Cohousing-L Mailing List: voluntary financial contributions

[Lynn Nadeau (welcome]

One idea we've started thinking about, for community finances in general, 
which might be useful in other communities, is to institute a fund for 
voluntary, anonymous contributions, with a mechanism for "awarding" money 
from it. Could be usd to assist families in financial need, or to fund 
something that not everyone feels is a priority or group expense, but 
which would be nice to have. That way people who have more disposable 
money don't have to be held back by the lowest common denominator of what 
the least solvent can fairly put out. 

Even without such a fund, we have already had situations where members 
were invited to inform the Finance Committee if they were willing to 
donate money for a given purpose. This is how we were able to donate two 
lots to Habitat for Humanity (we had already counted on those lot sales 
in our development budget, so couldn't even reduce their price tags, as a 
group.)  Donations ranged from $10 to tens of thousands. The result of 
this has been the inclusion of two young families with young children, 
which we really wanted. There was no pressure to donate. 

Note that this is a different issue from that of "what are valid 
whole-group expenses?" Here, you find questions like to what degree 
people with kids should fund kid stuff, ditto for gardeners, users of 
sports or exercise equipment, users of the common house. That gets into 
philosophical issues, and risks degenerating into nickle-and-diming. 

We are trying to keep it all in the same pot, at least for gardening and 
kids, so far. That feels more community minded. 

Lynn Nadeau
RoseWind Cohousing
Port Townsend WA
where we have several families lined up to buy our last two lots when 
they go up for sale soon, and a couple of buyers in line for a resale lot