Grassroots Economics Commons

Tell us about the community that you are nominating

Grassroots Economics (GE) is a non-profit foundation that sees a world where communities are in control of their own financial instruments as an essential ingredient for economic liberty and empowerment. GE demonstrates, designs, disseminates & curates the best tech and practices to empower communities to create and manage their own financial instruments with a focus on marginalized communities.

What public goods does this community support or will they support in the future?

We support Economic Commons and instruments withing an economic commons. This legal design for a Economic Commons utilizes the Nondominium recursive framework, where mutually defined Instruments are utilized by (General Members) who jointly oversee active stewards (Service Providers) subject to passive custodians (Guardians) with protective governance rights of arbitration and final veto. We also support open source GPL3 + WEB3 software to support infrastructure for Economic commons

Who are the people, DAOs and other organizations already part of this community?

GE has 2 official directors but our programming community and team of 20 people represent the organization for voting. We also work with over 60,000 households each of which is part of a community setting up their own Economic Commons.

Why do you think this community needs a Commons?

Commons creation is important for mutual service provision. GE as a service provider should be a commons just like all the community groups creating their own commons. Protocols between and within commons ensure there is no dominance of parties and common opt-in standards. Community Inclusion Currencies are one instrument defined in an economic commons of service providers.

What other resources do you have that will make your Commons deployment a success?

We have support from the Red Cross, UNICEF, WFP, GIZ and several outsources and have been scaling across Africa. We are currently in Kenya but growing to Cameroon now. docs.grassecon.org is a good resource.

I would add that Will Ruddick is already a trusted seed member of Commons stack but has been inactive due to his workload. We would have a team lead by Blair Vanderlugt that would facilitate this effort to work with Commons Stack in a holistic way.

While GE has been successful in community currency implementations and growth, there is SO much todo and we would love to work with Commons Stack on token models, voting systems, and so much more.

Peace, Love and Unity

Do you have an idea for the name of this Commons?

Grassroots Economics Commons

Submitted by [Discord handle or Twitter handle]

Discord: babania#6905
Twitter: @wor

Greetings! This certainly appears to be a popular option amongst the TS crowd so far. Congrats on your progress to date.

I think I have the main gist about this project seeking to develop an alternative localized currency/scrip that might be resilient and available during times of tightness in the country's reserve currency.

As a not-for-profit, I understand that you are relying on donations to develop this technology solution. Please do correct me where Im mistaken but I have the impression that the proceeds from the donations are primarily going to:

software development/operating salaries
a liquidity pool to be tapped by local vendors such as the well-owner (hopefully not Coca Cola!) or grocery store

As such, I have the impression that the donations are not going directly to the residents of the communities.

Based on the above assumptions/impressions, I have the following questions:

On the How it Works page, I see this: These business networks and industries issue Vouchers that are spent into circulation interest-free credit, community services and payments for operational costs a. I understand the spent into circulation part. its to be treatable like an exchangeable I.O.U. b. I dont understand what is meant by the second part that says, community services and payments for operational costs. Does this mean that community services and operational costs are spent into circulation?
What happens if a borrower skips town without paying their I.O.U.?
On the flip-side, some historical examples of scrip have generated bad reputations for exploitation, are there any kind of borrower protections in place here?
For these currencies/scrips to carry and sustain a market value, there generally needs to be a buyer of these papers. Who is buying these papers today and how are they managing to recover their expense in the absence of interest?

Many thanks and congratulations on your success to date.

PS If you feel the scrip label is inappropriate, please feel free to clarify where you see the key differences to this legacy approach.

Hi @graial , Thanks for the questions.

I think I have the main gist about this project seeking to develop an alternative localized currency/scrip that might be resilient and available during times of tightness in the country's reserve currency.

As a not-for-profit, I understand that you are relying on donations to develop this technology solution. Please do correct me where Im mistaken but I have the impression that the proceeds from the donations are primarily going to:
* software development/operating salaries 
* a liquidity pool to be tapped by local vendors such as the well-owner (hopefully not Coca Cola!) or grocery store
As such, I have the impression that the donations are not going directly to the residents of the communities.

Grassroots Economics Foundation - as a non-profit - must directed any excess revenue to supporting our mission. https://docs.grassecon.org/community/charter/ We don't have 'shares' in equity but we do have shares of utility. GrassEcon has a voucher (on chain) called Sarafu that is redeemable for various services (training, Auditing, voucher deployment, marketing, analytics, interfaces, impact certificates) https://docs.grassecon.org/legal/service/ . We gift a small amount of these vouchers (5) out to new users. As will any voucher issuer we hope that people will start valuing these services more and more.

