About
The Wind Down
The Wind Down is an independent studio that is developing tools, practices, and services to aid mission-driven projects and organizations in staying close to endings and also carrying out the complicated and often messy business of closing down. The Wind Down is owned and operated by conscious closure consultant, technologist, activist, and soccer mom, Camille E. Acey.
Scroll down to read more about Camille.
About Camille
Camille is a former tech worker, a soccer mom, a community organizer, and a conscious closures consultant. In addition to running The Wind Down, she currently facilitates the Practices of Composting and Hospicing community, which was seeded by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation’s Emerging Futures initiative.
Over the past 25 years, Camille has worked with student housing cooperatives, tech startups, open source projects, non-profits, and activist groups. Camille was a co-founder of the Collective for Liberation, Ecology, and Technology (CoLET), a radical feminist tech collective. She also formerly served as an advisor to feminist tech advocacy group The Ada Initiative (now defunct) and global research and practice community The Maintainers, as well as board chair for Whose Knowledge?, a global feminist NGO focused on elevating marginalized voices.
Camille is a graduate of University of California at Berkeley (Political Science/ Ethnic Studies) and Columbia University’s Internship In Building Community program.
She brings her experience with messy departures and endings to the work of improving organizational closure and project conclusions.
Common Questions
What is conscious closure and why does it matter?
Conscious closure is a practice of bringing care and intentionality to the process of ending an organization, campaign, project, or initiative. This project is borne of my experience with the (at times) calamitous effects of many less-than-good endings. I have expanded on my understanding of mindful organizational endings in partnership with groups like The Decelerator and Stewarding Loss.
What can I expect from a conscious closure consultant?
Services can vary, but in general what you can expect is a listening pair of ears, a sounding board, a cheerleader, a coach, an editor, and a trusted advisor. I wrote more about what a dedicated conscious closure consultant can do..
What is so wrong with how organizations close now?
Sometimes an organization has no choice but to close in haste, but when time and resources allow there is a lot to be gained in terms of resources, relationships, and well-being of communities you support or serve when you can spin down operations with intentionality and care. I wrote more about what is potentially lost when organizations don’t close consciously.
Where can I find out more about other closed nonprofits?
I maintain a crowdsourced “museum” of closed NGOs and initiatives.