Collaborative Governance

Alongside whatever else mothers and sons talk about, I have begun receiving regular updates on the governance of my mother’s neighborhood garden club. They make me jealous. The club has survived from the heyday of suburban housewives—which my mother, as a retired government employee, never was. She is currently her...

On December 5, 2020, we met with key stakeholders from the Rocky Mountain Mutual Aid Network (RMMAN) to discuss the organizational structure and potential future impact of RMMAN. The stakeholders at RMMAN worked to answer questions about RMMAN’s organizational design: How are decisions made? Who makes the decisions? Who gets...

One of the most inspiring outgrowths of the COVID-19 pandemic has been the rise of local relief efforts under the banner of "mutual aid" and a commitment to "solidarity, not charity." These groups seek to address the impacts of the pandemic while also working for transformative social change. Their work...

Isn’t it weird that the radically democratic miracle of open-source collaboration is so full of monarchical dictatorships? Take your pick of projects; “benevolent dictators” are everywhere. Linux has Linus Torvalds, WordPress has Matt Mullenweg, and Ethereum has Vitalik Buterin—all of them founders poised to enjoy (or not) lifelong, absolute authority...

Friday, May 8, 2020 10-11:00 a.m. Mountain Time Webinar View the video recording of the event here and Sita Magnuson's graphic recording here . In the new world made by the coronavirus, there has been a lot of discussion recently about online collaboration and work. But what about governance? If...