Taking into consideration an off-thread conversation with @arminsteuernagel1, it might be better not to define the organization in terms of users, but perhaps something broader. I don't know. I was just reading Warbasse's Cooperative Democracy (1936), which is highly biased toward consumer cooperation, so that's where my head goes.

@alanna any suggestions for how to get more engagement on this decision?

@coopchange @alanna @joshuavial ... maybe Enspiral can hold an online workshop of some sort on the Enspiral case study/lessons in support of this group getting more effectively organized?

Some Enspiral people are currently doing a workshop series across Europe & America. If people think it could be useful check out http://open.enspiral.com

Any interest in coming through Colorado at some point? I'd love to host you somehow:) Let's discuss privately.

Cool! It's not me who's in the US but some other Enspiral people. I can put you in touch. I'm on a traveling hiatus myself :)

I think could be a really useful strategy, especially if aimed at much smaller and less established tech start-ups... there must be LOADS of tech start-up that are still primarily controlled by founders who would've liked to opt for a co-operative structures if they'd known about them and/ or saw a route to raise the finance they needed.

I know of such an example right now where founders and friends still own 75% (which in the UK at least is how much you really need to own if you want to change rules/ legal structure etc again the will of other shareholders who might not like that option).

If we can build a path to cooperation for ventures at this juncture (e.g. before having taken VC money) I imagine we'd soon have quite a large pipeline of projects...

I would like to add in that The Washington Post was sold a few years ago and at that time people put up a crowdfunding page to try and buy this. They didn't get the money needed but was interesting to see them go through that.

there was a similar effort in the UK to buy The Times, see https://www.theguardian.com/media/greenslade/2014/aug/07/crowdfunding-rupert-murdoch (although most of the related videos/ links no longer exist now)

I've not read it, but this new report from the Democracy Collaborative on Strategies for Financing the Inclusive Economy is I guess relevant to these discussions:

http://democracycollaborative.org/financinginclusion

there is also a related webinar happening next week which might be useful for people in this group to attend https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/9176678354779237636?mc_cid=aea9f23e10&mc_eid=ec25b91a32

I'm copying this over from the #coopstructurefinance Slack Channel to open up the conversation further.

I'm going to suggest that the structure that we should all take a very serious look at is the FairShares model. It is modified form of a multi-stakeholder co-operative that has four different classes of shares:
1. Founders: entrepreneurs and those that make the idea happen ... us!
2. Labour/Employees: those actually operating AcquireCo
3. Investors: those that have financed AcquireCo
4. Users: the potentially large number of people using the asset... most likely technology in our case

I think the above breakdown of share classes makes sense...

Each class of share will have different Ownership and Voting rights

The rights can be customized by us and need to be baked into the Constitution (Bylaws and Articles of Incorporation). We can take existing multi-stakeholder coop models and look a them. Also, Fairshares offers a process that supports modification of the constitution.

"Imagine an organisation where the knowledge creation model of Wikipedia is combined with the governance model of the John Lewis Partnership and the values and principles of the Co-operative Group? This is the FairShares Model. It is an approach that contributes to a society in which every adult can become a member-owner of the organisation(s) for which they work, from which they regularly buy goods, and from which they receive social services. In short, it envisages a society in which every adult becomes a co-owner of the organisations on which they, their family and their community depend, through the issue of share capital that contributes to the elimination of poverty."

http://www.fairshares.coop/fairshares-model/

There has been an interesting piece from a financial Blogger from Australia who is reasoning about Twitters situation from an investor's point of view. (http://www.evernote.com/l/AVg7BGPUVbpLULDy9gXULtDR0cNV6oveDkw/ with my annotations). It's a hint that any buying process should start with a "due diligence", that is look extremely carefully to what you buy.
There are several obstacles for an investor and even some more for a non-profit organisation. Key is: You need to restructure twitter as an enterprise: "Twitter has become a parody of bad Silicon Valley management ... this needs a wallstreet bastard".
And still TWTR is big. Just to get the majority on the board you woulld need something like up to 15 billion bucks. Let be 10. It turns out, you need 10 million folks who donate 1.000$ or 100 million who donate 100. And you need to raise this much money because no bank in the world would lend some of the needed money because you're not a business.
Now, if somebody could raise $15 billion for making the internet a better place what would you do with this much money? Buy Twitter? Just because you fear a takeover could destroy Twitter?

