Our Vision

We’re in the Anthropocene, a new phase in human evolution. We hope humanity will become a wise species living in harmony with life on earth. Yet many believe we are living in the rising storm of the global polycrisis. Biologists say this is the 6th great extinction in the history of the earth. They call it a bottleneck in evolution.

Founded in 2016, Omega incubates strategic initiatives for life in the polycrisis. Omega is a Commonweal initiative. Since its founding in 1976, Commonweal has been devoted to healing people & the earth. We do that work in very specific ways.

• 36 years of over 200 week-long retreats for people with cancer
• 25 years of global work to ban toxic chemicals
• 46 years of work helping at-risk children
• 25 years of work closing youth prisons
• 20 years of saving coastal fisheries
• Over 40 other initiatives

Commonweal worked hard at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992 to craft a North-South pact on sustainability. It didn’t happen. In 2012 we began to work with friends around the world to forge a renewed response to the global polycrisis. This work began to coalesce into its own project, and in 2016 we founded Omega to strategically incubate these new initiatives.

• Co-founded the Omega Resilience Funders Network (RFN) in 2016
  
• Co-founded the Omega Collaborative to partner with others who share our vision
• Created The Long View to share what we are learning about the polycrisis
• Initiated the Omega Resilience Awards in 2022 to support young leaders in the Global South and activist research projects

Omega is a learning community. We welcome friends. We collaborate with like-minded people and communities around the world.

We listen deeply. We practice civility & kindness. We welcome diverse views.

We believe in social, racial & gender equity,  democracy, and human rights. We envision a livable and thriving community of life on earth. These values are clearly articulated in the Earth Charter and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.