How we’re learning
We hold Everward to its own standard.
An institution that teaches people to become better has to become better itself. Here’s the accountability system — and why we’ll publish what we find, including the parts that fail.
The truth about Everward matters more than the reputation of Everward.
Most organizations ask: how do we grow? We also ask: are we actually doing what we claim to do? That question is structural, not seasonal. The system has several parts:
Principles are durable; methods are tools. Our principles — truth, dignity, responsibility, humility, compassion, service — are the fixed point. The ten-week curriculum, the meeting format, the method’s sequence, even the design of our gatherings: tools. We believe in them and test them seriously, but we change them when evidence and experience show a better way. Improving the method is fidelity to Everward, not betrayal of it.
Feedback has somewhere to go. Participants, facilitators, advisors, and community members can challenge the curriculum, the format, and the leadership — including the founder. Feedback isn’t a suggestion box; it feeds the REFLECT stage of the method itself.
We measure what we can. We pay attention to whether people return, whether they say the experience is changing how they think and act, and whether the community is serving its neighbors — not just gathering.
The founder is subject to governance. Chad McKay shaped Everward’s early mission and culture, but answers to governance, ethics, and financial controls like everyone else. No one is doctrinally infallible here.
Our commitment
When we learn something real about what works — or what doesn’t — we’ll share it here.
An institution that claims to pursue truth owes the public the truth about itself.
Pressure-test everything. Including this page.
Everward was designed to be argued with, not admired from a distance. Disagreement — offered honestly and received humbly — is how the whole thing gets better.
So if something here doesn’t hold up, tell us. That isn’t a threat to Everward. It’s the point of it.
Conceptual imagery — real photography will replace it as our community forms.