Maybe, just maybe, our thoughts should go in a somewhat different direction like a "Union of Internet Users", advocating vs TWTR, FB, MSFT or whoever with 100 million people in their back. Imagine ... $1 a year raises $100m, money to develop software, for litigation, for protecting members against despotism of platforms, for negotiating with platforms about features, privacy, algorithms, for moving the world when Erdogan extinguishes the free internet and free speech ...
Just my ten cents: Users buying TWTR is almost certainly not doable and not really the best thing one could do. What the world desperately needs is a "United Nations of Free Internet Users", resembling very much a Union. But pe prepared to bleed because centralized organisations are easy victims of mighty lobby interests (as happened in the USA to the unions). Maybe it's more like an international network of union-like organisations ....

I'm all in favour of building a movement of a 100 million people to democratize the Internet... and plant the seed for an entirely new system...

It'll be a pretty long and arduous process that is really about Movement Building...

@fritziv ... would be good if you joined the Slack Finance and Structure channel(s)

Yesssss

Here is a comparison of the various shares...

Greate you checked the fairshare model at the timefounder research we reached to the same conclusion: the fairsharemodel is an excelent base to build a multistakeholder model!

Here's the FairShares Loomio Group: https://www.loomio.org/g/9asOJB5F/fairshares-association

@ntnsndr @thomase @tommcdonough @samtoland @coopchange ... would be appreciated if you could provide your initial thoughts, comments and questions regarding the FairShares model on its viability for our strategy (Twitter and/or long term).

It's seems to me that Platform Cooperativsm is all about the convergence of Co-Operative principles and The Internet/Digital Economy.

It just so happens that Internet assets have large User bases (like Twitter).

Consequently the transition in the Platform Co-Operative context towards democratic/Co-Op principles requires REPRESENTING THE USER BASE IN THE SHARE STRUCTURE

This is what the FairShares model (as a variant of the multi-stakeholder approach) enables.

It also directly incorporates FOUNDERS... recognizing that this sort of work requires innovation and ingenuity... it requires Social Innovators.

Ouieaa. You're on the track of this vision that also from the point of view of hhrr management is strategic: allow all stakeholders to be really part of the project were they give "value contributions " that are agreed to be converted in fairshares

Could the model be a structure where everyone is at equal level?

@ameliarosekhan The idea is to bring things into a much deeper level of balance while recongizing that there are different stakeholders in an enterprise that have different levels of responsibility.

Employees of an organization have more at stake than a user of its product/service... arguably.

What we don't need is for the CEO to make $100 million dollars while users of the platform have no representation...

This is more about Fairness than it is about 'Equality'....

@sureshf how about raising a proposal about going with the FairShares model, to sharpen up this discussion and see if people are on board?

@alanna This might be the way to go, but I think the energy/momentum in the group is to go ahead with the campaign. I'm inclined to see how that unfolds and then to go from there.

I also note that we reached consensus on creating a Platform Acquisition Co-Op, but the interest seems to be muted on this front. Hence, it doesn't seem that the votes from the proposals is binding...

Let me know if you see things differently. @ntnsndr ... thoughts on Alanna's suggestion?

I'm not sure the interest is muted so to speak. I think there is a consensus that this is the medium term goal - but that in the first instance it is important to concentrate energy on maximising the #buytwitter momentum for consciousness raising and trying to articulate a pragmatic vision about how a group would go about buying out a platform like Twitter.

Sam - thanks for this. Let's see what pragmatic vision for buying Twitter emerges. I have yet to see one.

I continue the hold the following:
1. We most definitely need a pragmatic vision of how to acquire technology assets (Twitter being one).
2. Twitter is too large for us to take on. I might be wrong, but I've yet to be convinced otherwise.
3. We do need to take advantage of the momentum we can build around Twitter.

I'm not clear how to move forward given the above which I believe to be the case. I'm interested to see what emerges!

Suresh, I would add 4) We need to see what unfolds with Twitter itself. The lack of a buyer and a diminishing valuation suggest that it may very well become a realistic target over time.