We help communities develop their own commons and manage them via vouchers - which support Communities, are Inclusive and act as general purpose media of exchange (Currency) -a.k.a. Community Inclusion Currencies (CICs). Getting here over the last 12 years, we've relied heavily on grants for technology development and community pilots. Often when working with communities we also seek support to develop cooperative businesses that add more services behind their CICs. Given that all of our users have a blockchain address (access even without internet) - being able to measure their impacts, asses needs and donate directly to them with any on-chain asset, is totally possible - this is something we want to develop more and more, via bridging.

Based on the above assumptions/impressions, I have the following questions:

1. On the How it Works page, I see this:
   `These business networks and industries issue Vouchers that are spent into circulation interest-free credit, community services and payments for operational costs`
   a. I understand the spent into circulation part. its to be treatable like an exchangeable I.O.U.
   b. I dont understand what is meant by the second part that says, `community services and payments for operational costs`. Does this mean that community services and operational costs are spent into circulation?

Most issuing groups have community projects and cooperative businesses which have operating costs, such as labor. Spending vouchers (redeemable as payment for future production) on those operating costs is often used as a way to bootstrap startup expenses. i.e. If there is a water catchment project that need labor but has no cash - they can pre-sell water vouchers for the labor.

2. What happens if a borrower skips town without paying their I.O.U.?

When issuing a voucher - the group of issuers must sign a legal contract which is audited by local authorities. If the issuers spend the vouchers and don't accept them back as stipulated in the contract there are various consequences - similar to those in any ROSCA/VSLA/SILC table-top banking group. Generally there are 4 options, debt forgivness (meaning the rest of the issuing group pick up the slack), rolling over (giving more time to accept the vouchers), community service (to repay the debt), or debt collection (from group savings or at worst from the debtor's household).

3. On the flip-side, some historical examples of scrip have generated bad reputations for exploitation, are there any kind of borrower protections in place here?

The issuer of a voucher is generally trying to pre-sell their services - think of a Telecom airtime credit. It is a credit obligation redeemable as payment for the network services. The holder of such a voucher can see the legal contract binding the issuer to redeem them and seek legal recourse with local authorities.

The risk of total insolvency of the issuer(s) and their inability to redeem the vouchers is real as with any credit/currency system - insurance mechanisms can be created to give holders more assurance - these might be in the form of special contracts like liquidity pools. This is something some issuers as well as 3rd parties will really want in-order to assure holders, but I wouldn't limit people's ability to create credit via legal contract alone.

Mitigating how coal-mine script or imperial currencies were (and still are) used to dominate and entrap people, is exactly what we're trying to do by creating clear legal contract, Commons structures and decentralizing credit issuance (last mile) in general. I hope to see a world where it would be unthinkable to value your communities work solely in someone else's currency. The interplay of multiple commons and their governance tokens (currencies) in decentralized networks is where macro-scale socioeconomic magic starts to happen.

4. For these currencies/scrips to carry and sustain a market value, there generally needs to be a buyer of these papers.  Who is buying these papers today and how are they managing to recover their expense in the absence of interest?

Today the buyers the 'papers' (which are digital living on a blockchain), are community members themselves. A farmer might come and work on a community farm and buy some vouchers with his labor. This means the farmer is holding a voucher that represents the future production of the issuing group (often even the produce on the farm). Hence the issuing group can kick start a community farm without having cash up-front but instead create a serve commons to de-risk the issuance of vouchers against their future production. e.g. Future buyers for a water based CIC might include all sorts of parties interested in the water itself, buying the vouchers at bulk discounts, reselling the vouchers on exchanges and so on.

Many thanks and congratulations on your success to date.

PS If you feel the scrip label is inappropriate, please feel free to clarify where you see the key differences to this legacy approach.

Here https://docs.grassecon.org/legal/license/ we talk about 3 different Instruments, Tokens, Vouchers (similar to Script) and Swaps.

Wörgl - Wikipedia is a great example of a credit obligation created by a city in times of crisis and redeemable for municipal services. Notable here is their use of demurrage (Gesell taxation) - which we've built into our smart contracts. https://gitlab.com/cicnet/erc20-demurrage-token/-/blob/master/solidity/DemurrageTokenSingleNocap.sol

One key element we want to work with Commons Stack on is voting around both voucher creation (https://docs.grassecon.org/legal/voucher/) as well as redistribution of expired vouchers which live in a community fund.

