Funding the Commons Transition

While I appreciate and admire the radical transparency of starting new organisations in the open, it can create confusion for people looking for something they can use now. It's analogous to confusion created by free code software, in that average users without insider knowledge can struggle to distinguish between mature software that is ready-to-use, and aspirational projects that haven't written any code yet (even though they might one day be awesome). Especially because aspirational projects can have flasher-looking websites and marketing than mature projects run by old school hackers ;)

I think part of this radical transparency, for both software and organisations, has to be a willingness to be open about what stage of development you are at (which you have done here, thanks for that :) and a willingness to avoid empire-building and merge with other similar projects. For example, my original goal for Disintermedia.net.nz was to create an organisation, but it's ended up being more of a personal brand for my various decentralization and commons advocacy activities. So now I'm actively looking to merge it into an established organisation, working on the same stuff.

Thanks @Strypey - I have no doubt that we need to to be clearer both about our state of readiness to deliver service/benefits and also what it actually is that we are seeking to deliver. For my part I am very keen to merge/partner with like-minded initiatives where it makes sense to do so. I'm certainly not in this to build some sort of personal fiefdom or cash cow (although it would be nice to earn something out of it at some point) - my motivation is simply to try to shift the needle in the direction of an economy and a society that has a chance of making it through the lifetime of my children without having everyone with chronic mental ill-health.

Thank you all for the comments.
It's nice to see similar ideas/projects (like Platform 6, SolidFund, etc) already working and making progress.
And Liberapay looks like a potential option for payments.

One difference regarding the idea I thought about, that I think of it more of a meta-project to support other projects and initiatives. At least at the beginning.

I don't know what are the 'right' ways or solutions for a Commons Transition. It could be worker coops. Or some other things. Probably a combination of solutions and initiatives.

In this vein, I'm thinking to start experimenting. Maybe a Loomio/Discourse forum with initial topics. A few dollars/pounds/euros to move around and transfer to relevant organizations (could be the examples you talked about or others). And keeping everything very transparent and public (this could be adjusted later if there will be any traction).

Does anybody want to experiment with this?

One mechanism that might work for you is Open Collective. At Platform 6 we decided to be a host organisation for Open Collective, precisely to support projects like the one you've outlined Eyal. Our host page on Open Collective is here: https://opencollective.com/platform6-coopI've come across Liberapay but not used it. It might be a better fit for what you have in mind. I know that the people behind Open Collective are very much aligned with the cooperative/commons approach, and that was part of our rationale for choosing to work with them, and as implied by the name Open Collective provides a fully transparent platform.

Thanks @graham2! That looks really interesting.
Who should I contact in order to apply for this host?

There's a button on the page at https://opencollective.com/platform6-coop that will take you to a simple application form. Submitting that will send me a notification and then we'll most likely approve the application. Before you commit be sure to check out how it all works - https://opencollective.com

As you can see have a few collectives that are recently created with us, and we are also in dialogue with one larger one that was created using the default OC host and who want to move to us because we are a cooperative host.

Does anybody want to experiment with this?

If I understand it correctly, your proposal is to create a small funding pool by putting in, say, a fiver a week, and deciding together how to allocate the funds to organisations we want to support. The advantage being that the pool could supply funding in larger chunks, rather than regular trickles, if and when we decide that's needed. I'd be willing to join a short-term experiment in this.

@Graham has already mentioned Liberapay and OpenCollective as free code software that could be used for this, either using their home instances, or self-hosting our own. Another software platform that could used for this is CoBudget, created for use in the Enspiral network and maintained by member company GreaterThan:

https://www.greaterthan.works/cobudget

Although in this case, we'd to need to find someone who could host a CoBudget server for us. Unless someone is already running a server (using CoBudget or something else) for collaborative funding of the commons that's open to new members?

IIRC we (Platform 6) have access to CoBudget, kindly provided by Francesca some while back when we were looking around for tools to assist with the task you outline here @Strypey . We've not, as yet, adopted it in practice as it has key bits of functionality - for us at least - missing. Notably we wanted a mechanism where people could pay into the pot, which Cobudget doesn't handle - last time I looked at least. So we'd need to manually handle the numbers inside Cobudget. That's why we've opted to do stuff on our own Drupal/CiviCRM site and with OpenCollective, but Cobudget could still be an option for us into the future as we iterate on our cobbled together MVP.

@strypey Thanks!

Here is a form you can fill to get onboard:
https://www.changebase.org/links/application-form
(you can also send me those details in a personal message if you prefer)

Everyone is invited to fill this form.

@graham2 and Platform 6 were very kind in offering to host this project on Open Collective. So now I'm focusing less on the money logistics and more on getting feedback from users.

Another experiment option I'm thinking about:
If you had some amount of money to invest on a monthly basis (e.g $100), which organizations or individuals would you transfer it to? How would you split the money?

For people who are willing to be in some kind of communication with me regarding this project/experiment, I'm willing to invest a minimal monthly amount in your chosen orgs/individuals.
[Just don't take too seriously-contacty :) , it's a time-limited experiment]

You can also contact me on this subject in private message if you prefer.

In any case, even if you're not into experiments, I'll still be happy to get people's responses to which orgs/individuals they would be happy to send a monthly amount.

And a note regarding this idea. I think one of the potentials of such a platform is the community that could evolve and the potential for cross-communication between projects and fields.