Chattanooga Venture Study Group session 1

​In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Chattanooga Venture engaged ordinary citizens to create a vision for the city. Innovative methods that came to be known as “the Chattanooga Way” were used to learn together as a community, changing the structure of the community and the face of the city. But, as the knowledge diffused into the community and beyond, much of it was lost. Today, most Chattanoogans do not know about Venture—what it was, what it achieved, or how it worked, let alone why it was not able to sustain the community learning process.

​The purpose of the Chattanooga Venture Study Group (CVSG) is to recover knowledge of Venture so it may be used for intentional, methodical, results-oriented community learning that we call “community venturing.” Our goals are to review the activities, events, and results of Venture, study Venture’s methods and practices, and use our findings to create guides and tools for sustainably community venturing. The CVSG will analyze Venture, starting with the state of Chattanooga in the late 1970s, events leading up to Venture's creation, and where the idea of Venture originated.

​Our first speaker will be Jack Murrah, who was hired by Jack Lupton and Rick Montague, Lyndhurst Foundation’s first president, to figure out a new approach to philanthropy by learning from what other communities were doing. We will tap into the Local History archives at the Chattanooga Library to understand the cultural, economic, environmental, and social conditions of the community prior to Venture’s creation. We will meet regularly to hear from those involved in the creation of Venture, the initiative itself, and other community ventures that resulted from it. CVSG is open to anyone who wants to learn about and from Venture.