I also note that this article reports that the Twitter purchase price is $3.5 Billion for some reason and that no single buyer wants to solve the problem of abuse on the platform. http://www.macleans.ca/society/the-trouble-with-twitter-trolls/

I don't know if the article is accurate, but it could an additional reason for them to abandon a centralized ownership model. Giving the largest number of people the responsibility of member ownership could very well improve the community and create more accountability.

This first campaign is pure consciousness raising, but I believe we should be working toward a basic investment co-op that people can join as soon as is practical (for those who want to take a step beyond a petition.

Perhaps we can revive the Slack discussion and categorize all the various stakeholders? At least that might determine if the FairShares approach is viable.

Update: $3.5 Billion was the drop since the deal fell through reportedly due to trolling and hatred.

Brendan - you're right that one scenario is that the Twitter price tag keeps dropping until it becomes affordable. Note, however, that as it becomes affordable for us it also becomes affordable for other institutional and corporate investors. So sure, we can sit around and watch the stock price, but we won't be the only ones doing so and we are competing with groups that are already in conversation with Twitter and that have the capacity to write billion dollar cheques!

I'm not sure where $3.5 billion comes from. The current public valuation is: $12.68 billion. You can find details here: https://www.google.ca/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=twitter%20market%20cap

Our value proposition should define benefits to all stackeholders (founders, investors, workers, users) cause this is something that "the okd way" don't consider right now, and this is what we should be able to communicate to all stakeholders

Twitter 1.0 - the conventional Joint Stock company which owns assets (IP) and employs staff is way too big for us to buy conventionally or unconventionally. So we must think about it in different terms such as sharing asset use.

While FairShares in terms of the value of human contributions is a valuable tool & concept going forward we need a transitional structure and instrument to interface with Twitter 1.0 before we can even consider forst testing & then applying FairShares methodology.

I advocate approaching the Twitter Staff/Management with a view to a staff/management Co-op buy-out using an LLC framework. Twitter 1.0 would be the Capital Partner (investor) member of the LLC; and the Staff/Management would be the other (Capital User) member.

Once the LLC (Chrysalis) has transformed Twitter 1.0 business to sustainable Twitter 2.0 utility we will need multi-stakeholder Co-op (Butterfly).

Existing investors (including developer partners & staff/management) could then exit to new utility investors using a simple funding instrument - ie $1.00 Twitter 2.0 revenue credits issued at a discount & returnable in payment for Twitter 2.0 platform use.

Hi @chriscook1 this resonates well to me. If we share the vision that the fairsharesmodel give us a fair model & the place to reach, we can define a path to reach there. Anyway comunication and evangelization of the beneffits iff this model from all the stakeholders point if view should be a key point for us.

@sureshf read the book of the fairshare model and you ll discover another key point: "value contributions" that connect with another model very usefull: Open Value Accounting

@chriscook1 I believe insiders/institutions own 20% which is about $ 2.4 billion in stock. How do we buy them out or provide them with sufficient consideration to motivate them to engage with us?

We don't need to pay them a penny/cent.

We use a classic OpCo/PropCo development SPV.

We need to convince them that Twitter 1.0 should participate as Capital Partner/PropCo member of the transitional LLC which turns Twitter 1.0 into Twitter 2.0.

So we first need to work with Dorsey and his team to create a convincing bizdev strategy and then to bring the staff/management team as the Capital User/OpCo LLC member alongside us.

The innovation will be the long term funding of the Twitter 2.0 Platform Co-operative which wipes the floor with either a conventional equity (shares) or debt funded exit.

Yeah... but what's in it for the Founders? Imagine for a second that on your left you have investors offering you billions (you can buy your girlfriend houses, cars and lots of presents!)... and on your right you have us... offering no cash... just a bright idea...

It sucks, but money drives deals...

There is no realistic way to take 'control'/shift the ownership of a multi-billion dollar entity without raising a very large amount of cash.

Even if Twitter has to drop to $3 billion in valuation to get a deal done, this still represents a huge amount of money for insiders... Enough money where they don't have to worry about money for the rest of their lives (or their children's lives). This is what we are asking them to risk...

That's an interesting issue.

To the extent that founders cash out, we'd need must introduce new 'capital partners' who will come in and buy them out - at a discount, obviously. Hedge funds/activist investors or similar.

But we'd expect founders to leave plenty of skin in the game to add to the surplus share they would be working for within the LLC.