What is the Chaordic Commons?
About Owning Membership (below)
I'm an Owning Member, now what? (below)
For More Information (below)

What is the Chaordic Commons?

The Chaordic Commons is a global network of individuals and organizations committed to pioneering new ways to organize, based on the discovery and expression of deep common purposes and essential principles of right relationship.

Working around the world in every sector of today's rapidly evolving societies, owning members of the Commons are pathfinders developing, disseminating, and implementing new concepts of organization that result in more equitable sharing of power and wealth, improved health, and greater compatibility with the human spirit and biosphere.

This work encompasses:

1. New forms of governance Innovative models of business Emerging concepts of citizenship New models for ownership, investment, and philanthropy New approaches to public-private partnerships and multi-stakeholder alliances Dynamic approaches to collaboration New forms of leadership Generative models of organizational learning and change
2. New, more global architectures of relationship in every field

The Commons is a chaordic organization, realizing its aim through the self-organizing, self-governing activity of owning members linked by their commitment to common purpose and shared principles. Delighting in diversity, the Commons is open to all who subscribe to its purpose and principles in conducting activities of the Commons.

The growing network of participants includes individuals attracted to new ways of thinking, those leading transformative organizational or institutional change, and those committed to creating powerful new tools for innovation, learning, and action.

Among them are entrepreneurs and visionary leaders in a wide variety of organizations; consultants, educators and communications professionals; financiers, philanthropists, and influential resource gatekeepers; and researchers and scholars in diverse fields. People in the public, private and nonprofit sectors are participating - and they come from around the world.

The Chaordic Commons is incorporated in Illinois as a nonprofit membership corporation and is recognized by the IRS as a 501(c)(3) charitable organization. Donations are tax-deductible to the full extent allowed by law.

About Owning Membership

Join a Purpose-Centered and Principle-Based Community

The Commons is purpose-centered and principle-based. The common purpose that all owning members share is:

To develop, disseminate and implement new concepts of organization that result in more equitable sharing of power and wealth, improved health, and greater compatibility with the human spirit and biosphere.

Owning members observe the following principles when participating in activities of the Commons:

Principles of Practice

1. Work to ensure that all people, by right of birth, have adequate necessities of life, including clean air, water, food and shelter; an equitable share of wealth and resources; and opportunity to develop their full physical, mental and spiritual potential. Work to ensure that human capacities, technologies and organizations protect and support, not systemically alter, degrade or destroy, the Earth, its diversity of life and its life support systems. Work to ensure interdependent health and diversity of individuals, communities, institutions and cultures. Resolve conflict creatively and cooperatively without resort to physical, economic, psychological, social or ecological violence.
2. Freely and fully exchange information relevant to the Purpose and Principles unless it violates confidentiality or materially diminishes competitive position.

Principles of Organization

1. Be open to owning membership by any Individual or Institution subscribing to the Purpose and Principles in conducting activities of the Chaordic Commons and Terra Civitas Initiative. Have the right to self-organize at any time, on any scale, in any form or around any activity consistent with the Purpose and Principles. Conduct deliberations and make decisions by bodies and methods that reasonably represent all relevant and affected parties and are dominated by none. Vest authority, perform functions and use resources in the smallest or most local part that includes all relevant and affected parties.
2. Educe rather than compel behavior to the maximum possible degree.

Rights and Responsibilities of Owning Membership

• The opportunity to initiate or participate in activities of the Commons' owning members - working groups on specific issues, change initiatives in a variety fields, learning programs, networking with creative leaders, consultants, scholars, and social entrepreneurs. Access to common properties of the Commons. Material developed by core staff of the Commons is presently available at no charge to owning members, who are requested to acknowledge the source of Commons' materials when they use them.
  
  We encourage owning members to adapt and extend the material and ask them to share what they develop with the Commons, thus helping grow the pool of common intellectual properties available to the community.
  
  In the spirit of generosity and mutual support that defines the Commons, we also request that owning members who profit financially to participate in the Commons' gift economy, and return value to support our Commons Access to and participation in the community of owning members. To facilitate self-organization and self-governance, owning members of the Commons share basic contact information (name, email) with one another. Beyond that, owning members individually determine what information or resources to share, and with whom. Owning contact information is I made available through Chaordic Initiatives. The right to use the Commons' marks. Commons' owning members have the right to use the Commons' marks in providing goods, activities or services within guidelines established by trustees and owning members. The right to discounted products and services, including the Chaordic Commons newsletter.
• The right and responsibility to participate in governance of the Commons. The Commons is designed to distribute power, authority, and resources among owning members. Our principles require it! It's therefore vital that owning members participate actively in helping govern the parts of the Commons in which they're involved. At a minimum, we hope that all owning members participate in the selection of the council of trustees. This body, elected by owning members (and from the owning member community), is responsible only for those few decisions that concern the whole of the Commons.

The Chaordic Commons' Constitution

The constitution of the Commons provides a detailed framework for a purpose-centered, principle-based organization "owned" by its members. Fundamentally, the constitution is an agreement among owning members, and participants are agreeing to honor it while engaging in Commons related activities when they become owning members.

