Governance in practice.

Start with a room that can make a decision and learn from it. Grow the agreements alongside the work, until a community can hold what it builds and pass it on. That is the direction we are building toward. The details are still being worked out, and we intend to work them out in the open.

Our proposed direction starts small: a few people making one decision together and writing down what happened. As the work grows, they would agree how decisions get made, how shared things are owned, and how responsibility passes on. Later, the groups that grow from this could support one another, and any of them could change, hand over, or finish its work as people gain capacity. None of these structures exists yet. They describe growth through practice, not a timetable.

Published as we practice it.

The plan is for this website to tell the story and for a public repository to hold the plans and the decision record. Every governance decision would have a numbered proposal, with its approval recorded, so anyone can see what changed and why. Once a month we would review the journal of the work and prepare any proposed changes. People vote or consent before anything updates the governing record. The safeguard is that no proposal becomes governance on its own.

A proposed safeguard

1. A numbered proposal
2. People vote or consent
3. The governing record

No proposal becomes governance on its own.

A proposed shape for membership.

Under the proposal, individuals join as members with equal standing in decisions, whatever they pay. Businesses can support the work as sponsors and have their work promoted; sponsors do not vote. Half of membership funds returns to the community, with members deciding where it goes; half supports the work of keeping things moving. How sponsor funding is handled is still to be settled.

A proposed shape

Members

Who

Individuals who join.

Standing

Equal in decisions, whatever they pay.

Decisions

They vote

Sponsors

Who

Businesses supporting the work.

Standing

Their work is promoted.

Decisions

They do not vote

Things a community could own and use.

Equipment, a shared studio, a building, housing for younger people: examples, not commitments. Under the proposal, a fund would guide broad investment categories. Community members would vote on specific projects. A trust would hold community assets as organizations change. Neither the fund nor the trust exists yet; their legal terms are still to be worked through.

Start with a room.

Bring people together around work they care about, and try one small piece of work together, from question to result. Our founder describes the team that would hold this together as “not something on top, but something that was in”: people within a future cooperative taking turns helping its groups work together. A fuller charter for rooms will be published once it has been practiced.

Proposed direction

1. One decision, made togetherand written down.
2. Agreements that growalongside the work they cover.
3. Groups that connectand can support one another.
4. Hand over, change, or finishas people gain capacity.