Grassroots Economics Foundation Charter¶
Introduction¶
This is a charter and practical guide for those cultivating new pathways of economic coordination—pathways rooted in trust, reciprocity, resource sharing, and community memory.
At the heart of this work is commitment pooling: not a new invention, but a recognition of living coordination patterns already woven into traditional, ecological, and relational systems. These pools function as metabolic trust systems—vessels of promises and collective memory that help communities organize care and value beyond the confines of extractive markets or centralized institutions.
From ancestral seed-sharing to mycorrhizal nutrient networks, commitment pooling mirrors the way life has always coordinated.
This charter offers 16 strategic principles for regenerating economies through shared memory and shared responsibility. Each principle is a seed—rooted in movement-building, relational ethics, and regenerative protocol design. They are meant to support local stewards as they grow this paradigm within trust-rich communities and then propagate it outward.
It is a call to remember:
That value can be coordinated through mutual care.
That economies can emerge from relationships.
That resilience is grown—not imposed—through shared intention, humility, and joy.
What Is Commitment Pooling?¶
A Relational System of Care and Credit¶
Commitment pooling is a protocol where value flows through promises, reciprocity, and shared memory. It allows communities to coordinate labor, time, resources, and care based on trust rather than transaction.
It tracks commitments: who has offered what, and how that care circulates. These commitments may be held in verbal agreements, local ledgers, or digital tools—but the protocol is not new.
It is not invented, it is remembered.
Commitment pooling echoes:
- What fungi do beneath the forest floor,
- What grandparents do across generations,
- What communities do in times of need.
It is a living system of coordination—emerging from ecological rhythms of exchange, ancestral protocols of shared responsibility, and the cultural logic of “we belong to each other.”
In its essence, commitment pooling is not a financial tool. It is a pattern of relational stewardship.
It is a metabolism of trust—where every promise is part of a larger story, and every fulfillment nourishes the commons.
Vision¶
We envision a world where communities coordinate value through trust, shared memory, and mutual care—where economic life is rooted in relationship, reciprocity, and belonging.
đź› Mission¶
Demonstrate, design, disseminate & curate the best technologies and practices to empower communities to create and manage their own economic agreements.
We offer tools and documentation to enable communities to: - Create Commons - Enable interactions between Community Asset Vouchers, Commitment Pools, and technologies - Implement systems that are flexible, comprehensible, and locally appropriate
How We Work¶
- Identify and define shared concepts across technologies, commitment economies, and resource coordination
- Translate these into low-cost, modular, technology-agnostic documentation and tooling
- Contribute to infrastructure usable on any device, especially low-end/offline-capable
- Prioritize local implementation and decentralized stewardship
- Support implementers as contributors, not just consumers
- Ensure smooth migration of financial instruments between systems
- Improve privacy properties akin to cash-like bearer instruments
- Build a global, open-source knowledge base of Commons
- Avoid monopolization of services; empower communities to self-host and self-govern
Principles for Spreading Commitment Pooling¶
Here are 16 guiding principles for spreading commitment pooling globally, drawn from lessons in movement strategy, influence theory, and regenerative protocol design. Each principle honors the path forward while remaining mindful of the systems we seek to evolve beyond.
- Honor the Existing Systems, Even as You Outgrow Them
The legacy financial system persists not because it’s perfect, but because it solved real coordination problems -for some, for a while. Acknowledge the ingenuity and pain that shaped it. We’re not here to attack; we’re here to invite. Respect builds the bridge to change.
- Seed a Strategy with Deep Time in Mind
This is a generational shift. Think in cycles of 7, 70, or 700 years. Anchor your work in long-term planetary wellbeing. Build protocols that will last longer than empires.
- Engage the Heart, Not Just the Head Engage Heart, Head and Hands
Money is emotional. It touches survival, status, shame, and dreams. Commitment pooling must speak to love, community, and the ancestral desire to belong. Rituals, stories, and symbols are essential infrastructure.
- This Is Ancient, Not New
We are not inventing. We are remembering. Mycorrhizal fungi coordinate nutrients. Villages shared calabashes of stored grain. Pools are old as roots. Frame the work as restoration, not disruption.
- Start Where the Soil Is Ready
Not everyone is ready to embrace a trust-based economy, and that’s okay. Build with those who are already reaching for each other and active on the ground
- Make Every Action Matter
Every event, workshop, or message should serve a real function: growing trust, coordinating labor, fulfilling a promise. If it doesn’t move the ecosystem toward coherence, it’s not needed. Waste no one’s time.
- Use Simple, Resonant Frames
We don’t need enemies—we need clarity. Use core concepts that gently contrast paradigms: “Your promise is your credit.” “Money is a memory of care.” “Abundance is coordinated, not scarce.” Let ideas speak for themselves. No need to attack the old; just let the new grow louder.
- Understand the Wounds of the Old System
Credit scores, inflation fear, and debt shame run deep. Study them—not to manipulate, but to empathize. Translate pooling into the language of dignity, safety, and community care.
- Offer a Vision That Feels Like Home
People will join your cause not to resist, but to belong. Show what life looks like with fulfilled commitments, shared surplus, and collective care. Make it tangible: water catchments, shared kitchens, neighborhood pools. Let people walk into the future.
- Speak in Many Media
Some will hear the message through blockchain; others through elders, dance, or land restoration. Repeat the message through multiple channels—radio, ritual, memes, murals, classrooms. Redundancy is strength.
- Move Faster Than Extraction Can Respond
The old system defends itself by trying to absorb the new. Don’t wait for permission. Keep growing pools in refugee camps, markets, temples, chat groups, forests. Like mycelium, spread quietly and fast.
- Celebrate Those Who Come Home
Some will leave exploitative systems and return to the commons. Welcome them. Let their testimony illuminate what didn’t work—and why this does. Make it safe to defect with dignity.
- Looking at Crisis Without Falling into Collapse
Don’t wait for current systems to fail. Build the alternative now. When the market stutters, the pool should already be flowing - alive with memory, fairness, and trust.
- Give People Something to Do
Abstract hope is not enough. People need roles. Can they define a commitment? Seed a voucher? Host a circle? Redeem a promise? Map a local resource? Steward a pool? When people act together, the future becomes real.
- Track What Matters
Most Don’t obsess over media impressions or vanity metrics. Track fulfilled promises. Track restored relationships. Track how many mouths are fed through trust. Let collective memory hold these measures of health.
- Adapt Without Losing the Pattern
Strategy is not static. If something isn’t resonating—change it. But keep the core intact: care, coordination, coherence. Let the pools evolve like rivers—always flowing, always grounded.
Closing: Let the Pools Begin¶
Commitment pooling is a field of care, not a system to be sold.
When we remember how to promise, how to track care together, and how to fulfill with joy—we are not designing economies. We are cultivating ecosystems.
Your promise is enough.
You don’t need perfect tools or permission from institutions to start a pool. You just need a commitment—and someone to witness it. That’s where all healthy societies begin.
Let us seed trust where extraction once ruled.
Let us tend memory where markets forgot.
Let the pools begin—wherever you are.
The future of credit is not imposed. It is grown.
Let it begin with you.