Ganas
Encyclopedia
Ganas is an intentional community
Intentional community
An intentional community is a planned residential community designed to have a much higher degree of teamwork than other communities. The members of an intentional community typically hold a common social, political, religious, or spiritual vision and often follow an alternative lifestyle. They...

 founded in 1979 in Tompkinsville, Staten Island
Tompkinsville, Staten Island
Tompkinsville is a neighborhood in northeastern Staten Island in New York City in the United States. Though the neighborhood sits on the island's eastern shore, along the waterfront facing Upper New York Bay — between St...

.
Ganas has non-egalitarian, tiered membership groups, and is thus a partial member at the Federation of Egalitarian Communities
Federation of Egalitarian Communities
The Federation of Egalitarian Communities is a group of egalitarian communities which have joined together with the common purpose of creating a lifestyle based on equality, cooperation, and harmony with the Earth....

. The community uses a group problem-solving process called "Feedback Learning", which was begun by co-founder Mildred Gordon. The community attracted press attention after a 2006 shooting incident which involved allegations of sexual misconduct
Sexual misconduct
Sexual misconduct is misconduct of a sexual nature. The term may be used to condemn an act, but in some jurisdictions it has also a legal meaning....

 and arranged marriages. Originally founded with a group of six people, the community has grown to consist of 10–12 core group members plus 60 to 70 members of varying involvement. There are three businesses run by Ganas, including a bookstore-cafe.

History

Ganas started in Staten Island in 1979 with six founders including Mildred Gordon and Jeff Gross. In San Francisco Gordon studied biofeedback
Biofeedback
Biofeedback is the process of becoming aware of various physiological functions using instruments that provide information on the activity of those same systems, with a goal of being able to manipulate them at will...

 which became the basis of what she termed "Feedback Learning". Gordon met the five people who would become the original core-group of the Ganas community and incorporated the tax-exempt 501(c)(3) non-profit organization Foundation for Feedback Learning (FFL) in 1974. The new community went by the name FFL until changing their name to Ganas in the early 1990s. In the late 1970s they returned to New York and moved into a Lower East Side apartment, finally settling in Tompkinsville, Staten Island in 1979. On Staten Island the core-group shares ownership of eight houses and three commercial buildings that house their retail stores. There are about 65 non-core group residents who live in Ganas houses and cover expenses by either paying rent or working in the stores.

Culture

Ganas operates on four primary rules forbidding violence, freeloading, illegal activities, and non-negotiable negativity (requiring that complaints be discussed in group process or not discussed at all either in private or public). Ganas practices Feedback Learning, an "intense brand of communication" according to the New York Times, about which journalist Jonah Owen Lamb wrote: "Those new to Ganas would share their life story with the group, who would respond by picking apart their issues and deciding how those issues should be dealt with. By 'killing their buddhas,' it was felt, Ganas members could begin to take control of how they reacted to the world." Mildred Gordon described Feedback Learning as an "indispensable day-to-day guiding experience" in which members of the community provide feedback—helpful criticism—to each other. Through daily discussions of every community member's behaviour members can learn about themselves and their motivations, gain from hearing unpleasant truths, and "accept negative information with the excitement of discovery". Mildred Gordon left Ganas in 2001 but continued returning weekly to conduct Feedback Learning sessions at the commune.

Ganas has practiced group marriage
Group marriage
Group marriage, also known as multi-lateral marriage, is a form of polyamory in which more than two persons form a family unit, with all the members of the group marriage being considered to be married to all the other members of the group marriage, and all members of the marriage share parental...

 and "safe sex groups", which members could participate in after being tested for HIV. Though Ganas has been portrayed as a commune
Commune
Commune may refer to:In society:* Commune, a human community in which resources are shared* Commune , a township or municipality* One of the Communes of France* An Italian Comune...

 in the media, only the core-group participates in income and property sharing .

Finances

Ganas runs three stores under the name "Everything Goes" that are dedicated to the re-use and re-sale of used goods. The stores include a furniture store, a clothing store and a bookstore/cafe with a performance stage. The businesses support the community but are labor-intensive and only marginally profitable. For most of its life Ganas' income was declared on FFL's IRS form 990
990
Year 990 was a common year starting on Wednesday of the Julian calendar.- Religion :* The Pax Ecclesiae, an edict by the church in southern France attempting to outlaw acts of war against non-combatants and the clergy, is promulgated.- Births :* Conrad II, Holy Roman Emperor * Edmund II of England,...

 for tax-exempt organizations. Since 2001 FFL has taken in an average of $475,000 in total annual revenue, including direct public support and program service revenue. FFL's program services are listed as "Feedback Learning Skills Development" and "Interpersonal Skills Development". FFL's revenues do not include income from their "Everything Goes" stores, as those are for-profit entities. In 2007 the legal address of FFL changed from Ganas headquarters on Staten Island to Brooklyn, and the same year FFL's tax return declared only $15,550 in total revenue and $75 in direct public support. The following year total revenue fell to $2295 with direct public support of $0.

In late 2006 the core-group reorganized as Ganas Community LLC
Limited liability company
A limited liability company is a flexible form of enterprise that blends elements of partnership and corporate structures. It is a legal form of company that provides limited liability to its owners in the vast majority of United States jurisdictions...

, and began a new business called Ganas Food Company LLC. Mildred Gordon continues to draw an annual salary of $40,000 as the executive director of FFL. The latest FFL tax return on file still states the organization's mission as "Research of Feedback Learning" and its programs the same as those above. However the programs list expenses of $71,722 and FFL's total revenue at -$76,427.

Shooting

In May of 2006 Ganas co-founder Jeff Gross was shot outside of his home on Ganas property. Gross survived and at trial identified the shooter as Rebekah Johnson, a former member who lived at Ganas periodically until she was evicted in 1996. Johnson's attorney denied that she had shot Gross, but said that she was "wrongfully accused by Gross as payback for portraying him as a brainwashing rapist and the commune as a kinky cult." Johnson had unsuccessfully sued the group for sexual harassment in 2000. In August of 2008 Johnson was acquitted.

Jeff Gross left the group after the shooting, and filed several lawsuits against both Ganas and Rebekah Johnson. Gross claimed that the leadership rejected his requests that the group upgrade security, that his personal daily schedule was published in a Ganas newsletter, and that he was "booted out" of Ganas in October 2007. Gross is seeking damages totaling over $20 million.

Allegations

Several ex-members have made allegations about Ganas, including that they are a cult
Cult
The word cult in current popular usage usually refers to a group whose beliefs or practices are considered abnormal or bizarre. The word originally denoted a system of ritual practices...

, that they pressure residents into sex and green-card marriages, and that "they control minds with drugs that are used by psychotherapists". At least one Ganas member has dismissed its critics as "crackpots", and Ganas opposes being described as a cult.
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