The social movements of the last decade demand democracy beyond the ballot box. If we want a more democratic society, we must model transparency, collaboration and collective decision-making in our own organizations, projects and networks.
We are chartering the Internet of Ownership Project Council (IOPC) to create a democratic space for people working on concrete projects that help democratize ownership of online platforms. The IOPC enables us to collectively raise and utilize resources to advance our strategically aligned projects. We view it as one potential way to organize ourselves without having to engage in organization building. Instead, we come together as individual project participants to manage a set of common resource in pursuit of our shared goal.
The IOPC mobilizes a number of resources in support of its member projects:
- Funding: We manage a pool of money we allocate to our member projects.
- Endorsements: We publish support for project and help with oversight.
- Promotion: We use our collective media resources to spread news and information.
- Volunteers & In-Kind Donations: We work together to productively mobilize volunteers.
- Fiscal Sponsorship: We maintain a contract with a 501.c.3 nonprofit that enables us to receive tax-deductible donations and comply with regulations.
The basic structure of the IOPC is defined in its charter, which outlines the scope, rules, operational processes, guidelines and other procedural information. This charter is modeled after the Occupy Sandy Project Spokescouncil, which emerged in New York City as a means to coordinate resources during the recovery phase of the 2012 Superstorm Sandy.
We’d love more feedback from the community on our charter. If you have ideas about how we can improve our charter, please add comments directly to the charter document.
The current charter has been tentatively approved by two founding projects:
- InternetofOwnership.net Website and Directory
- CoopData.org
You can learn about both projects on Project Council page on the Internet of Ownership website.
We’re looking for a third project to join the other two as a founding member of the IOPC. If your project is interested in becoming a founding project, please contact us and/or fill out our application form. Once we consent to a third project, all three projects will go through the formal process of approving the charter. Then we’ll be open for business.
If you’d like to support the IOPC, please consider making a recurring donation via our Gratipay page or a one-time donation through our secure online donation form.