Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Should individual "sponsorship" be allowed of community property?

[Joe Nolan (jnolan]

We use a discretionary spending system that seems to work pretty well 
for us. The group priorites are determined by a "vote with your dollars" 
process.

The annual budget contains a certain amount for discretionary spending. 
A portion of that is reserved for larger projects (over $1K) and the 
rest for smaller projects. (If I remember correctly it is currently 
budgeted at $4800/yr for small projects, $2400/yr for large projects.) 
We have a quarterly discretionary spending meeting (part of that month's 
business mtg) to fund the small projects. Individuals submit their 
proposals by a specific deadline, and they are approved/rejected by the 
group prior to the allocation mtg (almost never is something rejected - 
it would have to be detrimental to the community). At the allocation 
meeting, each family allocates its portion of the available money (e.g. 
$30 for the quarter) to the approved projects, however they see fit. 
Fully funded projects go forward. Sometimes partially funded projects 
come back multiple times for more donations. Note, some projects may be 
approved but never get funded. People are allowed to kick in extra cash 
for items they really want, so that one family could in theory 
completely fund a given project (rarely happens this way). Households 
are also allowed to withdraw their portion of the discretionary funds at 
the allocation mtg.

The big project fund (aka "Cookie Jar") works a little differently - it 
just builds up for an indefinite period until someone brings a proposal 
to the group for spending some or all of it.

Joe Nolan
Ecovillage at Ithaca / FROG
<http://www.ecovillage.ithaca.ny.us/>



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