Greetings Mr Ruddick,

Please let me start by saying that I admire the time that you have spent on this journey and the obvious care and attention that you have put into this approach.

Its also clear that you have a well formed perspective in economics.

Are you aware of the warnings about a possible global food shortage in the coming years? If so, do you believe those fears/warnings are warranted for countries like Kenya?

If such warnings do become validated, how do you see a community currency handling such an environment? Is there an element within the Grassroots Economics Commons that might be harnessed as a Common Pool Resource as defined by the works of Ostrum?

Many thanks for your consideration

Thanks @graial

Are you aware of the warnings about a possible global food shortage in the coming years? If so, do you believe those fears/warnings are warranted for countries like Kenya?

Food shortage in Kenya and many places globally is real and chronic. Simple disruptions to fragile supply chains and markets causes havoc in places that have little buffer and lack the ability to grow or manage sufficient local produce.

Bringing people together into a commons to learn and scale syntropic agroforestry (SAF) for soil regeneration has been our go-to approach (it is amazing). Creating an economic bootstrap that justifies people to stop their daily work on things like charcoal burning, or other slash and burn practices and focus on SAF at appropriate scale for local foods systems - which in some areas won't yield sufficient produce for several seasons or years - is a (THE) huge challenge!!!! Donor funds can help but aren't enough or sustainable.

If such warnings do become validated, how do you see a community currency handling such an environment? Is there an element within the Grassroots Economics Commons that might be harnessed as a Common Pool Resource as defined by the works of Ostrum?

To me the core Common Pool Resource is the pool of community services. Communities that have come together as a commons to create a Community Inclusion Currency redeemable as payment for future services and produce, can pay for the labor and inputs needed to make these farms - without aid dependency. We want to see communities around the world becoming aware of their abundance and ability to trust each other and making commitments toward a common future.

Understanding currency as a governance token where the holder has a right and responsibility to the common pool of resources requires all of Dr. Elinor Ostrom's insights for commons management.

Also note about stability in the face of economic and food system collapse. The stability of CICs is based on legal contract for redemption as payment for specific services - which are audited and over collateralize. Communities define their own unit of account for their unique CICs. e.g.1 MWAKA is redeemable as payment for 10 liters of water. And there can't be more than 1 months supply of these vouchers as per audit. If the national currency price of water skyrockets then 1 MWAKA still = 10 liters of water. While there is so much todo this is a beginning of creating strong local foundations for our socioeconomic system.

Specifically with respect to food, what has Grassroots Economics been able to achieve over the years, in the villages it has operated?

Since the Commons Stacks Prize is at the core a Web 3 initiative and stipulates a certain degree of familarity with Web 3, to what extent is Grassroots Economics (GE) aware of the developments in the Web 3 space as there is a spectrum of technologies which have emerged and truly relevant for bottom-up development?
Would focussing on just voting processes be sufficient to create a true commmons in the space GE is operating? There exists very interesting voting and allocative mechanisms including Quadratic Voting. Quadratic Funding, Conviction Voting and variations of these and more. Is your intention to adapt these technologies possibly enable them even over feature phones, which would be and would constitute a critical contribution to a commons.
Web3, has at its core:the Token Economy. Would you call GEs Community Currency an example of Token Economics in practice? What is your opinion of Token Economics? The deeper role it can play leaving aside some of the "ponzi" type of activity you alluded to in Twitter exchanges. Like say Purposeful Tokens?
What has been the actual performance of Grassroots Economics in uplifting the conditions of the people in the villages it has been implemented. The results from the research studies in actual economic upliftment are not particularly impressive considering the number of years it has been involved in this area.
Is Grassroots economics overtly focussed in developing the technology more than its effectiveness in transforming the conditions of the people in the villages? Looking at GEs Research page it seems so : https://grassecon.org/pages/research.html
Would this be a classic case of an instrumentalist approach, in which there is a tacit assumption the technology itself will drive the transformation of these villages. The most spectacular failure of this approach cases of these have been Jeffrey Sachs Millenium Villages and Nicholas Negroponte's One lap per child and others spending hundreds of millions of dollars with terrible negative impact in the former ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rAV5Ng-gDhs)
How does Grassroots Economics help in breaking out of the Low Level Equilibrium cycle which rural villages in Emerging Economies seem to be stuck in? Is it a case of a perpetual dependency on handouts and AID for Grassroots Economics (to continuously develop the technology) and the villages to create assets if it they have to move out of the low level equilibrium they seem to be stuck in.
Is it Grassroots Economics strategy to "sell" these technologies to other villages under the assumption that these currencies by itself will transform these villages, when it is clearly not the case while Web 3 technologies possibly offers these opportunities? ( See the Villagers Commons presentation)

FWIW I gave this project almost all of my votes. I've known about the Grassroots Economics project and all the excellent work that they have all been doing for years and years. Will and the team are very legit and have been fighting the good fight very much at the 'grassroots level' for many years. Very well thought through governance structures (as far as I can tell) and a lot of excellent analysis coupled with doing serious work on the ground for decades. No flash in the pan. I'm excited to see them do well in the voting so far..