Owning members do not need to be intimately familiar with every detail of the constitution - the Commons' bylaws - in order to participate effectively. However, the constitution does provide the fundamental legal framework defining the organization, so owning members should be familiar with it. Exploring its features is also a great way to learn about some of the structural concepts at the heart of chaordic organization, so you can look upon its study as a learning experience!

Key points of the constitution are summarized here. For more detail, consult the constitution itself. Download .it as a 187kb PDF document.

• The Commons is conceived as a distributed and distributive commons - that is, a place to share resources. Precisely what resources are shared, and how, is bound only by the Commons' purpose and principles together with any further agreements reached as a result of owning member self-governance. There are owning members and correspondent members. Owning members have nearly all the explicit rights or obligations in the Commons. (Correspondent membership is described above.) The primary rights of owning members are to engage in activities of the Commons - pursuing purpose in any way consistent with principles - to select trustees within their Origin, and to cast votes regarding potential changes to the constitution in certain cases. Whenever votes are required, individual owning members have one vote and institutional owning members have two or more, depending on the number of employees in their organization or company. Owning membership cannot be bought, sold, or transferred. However, "ownership" does not mean having a conventional equity stake in the financial assets of the Commons. It primarily refers to the rights of participation outlined above. Owning members are free to create, manage and maintain their own unique and diverse means of creating and sharing intellectual and other properties, as long as they are consistent with purpose and principles. Each owning member selects an origin upon becoming an owning member and can change origins by notifying the Commons. The origins were created to ensure a certain amount of diversity in the council. While thoughtfully chosen, there is no magic to them, and the council may change them by a 75% vote. Owning members govern the Commons. Decisions are made by owning members at the most local level which includes all relevant and affected parties. Owning members govern the whole through a council of trustees. The Council is made up of equal numbers of owning members from each of the six origins. Trustees are elected or chosen by members of each origin, and the owning members in an origin can determine their own method of selecting trustees if they all agree on it. The Commons' coordinating director and managing director are also trustees, and the council may name up to two at-large trustees at their discretion. Trustees are stewards for the whole of the Commons, not "representatives" of their origin in the usual sense. The Council has a fairly limited set of responsibilities and authorities, consistent with the principle that decision-making should be made in the most local part that includes all relevant and affected parties. Besides a few "housekeeping" chores regarding the constitution, the primary responsibility of the council is to exercise oversight regarding purpose and principles. Its primary authority is to establish operating procedures, which must also be consistent with purpose and principles. Appreciation for the subtleties of the purpose and principles is a prerequisite for effective execution of trustee duties. The Commons' purpose and principles are the touchstone for all activities. Even the constitution itself must be interpreted consistent with purpose and principles - a legal innovation that might interest some. Every section of the constitution has a specific procedure by which it can be changed or amended. Some changes require simple votes of the council, others require votes of both the council and owning members, and still others can be made by the owning members acting alone. There are a few "last resort" clauses we all hope will never be exercised, but are only prudent to have explicitly stated - concerning, for example, involuntary termination of membership for repeated and willful violation of purpose, principles, or policies. There are, of course, also numerous sections of legal "boilerplate" that any corporation should have in their bylaws, specifying such matters as what constitutes a quorum, annual reporting requirements, meetings of owning members, arbitration of disputes, and so on. Communities, Alliances and Leagues (C-A-Ls) are a special kind of owning member that must subscribe to and operate in accord with the Commons' purpose and principles in conducting all of their activities. C-A-Ls may adopt any purposes, principles, and operating or governance procedures that are consistent with the purpose and principles of the Commons (or the C-A-L to which they connect). Members of a C-A-L are "derivative" owning members of the Commons, with all the rights and responsibilities of any owning member, and the C-A-L is responsible for assuring that all their members adhere to purpose and principles in conducting activities of the Commons.
  
  The Commons can require a C-A-L to transfer the ownership of intellectual and other property to the Commons, if at least 75% of trustees agree that the property is essential to fulfilling the organization's purpose. The Commons does not have this right with respect to the intellectual properties of individual or institutional owning members. This is another "last resort" clause which would likely be exercised only under extraordinary circumstances, since owning members would probably desert the Commons if it were used unjustifiably.
• The constitution envisions the possibility that the Chaordic Commons might enter into an especially close relationship with other commons that share its purpose, principles, and other fundamental provisions of its constitution. Should any such partnerships develop, the interlocking commons together would be called the Terra Civitas Commons.

I'm an Owning Member, now what?

1. Fill out your profile. - Click on the "My Profile" link at the top right of the page. This is the way that other members of the Commons community will learn about you. Once you have entered information about yourself other members will be able to search on mutual interests and learn about you. Upload a personal photo - Click on the "Upload New Photo" link on your edit profile page. Visit the initiatives - Click on the "Initiatives" tab to see a list of Commons Initiatives. Click on names that interest you to learn a bit more about the focus of this initiative. Finally take a look at the initiatives' "Discussion" (email discussion) and "wiki" (document collaborative tool) to see what is happening. As a new Owning Member you are welcome to contact participants and join projects that interest you. Learn about your community - The "Members" tab brings you to a database containing the members of your community. Browse through to look for your friends, neighbors and colleagues or use this tool to send an email to a fellow Owning Member.
2. Search for members with mutual interests, or those in your area. This functionality will be coming soon to Chaordic Intiatives.

For More Information