful thing you can do is invite people you respect to read the Pledge and consider signing. We grow through trusted invitation.
Tell us. Email hello@humanflourishing.us — we read everything that comes in, and disagreement is part of how the work gets better.
