Once upon a time...

Backstory - Dreamfish as a way to live

• 1995 - 1999 - The dream for Dreamfish came from knowing the challenges of living on the margins. Tiffany von Emmel had a life-threatening illness, which resulted in being homebound and financially challenged for several years. She dreamed about what would enable millions of individuals who do not have access to empower their dreams. This led to engaging in movements advancing the human side of sustainability. This began a journey...

2006 - 2007 - Dreamfish as Organizing

July, 2006 - A group of twelve Dreamfishers came together for the first project:  the Dreamscape Project for the International Society for Systems Sciences' 50th meeting: ""Complexity, Democracy, and Sustainability. The group engaged 300 scientists for five days. Deborah Hammond served as ISSS president, the second woman after Margaret Mead to hold the position.

• November, 2006
  
  • The first board meeting of Dreamfish as a fiscally-sponsored nonprofit project. Board members: Tiffany von Emmel, Charlie Seashore, Urusa Fahim (board chair), Sam Bower, Kathia Laszlo
  • Organization Development Network conference, San Francisco. Dreamfish members came together to engaged 900 consultants in culture change project to support sustainability and diversity.
  • Dreamfish Labs Ensemble forms as a collaborative research dojo. Members: Paul Loper, Dietmar Brinkmann, Denzil Meyers, Rita Venturini, and Tiffany von Emmel.
• 2007
  
  • Appreciative Inquiry Project engages 40 stakeholders of Dreamfish into the future of Dreamfish - Project leads: Linda Crafts, Pien van den Herik, Don Bushnell, Laura Shaffer and Susie Chang.
  • Craigslist Foundation project - Dozens of Dreamfish members engaged 2,000 nonprofit leaders
  • Eugene Kim joins advisory board.  Maiya Holliday joins Dreamfish as the first web developer.

2007 - 2008 - Dreamfish as an Organization

• Matthew O'Connor and Tiffany set up our first wiki.
• We hold our first Dreamfish Studio in Studio Valencia, San Francisco.
• A core group of Dreamfishers build a project collaboration platform with Drupal. Members include Tiffany von Emmel, Loni Davis, Anne Chao, Patty Nason, and Ted Ko
• Dreamfish partners with Stanford GSB Women in Management, Kaliya Hamlin and Planetwork, OD Network
•  Peter Kaminski, co-founder of SocialText, joins Dreamfish as CTO

  2009 - 2010 - The building of the Dreamfish Cooperative

• As the global economy takes a dive, Dreamfish emerges with a resilient organizational model as a peer-to-peer global work cooperative.
• Core Dreamfish service contributors make the dream a reality: Linda Crafts, Maiya Holliday, Paul Loper, Peter Kaminski, Marie-Anne Haour, Johannes Klose, Maureen O'Malley, Scott Moore, Joe Bogner, Fabio Barone, Astrid Johannsen (Switch), Devin Blong, Don Bushnell, Gimena Malcampo Pena, Paul Hamel, Lisa Abbott, Valdirene Kushi, Laura Shaffer, Tahir Naim, Teddy Zmrhal, Marguerite Manteau-Ross and Mimi Kravetz.

Learn more about Dreamfish...

• Humanifesto
• Dreamfish Labs
• Diversity Statement
• Leadership and Governance