Friday, August 14, 2026 · 9:00 - 11:00 AM PDT · Live online

Facilitator: Maija Danilova West (click to learn more)

PRE-REGISTRATION IS NOW AVAILABLE (click here or scroll down to the form below)

COURSE DESCRIPTION

The governance documents you draft every day — the charters, the bylaws, the MOUs, the member commitments, the term sheets — encode a theory of authority. They tell a story about who holds power, how it flows, what happens when something goes wrong, and who the organization is ultimately accountable to.

Most of the time, that story is the triangle: authority at the apex, cascading downward, resolved by whoever sits higher up, measured in fiscal years and board terms, accountable to funders and regulators before it is accountable to the community and the land.

There is a different story. It is older, more resilient, and more rigorous than the triangle. It is the circle — the governance architecture of matriarchal systems that have survived centuries of occupation, colonization, and suppression precisely because they hold authority in relationship rather than in position, hold conflict as information rather than as threat, and hold the long future in every significant decision.

This two-hour course introduces that story — with precision, with evidence, and with the specific drafting framework that practitioners can carry back into the documents they write and the organizations they serve.

"The governance documents you draft are never neutral. They always encode a theory of authority. This course shows you what that theory is — and gives you the tools to change it."

WHAT YOU WILL LEARN

In two hours, you will:

Understand what matriarchy actually is

The formal Oxford English Dictionary definition, distinguished from gynarchy, feminism, and the patriarchy it is most commonly confused with.

See the triangle clearly

The governance architecture of hierarchy — what it is designed to produce, what it cannot hold, and why every standard governance document encodes it by default.

Learn from living matriarchal governance

The Haudenosaunee Confederacy, the Minangkabau, the Mosuo, the Khasi, and the Baltic peoples — what they share across five documented governance traditions and what practitioners can learn from them.

Apply the six core principles

Recognized authority, relational belonging, deliberation and consent, restorative conflict, triple accountability to time, and ecological accountability — each with a practitioner's specific drafting question.

Diagnose your own documents

In a structured breakout, you will examine a governance document from your own practice and name — specifically — what governance theory it encodes and what is absent from it.

Draft something different

In a second breakout, you will draft a circle-governance alternative to one provision in your own document — not a theoretical example, but language grounded in your actual practice.

WHO THIS COURSE IS FOR

This course is for practitioners who work with governance — in any sector, in any role — and who are ready to look honestly at what the governance structures they inhabit are producing, and to consider what a principled alternative looks like.

This course is specifically designed for:

— Attorneys and legal practitioners who draft governance documents and want to draft them differently

— Mediators and peacemakers who understand that conflict resolution and governance design are the same work

— Tribal and Indigenous governance leaders who are building or rebuilding governance structures that reflect their communities' traditions

— Nonprofit executives and board members who are frustrated by the triangle governance of their own organizations

— Community leaders who are building governance structures accountable to their communities and to the land

— Governance consultants and facilitators who want a more rigorous framework for their client work

— Practitioners of all genders who are earnestly seeking a way to practice that is more life-affirming

This course is not for practitioners who are looking for a soft alternative to rigorous governance. This course offers a more rigorous one. It requires honest examination of the systems you work within and a genuine willingness to draft, facilitate, and hold governance differently. If you are not ready to look at your own documents with a critical eye, this course will feel uncomfortable. That discomfort is the work.

COURSE DETAILS

Date:            

• Friday, May 22, 2025

Time:            

• 9:00 – 11:00 AM PDT

• 12:00 – 2:00 PM EDT

• 6:00 – 8:00 PM CEST

Format:          

• Live online (via Zoom) · Two hours · Includes two breakout sessions and an opening and closing circle

Who should attend:

• Attorneys, mediators, peacemakers, Tribal and community leaders, nonprofit executives, governance consultants, and other practitioners working with governance in any sector

What to bring:   

• One governance document you currently work with or within — a set of bylaws, an MOU, a member agreement, a grant term sheet, or any other governance instrument. You will use it in both breakout sessions.

CLE / CEU credit:

• Not available at this time

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

Is this course only for women?

No. This course is for practitioners of all genders. Matriarchal governance is not the exclusion of men from governance — it is a different structural relationship between women's authority and collective decision-making. The circle includes everyone. Men who have found the triangle exhausting — who have reached the apex and found it less satisfying than it looked from below — often find the most in this framework.

Do I need to have read the book to take this course?

No. The course is designed to stand on its own. If you have read Matriarch Makeover, you will recognize the personal governance foundation the course builds on. If you have not, everything you need will be introduced in the session. The forthcoming book From the Triangle to the Circle will go deeper into every dimension the course introduces.

Is this a feminist course?

No, not in the conventional sense. Feminism is a movement organized primarily around equity — around women's equal access to structures designed without them. This course is about something older and structurally different: the formal definition of matriarchy, the governance architecture of the circle, and the specific tools practitioners need to build governance that holds what the current system cannot. The goal is not equity within the triangle. It is the dissolution of the triangle.

I am an attorney. Will this course be relevant to my practice?

Yes — and it may be the most uncomfortable two hours you spend in professional development this year. The course shows you, with specificity, how every standard governance document you have ever drafted encodes a governance theory you may not have chosen consciously. It then gives you a principled framework and a drafting practice for doing it differently. You will leave with a first draft of a circle-governance provision in your own practice area.

I work with Tribal Nations. Is this appropriate content for that context?

Yes, with an important caveat. The course approaches Indigenous governance traditions — particularly the Haudenosaunee Confederacy — with the posture of a good guest: coming with something to offer, listening before interpreting, attributing knowledge to its source, and remaining accountable to the communities whose wisdom is being learned from. The course is not a substitute for direct relationship with Indigenous communities and their governance knowledge. It is an introduction to a framework that honors the sovereignty and governance wisdom of those communities and supports practitioners in working within that framework with integrity.

Will the session be recorded?

[coming soon]

What is your refund policy?

[coming soon]

Pre-register now by filling out the form below.

Questions? Contact Maija and her team at maijawest.com

or email info@maijawest.com