Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: COMPENSATION FOR FOUNDERS' HARD WORK

[mark harfenist (mark]

We (and other groups with which I'm familiar) built early buyer 
discounts into our price structure.  We also paid interest on loans 
from members to our fledgling group.  The combination was not enough to 
pay for all the time and energy invested, but it made a difference.

Discounts can be conceptualized as incentive for people who might 
otherwise remain on the sidelines to join up and commit, or as fair 
return on early (and therefore risky) investment in the project.  We 
never discussed this in terms of directly rewarding those who worked 
hard in the early days, because to do so would likely lead to pointless 
discussions about who had put in how many hours, whose time was worth 
how much, etc.

It does seem essential that early joiners learn to get over the fact 
that late arrivals never had to work as long and hard as they did.  
People seem to have various ways to work this through to their own 
satisfaction.  With the passing of years, much of it seems to even out 
anyway.

Hope that helps.

Mark
(Bellingham Cohousing)


On Tuesday, December 7, 2004, at 02:08  PM, psychling [at] att.net wrote:

> This message generates a number of responses in me.
>
> I rather doubt that many `founders' expect much in the way of 
> exceptional financial return for their work.  If they did ... they 
> could likely have done better in a commercial venture.
>
> The motive for cohousing development has to do, certainly, with 
> economy.  However, a good deal of the motive must be based on spirit 
> and other `intangibles.'
>
> There is always something called `price appreciation' of underlying 
> assets that may speak to the issue of financial `compensation.'
>
> See how restrained I can be sometimes!
>
> - Dan
>
>
>  -------------- Original message ----------------------
> From: Linda Gluck/Treehouse <treehouse [at] netstep.net>
> > Hi-
> > As I'm sure many of you know, fhe first 2-3 years of forming a 
> > cohousing
> > community take mountains of administrative time and energy - finding 
> > land,
> > finding people, working w realtors, lawyers, planning boards, 
> > engineers,
> > architects, financial advisors, and banks as well as developing all
> > community documents, keeping all parties informed and keeping records 
> > of
> > everything. Our members are doing all this work.
> >     It seems inappropriate that residents who buy in in the 4th or 
> > 5th year
> > just pay for their unit and their part of what's held in common, and 
> > get the
> > benefit of all the founding work at no charge.
> >     Do other communities have a way of quantifying that founder
> > contribution, so that founders are compensated in some way - maybe in
> > discount on their unit?
> >
> > thanks,
> > Linda Gluck
> > Ulster County Cohousing (in formation)
> >
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