Money moves like water when you don’t have a boss
We reckon that decentralising the control of money is one of the most strategic things we can do to make the world a better place.
Financial literacy is power. In any organisation, the people that understand the flows of money have a huge influence on where that money gets spent. So we’ve invested in enhancing that literacy for everyone in the network.
At Enspiral we have developed a menagerie of tools and practices to translate that lofty ambition into a practical reality.
Most of us are freelancers earning our own money, but we all put some of that money "in the middle": a collective resource that we manage collaboratively.
As we’ve developed our tools and processes, we’ve seen that an increasing number of people have access to spend the money, and more people are contributing as well.
The main sources of collective funds at Enspiral are from Services (freelancers and teams contributing around 20% of their income), Ventures (each venture has a unique agreement with the Foundation as to how much they contribute), and grants (e.g. Lifehack Project, Namaste Foundation).
- Story : Voluntary contributions create effective governance mechanism
- Story : Variable contributions at Enspiral
- Recipe : Voluntary contributions as a freelancer with Enspiral Services
- Recipe : Voluntary contributions as a Venture - Xero code vs. manual allocations
- Story : I hold this piece of the puzzle e.g. Charmaine
We have a core piece of digital infrastructure called "my.enspiral" - it’s our homemade bank that holds our internal economy. Money can flow between different people and projects in Enspiral Services without ever leaving our collective bank account.
- Story : my.enspiral: how we made our homemade bank legal
Enspiral Foundation
Each month collective funds are up for grabs. Any contributor can propose a project for funds to be spent on and the Members (shareholders of the Enspiral Foundation) each get an equal portion to spend. In this way we are investing our profits as a network back into our social mission.
- Recipe : Collaborative funding (Foundation)
- Story : MiX Prize Collab funding
- Recipe : writing a good collab funding bucket proposal
- Recipe : fixed expenses for Foundation
Enspiral Services
- Recipe : Collaborative funding (Services)
- Story : Incubation of Cobudget through collab funding
- Story : Overdrafts and loans - how we help each other out through hard times
- Wiki : How to invoice
- Recipe : Fixed expenses for Services
Ventures
Lots of our Ventures have come up with creative ways of playing with money too.
- Story : accounting for sweat equity without accruing a big debt on the books (Loomio points, Craftworks fairy gold)
- Story : how to get investment capital when you’re not a profit-maximising company (Loomio, EDA)
- Recipe : Self determined salaries (incl. video from EDA)
*Collaborative Funding with the Enspiral Foundation is our monthly process of deciding how to spend the ‘profit’ left over in Collective Funds each month. *
Practiced in : Enspiral Foundation
Developers : Alanna Krause, Joshua Vial, Simon Tegg, Derek Razo
Inspiration : Kim Stanley Robinson's novel "Pacific Edge"
Methodology :
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In the middle of each month, Enspiral Services Contributors and Members are invited to submit what we call Bucket Proposals through our collaborative funding software Cobudget. A proposal outlines a project that an Enspiralite wants to happen. The description consists of what they want to do and how it would benefit to the network. It’s their pitch to internal investors.
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At the end of each month, Enspiral Ventures contribute revenue to the Enspiral Foundation collectuve funds as per their unique Venture Agreement. Other sources of income to collective funds are through grant fund-holding e.g. Lifehack Project, Namaste Grant.
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Core fixed expenses agreed through Loomio decisions such as legal, accounting, tax, staffing are subtracted.
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Bucket proposals are collated into a menu of options for investment.
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Enspiral Ventures who had contributed revenue maintain control of their monthly contribution and decide within their organisation what they would like it spent on. This is sometimes done by a process of delegation (one person in the Venture is responsible for allocating), through Dot-Voting on Loomio, or group decision made by consensus.
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Contributions that have come from other sources (e.g. grant fund-holding) are split equally between Enspiral Members (shareholders of the Enspiral Foundation) to invest.
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At the start of the new month, investment opens for one week for Ventures and Members to decide how to spend their contributions. Any funds that are not spent during this period get transferred to Reserves. Funds held in Reserves require a Loomio decision to be spent.
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At the close of this period, people who have proposed buckets are informed by email that they have funds accessible. Buckets Sponsors that didn’t reach their target are given three options :
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Cancel the bucket, send allocated funds to reserves
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Progress the bucket with the amount of funds they received
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Hold the funds and propose the bucket again next round
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Funds are released to Bucket Sponsors on completion of the project proposed and a short report on the outcome of the project is sent back to the Collaborative Funding team to be collated into our Collaborative Funding Annual Reports.
*Collaborative Funding with Enspiral Services is our monthly process of deciding how to spend the ‘profit’ left over in Collective Funds each month. *
Practiced in : Enspiral Foundation
Developers : Alanna Krause, H
Inspiration :
Methodology :
In the middle of each month, Enspiral Contributors and Members are invited to submit what we call Bucket Proposals through our collaborative funding software Cobudget. A proposal outlines a project that an Enspiralite wants to happen. The description consists of what they want to do and how it would benefit to the network. It’s their pitch to internal investors.
Bucket proposals consist of a title, description, who is managing it (sponsor) and what is the target amount of money required to complete the project.
At the end of each month, Enspiral Ventures contribute revenue to the Enspiral Foundation collectuve funds as per their unique Venture Agreement. Other sources of income to collective funds are through grant fund-holding e.g. Lifehack Project, Namaste Grant.
Core fixed expenses agreed through Loomio decisions such as legal, accounting, tax, staffing are subtracted.
Bucket proposals are collated into a menu of options for investment.
Enspiral Ventures who had contributed revenue maintain control of their monthly contribution and decide within their organisation what they would like it spent on. This is sometimes done by a process of delegation (one person in the Venture is responsible for allocating), through Dot-Voting on Loomio, or group decision made by consensus.
Contributions that have come from other sources (e.g. grant fund-holding) are split equally between Enspiral Members (shareholders of the Enspiral Foundation) to invest.
At the start of the new month, investment opens for one week for Ventures and Members to decide how to spend their contributions. Any funds that are not spent during this period get transferred to Reserves. Funds held in Reserves require a Loomio decision to be spent.
At the close of this period, people who have proposed buckets are informed by email that they have funds accessible. Buckets Sponsors that didn’t reach their target are given three options :
-
Cancel the bucket, send allocated funds to reserves
-
Progress the bucket with the amount of funds you received
-
Hold the funds and propose the bucket again next round
Funds are released to Bucket Sponsors on completion of the project proposed and a short report on the outcome of the project is sent back to the Collaborative Funding team to be collated into our Collaborative Funding Annual Reports.