Specifically with respect to food, what has Grassroots Economics been able to achieve over the years, in the villages it has operated?

We've worked with a few partners and trainers specifically around Syntropic Agroforestry (SAF) and have also gotten support to help areas with cooperatives like maize mills. Overall food consumption, and trade has been measured to increase across these communities. You can read more here https://www.grassrootseconomics.org/pages/food-forests.html

Note that giving communities a way to crow-fund and finance water harvesting and agriculture projects has been a core point of CICs. Where a voucher is created redeemable as payment for services and sold, in-kind and for cash to raise funds for infrastructure projects. So while SAF we find to be extremely effective (we have over 60 village groups now trained in SAF) some communities use CICs for education, elderly support and so on. Understanding credit-obligations as a simple but important tool to manage their common resources.

Also please see our statistics on food trade here: https://grassrootseconomics.org/kitui-launch.html

GM @willruddick !

So happy to see GE in the finals!

When imagining how our current Commons implementation fits in best, I am imagining that crypto philanthropists that love CICs would make up most of the Hatchers that send in money to the Hatch, and the Hatchers that have reputation would be the builders of the tech and the on-the-ground practitioners (I assume these are the "field staff") that know how to launch this incredible tech.

Does that sound right?
Do the field staff have the tools they need to participate in Conviction Voting? It works with a smart phone, strong internet, and metamask... it's clunky... but it works.... works best with a laptop.
Do you think this Commons will focus on building the infrastructure needed so that people who want a CIC in their local community could make it happen?
Do you see helping communities launch their own CICs being a way to create demand for the GE Commons token?
How do you see the GE Commons Token working with Sarafu?

GM @WillRuddick !

GM @GriffGreen !!

So happy to see GE in the finals!

woot!

When imagining how our current Commons implementation fits in best, I am imagining that crypto philanthropists that love CICs would make up most of the Hatchers that send in money to the Hatch, and the Hatchers that have reputation would be the builders of the tech and the on-the-ground practitioners (I assume these are the "field staff") that know how to launch this incredible tech.
1. Does that sound right?

I made a video! https://youtu.be/j5U6Wi3t7QQ What you are saying is correct with regard to just implementing CIC creation and voting. But we want MORE! We want the investment from the GE Commons to focus on capacity building commons worldwide and connecting the CICs from those commons together into a massive network of Liquidity Pools - the likes f which the world has never seen before. Grassroots Economics Foundation will be one of MANY service providing commons with a CIC.

2. Do the field staff have the tools they need to participate in Conviction Voting? It works with a smart phone, strong internet, and metamask... it's clunky... but it works.... works best with a laptop.

We have a USSD interface now that can connect feature phones to the blockchain contracts. So we can make simple voting menus that way.

3. Do you think this Commons will focus on building the infrastructure needed so that people who want a CIC in their local community could make it happen?

Yes! Ideally both the creation and management of CICs - but also investment into them.

4. Do you see helping communities launch their own CICs being a way to create demand for the GE Commons token?

I'm seeing the GE Commons token as being the governance token for those people that put into the hatch (ABC). The DAI from the hatch used to promote CICs and invest in capacity building CICs - would increase the supply of each community CIC -> some of these new CIC would then be reinvested along with DAI into Liquidity Pools - and revenue from these LPs would feed back into the ABM increasing the value of the GE Commons token.

5. How do you see the GE Commons Token working with Sarafu?

Sarafu is one CIC that is a credit obligation redeemable for services provided by Grassroots Economics Foundation. I would ask hatchers using their GE Commons token for voting on investment into the Sarafu (among other CICs such as Village and other commons) investment into the Sarafu CIC would help our developers and team creating tools and building our capacity and increase the Sarafu Supply. This increased supply would goto the GE Commons and be added to liquidity pools.

This is a simplification of the whole process but I think it's going to be rad and am excited to work out all the details with ya'll.

