History of the New Road Map Foundation

Begun informally in 1970 by a small team of people dedicated to service, NRM was formally incorporated as a nonprofit educational and charitable organization in 1984. Until 1997, NRM taught our "new road maps" for personal finances, health and human relations through books, tapes, public education, media appearances and scientific research. Being co-creators of our vision and co-workers in bringing it to fruition made us a lively and engaged team.

From 1986 to 1997 there were ten full-time NRM volunteers living and working together as a community dedicated to service in the areas of finances and health. Along with many part-time volunteers, we brought a multitude of skills -- some that we were born with, many that we worked hard to attain. Major publications of this time period include the cassette tape course Transforming Your Relationship With Money and Achieving Financial Independence by Joe Dominguez, the bestselling book Your Money or Your Life by Joe Dominguez and Vicki Robin (Viking/Penguin 1992) [LINK], and an article published in Archives of Neurology on our medical research project on the mind/body connection (McDonald ER, Wiedenfeld SA, Hillel A, Carpenter CL, Walter RA. Survival in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis: the role of psychological factors. Arch Neurol 1994;51:17-23); see also http://ahha.org/als.htm.

In January of 1997, Joe Dominguez (co-author of Your Money or Your Life) died of lymphoma. We lost not only a wise, witty and fiercely honest friend, but we lost his particular visionary capacity to “see around corners.” His death ushered in a new era of exploration, expansion and evolution.  In order to meet the challenge of turning the tide of "affluenza" in North America, our entire team since 1980 had focused the majority of our life energy on teaching the program in Your Money or Your Life. By the time Joe died, simplicity had become a common American aspiration, the number of books on sustainable consumption, frugality and money mindfulness had mushroomed, and many organizations had been formed to address all facets of the problem. While the job is by no means done, we realized that we were no longer alone in the work.

In 1995 we formed a Speakers' Bureau for Your Money or Your Life so that those who had been successful with the 9-step program had support to speak about it in public. This network has worked together to develop new tools and broader outreach, and now the fruits of their work is available to anyone through the YourMoneyOrYourLife.org website. This web site provides access to all the supporting tools, information, networks and teaching tools for anyone who wants to follow the nine-step program and share it effectively with others.

In 2001, as an expression of that sense of a growing movement, NRM, in partnership with Seeds of Simplicity, launched the Simplicity Forum, a leadership alliance dedicated to honoring and achieving simple, just and sustainable ways of life for all. Our attention had turned to creating links between the personal transformation available through the 9-step program and the larger social, cultural and spiritual change movements so alive in this moment. We have helped launch and build the Turning Tide Coalition, and created a new methodology to build civic intelligence and skills, Conversation Cafés.  As part of the movement to take American politics from diatribe to dialogue, helped launch Let's Talk America.

New Road Map Foundation continues its commitment to personal and social transformation. What we do and how we are doing it has changed and continues to change.  From an all-volunteer culture, where everything from stamp licking to long-range planning was the privilege of people who are FI (financially independent), we have shifted to paying dedicated employees who work as the center of a volunteer network to keep these methods and moements vibrant and alive.

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