What does being a member of the Commons Society mean for you?
Being a member of the Commons Society can mean more or less to you, depending on what your connection is and how interested you are in it. It can be very significant and important for you if your organisation belongs as well – which is described below.
If you work in an Commons Society organisation then to join the Commons Society you have to sign an agreement supplied through your organisation that includes an acknowledgement that you have the possibility to think about your own purpose in life and that you could consider, if you wished, whether or how this fits with the purpose of the Commons Society.
To independently join as an individual member you have to state that you do feel aligned to the purpose and that you want the Commons Society to succeed.
Some people will want to join this community of endeavour, to feel it around them, to know that they are part of it and to have a voice in shaping its future.
What does it means for you if your organisation is in a Commons Society?
You are working in an organisation in which fairness is cultivated through transparency, collaboration and inter-dependence in the light of a clear purpose. Your organisation fosters entrepreneurial spirit and its wealth belongs to the community as a whole.
If you are working in a mature economic sector organisation then you will receive a share of any profit that is paid out.
Organisations in the Commons Society have access to resources to support their development through consultancy, partnerships and access to financial resources. This means that organisations within the Commons Society win the sort of advantage that comes for people when they join a team. You benefit from being in a more successful company that has a better ethos.
The diagrams below summarise the way profit is used in the Commons Society (in this case the Elysia Commons Society) to generate three virtuous cycles of re-investment in the community.
The three cycles are named after the gestures of our interacting: the Rights cycle is all that we are equal in, for example our human rights; the Economic cycle is when the focus of the organisation is on meeting the desires of others’ – ie we make this for you; and the Cultural cycle is when the focus of the organisation is on the personal well-being / development of the other – for example education, health and the arts.