What an exciting journey!

ABC-CIC CIC-service-ledger-wittness

This is such a wonderful project @WillRuddick & co!

I'm so grateful for people like you doing the long, hard work of building relationships in frontier communities—on the ground, in the flesh—where it matters most.

I have to be honest: I'm having a hard time imagining ReFi DAO's submission competing with this one as it seems so beautifully aligned with the third pillar of ReFi "institute just communities of care".

It seems like you guys are so well established and have a very carefully designed system.

I think a Grassroots Economics Commons would go a long way towards fulfilling ReFi DAO's mission of accelerating impact for people and the planet.

There's also an interesting angle to consider: How might we combine the radical experimentation and innovation that's happening in the abstract 'ReFi' space with the deep, on the ground work happening in the physical 'Grassroots' space?

We've seen around 150 ventures emerge over the last 6 months (refidao.com), but a lot of this explosive energy is lacking the connection to the real world on the ground problems you and your team seem so well versed in!

It was a shame I was away for a family wedding last week as I would've loved to have more time together to discuss this opportunity. Either way, I'm very optimistic for a positive outcome for the Commons Prize and can't wait to see the beautiful future we can build together!

This is such a wonderful project @WillRuddick & co!

Thanks!

There's also an interesting angle to consider: How might we combine the radical experimentation and innovation that's happening in the abstract 'ReFi' space with the deep, on the ground work happening in the physical 'Grassroots' space?

Changing how donors and investors and communities invest into commons via DAOs is really exciting! It would be a way to divest from some of these older USD (Monetary Imperialism) based instruments and into regenerative economies.

We've seen around 150 ventures emerge over the last 6 months (refidao.com), but a lot of this explosive energy is lacking the connection to the real world on the ground problems you and your team seem so well versed in!

It would be amazing to see some of these ventures developing utility tokens ala Community Inclusion Currencies (Credit Obligations connected to services commons) (probably some already have similar utility tokens). Based on investment in capacity from DAOs I would love to see some of these CICs end up back in the DAO pool and connected via liquidity pools; creating networks between all the commons.

Would love to pick your brain on this and introduce such ideas to the humanitarian space as well .

How might a keen community in the Philippines (for example 🤓 ) take their first steps in trying to adopt/deploy your solutions? Please try for an answer a little more sophisticated than join the discord

How might a keen community in the Philippines (for example nerd_face ) take their first steps in trying to adopt/deploy your solutions? Please try for an answer a little more sophisticated than join the discord

ok, let me try

Here are some first steps in building trust in your community and establishing a Commons of Service and associated currency.

Resource Mapping - Identify all the resources in your community - both what people offer and their needs.
Visualize the existing connections between people already. (We often play a bean game - small market simulator). This circle and string game really helps people build emotional trust as well with each other. This helps people begin to imagine the services they offer as a group as a commons. How would people have access to those services / common resources?
Finally After discussion - looking at forming an agreement that will define your commons and access voucher as well as build a community fund based on demurrage.
Managing and spreading your voucher among your community is what turns it into a Community Inclusion Currency (CIC). Voting systems are highly needed here - but let me stop here as you look through some of the links above.

Beyond helping communities develop and manage service commons - we also want to support them and connect them together into resilient liquid markets. A commons in isolation is vulnerable.

Here are some first steps on investing in and establishing a network of commons.

Develop a ABM (DAO) where supporters (hatchers) can place funds and get voting shares on their usage.
Develop a criteria on Commons for investment. Such as looking at circulation of their CIC, market cap, what types of goods and services are being traded, and gaps needed to fill. Note that there are many ways for a commons to develop some kind of utility token/voucher - what is important to me is that it is backed by actual services being offered under contract and endorsed (reputation).
Vote on and Invest in commons capacity building. Commons have many need like schools, software, water and food systems, legal support etc.
Increase CIC supply: Actually supporting these capacity building needs increases their CIC supply - Since CICs are credit obligations and their supply is dependent on their capacity.
Accept an amount of these CICs into the ABM pool and give those commons voting shares as well.
Connect the CICs and other assets in the ABM pools together via liquidity pools - and direct any fees on them back into the ABM treasury - and enable share holders to have dividends.

Creating a connected economies between commons makes them stronger and is the essence of regenerative economics. Just like fungal networks help build soil and share resources - networks of commons need to do the same - and we need mechanisms that divest from dependence on economies that are fueling the destruction of the planet and our communities!

earth-tree

commons-stack / commonsprize