1 CONNECT: organize your network
Members, Groups, …
Who do you know that shares your concerns? Ask them to register for this site. Once they are Members, organize them into one or more Groups. Groups can have categories, e.g. education, news, tech, finance, operations …. Get to know more about each other with extended personal profiles that highlight your skills and issues where you would like to apply those skills.
We use the BuddyPress plug-in for WordPress, which has been called “Facebook in a box.” In this short video you will learn about the social networking functionality we are providing. This is the same tool that organized 9,000 people into 100 working groups (collectives) during Occupy Wall Street in 2011.
2 PROPOSE: and govern yourselves
Threads, proposals, polls
- Groups hold everything in one place for a specific set of people
- Discussion threads are where you go to discuss topics and make decisions
- Proposals and polls to help you visualize the group’s input and feelings about a given proposal, question, or topic.
- Outcomes share what’s going to happen next so everyone has a clear understanding and there’s a useful record.
3 FINANCE: and fund your collective
Transparent reporting
We use tools from OpenCollective for you to raise funds and engage in financial transactions without a need to incorporate. The tools enable networks that each include a fiscal sponsor to handle financial record keeping and reporting. You could be a collective seeking a fiscal sponsor or you could be a fiscal sponsor handling multiple collectives.
Who are we?
This website has been started by me Dr. Ron Suarez and my wife Margarete Koenen. Contact us if you would like to be a part of the team turning our efforts into a cooperatively run Enterprise. Our strongest belief is in defending democracy. This incarnation of the website began with a focus intended to empower neighborhood groups around local issues.
History of the name
I originally registered this domain name in 2012. We wanted to help people to fire their cable company by getting tech support from their neighbors. Except that we failed at competing with the likes of Comcast, here’s how it would have worked. We looked into Twilio and had planned to have consumers dial one phone number to get help. Then, we would have had text messages sent to the four teenagers who lived walking distance from the consumer, in Brooklyn, NY. The first teenager who replied to take the job would show up with a homemade HDTV antenna and information about setting up low cost Internet access. Here is a video of me showing people how to make an HDTV antenna with recycled coat hangers and $3 in parts. New York City has over 50 broadcast television stations that are completely free since they are ” over the air.”
Our Personal Info
Our fourth grandchild was recently one year-old. We are trying to do our small part in saving the planet from climate crisis by promoting Systems Innovation. In 2006, I was elected to Ann Arbor city council for one term. In 2011, we were web developers number 1 and 2 for the website that registered 9,000 users in 100 working groups for Occupy Wall Street. In 2016 I was elected as a delegate from New York CD 14 and pledged to Bernie Sanders. That is the same district in which AOC was elected and I helped in a small way to petition to get her on the ballot. In 2018 I suffered a serious spinal cord injury. I am still recovering and partially paralyzed. I am finally healthy enough to be working on this site. Margarete writes all of the code and does the graphic design work. She has also combined her creative artwork to get others spreading messages on social media with agit-prop examples like this in 2016.