Mark’s Work with Barbara Marx Hubbard
The beloved futurist and social architect Barbara Marx Hubbard, who created the worldview of Conscious Evolution, and the landmark book of the same name, was a deep co-creative partner with Mark from 1994 until her death in 2019.
The above photo is from the Spring of 1995 at Barbara's San Rafael home, which was owned by her benefactor Laurance Rockefeller. Barbara and Mark had just finished the final writing of her seminal, career defining book: Conscious Evolution. On the night before, Mark had done a major redesign of the book's chapters. This picture is from the next morning as they reviewed the final manuscript and then sent it to the publisher, New World Library.
Barbara and Mark worked tirelessly together. Mark frequently traveled from Boston to spend week-long writing sessions writing. Barbara's book acknowledges Mark with these words:
"In a special category, I wish to acknowledge the extraordinary input of my friend and colleague Mark Donohue. He spent hundreds of hours with me to bring the vision into greater clarity and pragmatic usefulness. His assistance was of incomparable value."
“Mark understands how to apply this vast new worldview of Conscious Evolution to the practical purpose of evolving capitalism itself. He is an important communicator and developer of this work in the world.”
— Barbara Marx Hubbard, acknowledgements section of her seminal book: "Conscious Evolution" in 1995
Barbara’s Life
Barbara Marx Hubbard (1929-2019) was a leading futurist, social architect and voice for the potential of conscious evolution, which looks at the interplay between evolution and society's new powers to impact evolution itself.
Barbara and Mark were first introduced to each other by the esteemed “green” economist Dr. Hazel Henderson. Their first speaking event together was in Zurich in May 1994 at the Social Venture Network, in a keynote featuring Mark, Barbara, and Ram Dass. Their next event together was at the 1995 World Future Society annual gathering in Washington, DC. For years thereafter they were frequent collaborators.
They most recently collaborated on Mark's forthcoming book Living in Exponential Creativity: The Future of Entrepreneurship, plus they worked deeply on the end-of-life synthesis and integration of Barbara's entire body life work, so that Mark could carry-on her teaching lineage. Their 2018 Singularity University mainstage presentation video, shown below on this page, is a great reflection of their team work.
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Along with Mark, who additionally co-edited her book Conscious Evolution, some of Barbara’s closest collaborators and partners included: Jonas Salk, Abraham Maslow, Buckminster Fuller, Dr. Hazel Henderson and Dr. Thomas Paine (Administrator of NASA during the Apollo 11 mission to the Moon).
She was a co-founder and board member of the World Future Society, launched Project Harvest Moon for NASA, developed a process for "social synergy" called SYNCON, received a nomination for Vice President of the United States in 1984, co-founded the Foundation for Conscious Evolution (FCE) and was the author of 10 books.
Many of Barbara’s ideas have become integral to Mark’s understanding of impact entrepreneurship, and continue to be influential among many others in the field.
To learn more about Barbara’s work, visit The Foundation for Conscious Evolution’s website.
Barbara Marx Hubbard’s Wheel of Co-Creation & Conscious Evolution
(click on the image to view at full resolution)
Selected Videos
Singularity University 2018 - Barbara and Mark
Barbara and Mark were keynote presenters at the 2018 Singularity University Global Summit in San Francisco. In this video, they provide us with a primer on their ideas of Conscious Evolution and Exponential Entrepreneurship.
The Future of Entrepreneurship: Living in Exponential Creativity
Barbara and Mark present their main talk at Singularity University in 2018, engaging in a full conversation about Exponential Entrepreneurship.
Building the New World
Mark deeply co-created with Barbara for 25+ years. Presented after her passing, this session shares their blended wisdom of the nature of learning, creativity, and living to your full potential, which is partly based on an entrepreneurial perspective, as well as an evolutionary view. In this presentation, Mark shares about Barbara and he shares a number of her teachings.
Mark and Barbara together in 2017
Mark, Barbara, and Peter Diamandis at Singularity University 2017
Barbara and Mark together
Mark and Barbara preparing for Singularity University
In the last three years of Barbara's life, she and Mark spent three months together writing, co-creating and doing speaking engagements. They enjoyed the largest block of that time at the Sunrise Ranch retreat center (north of Denver), where Barbara was in-residence and being lovingly supported by that entire community. Sunrise deserves great accolades for the support of Barbara and her life work.
Here is a tribute to Barbara, from Sunrise, which also highlights some of Mark and Barbara’s time together:
