Did you know bees perform a WAGGLE DANCE to communicate the location of a good source of food or water or to describe the whereabouts of the site of a potential new home for the community? When one bee “speaks” through their dance, their community members listen and then make a decision and act together. It’s how they thrive and grow and as a community.

What’s that got to do with The Buzz? Buzzers have all connected with each other and been changed in new and meaningful ways. They are a community that has stepped into a kind of collective consciousness through their shared experience… like a colony of bees.  And they have been busy as bees engaged in their individual and collective good work. In fact, they’ve been so busy, it was hard to find time to really enjoy and build on that connection unless we were very intentional about it, like bees.

With this in mind, Footprint convened Buzzers in the Fall of 2022 for a series of themed dinners/discussions called WAGGLE DANCES as part of a process to re-engage and strengthen the Buzz community, as well as invite them to imagine how they could influence Footprint’s new grantmaking strategy to create connections for a more resilient and equitable community.

We met to discuss Equity, Resilience, Power and Evolution. With the Waggle Dances, we hoped to come to a better understanding of what these things meant to the Buzz community before starting a co-creation process to design a new grantmaking and connection strategy with them. Many thanks to all of the Buzzers for being part of these conversations … and a somewhat nebulous process!

The images below are graphic recordings of discussions held at each themed Waggle Dance.