Organisational Systems for Cooperatives
Cooperatives succeed when members can see, prove, and coordinate shared value fairly.
The selfdriven Organisational System is designed exactly for that.
1. Identity & Membership you can trust
Co-ops need clarity on who is a member and what rights they hold.
The system provides:
- Verifiable Member Identity (SSI / KERI)
- Roles & responsibilities as credentials
- Join / exit as signed lifecycle events
- Delegation & proxy representation
Membership becomes cryptographically anchored instead of manually administered.
2. Contribution Accounting → trust without politics
Co-ops struggle when contribution is invisible.
The Octomics proof-of-activity model makes member effort verifiable.
Members can log contributions across 8 activity areas (work, outreach, capital, governance, etc.) and hold verifiable records of participation.
These can be tied to:
- benefits
- payouts
- influence
- governance weight
- bonuses
Removes the “who’s doing the work vs who’s getting the reward” friction.
3. Collaborative Governance
Supports all major cooperative governance flows:
- proposals
- elections
- spending approvals
- sub-group formation
- delegated authority
Features:
- Transparent proposals
- Configurable voting formulas (1-person-1-vote, role-based, contribution-weighted, delegated, etc.)
- Decisions stored as KERI/ACDC events
- Optional automatic execution triggers (payments, tasks, rights)
Decisions become tamper-proof, transparent, and replayable.
4. Co-ownership & Shared Assets
Works for shared:
- capital
- equipment
- property
- IP
- blockchain nodes
- digital services
Ownership shares can be:
- Verifiable credentials
- Tokenised (fungible or NFT-based)
- Time / contribution-based vesting
- Delegated or fractional
New contributors can join without restructuring the whole organisation.
5. Revenue Distribution (without drama)
Configurable without rewriting bylaws every time:
- flat membership base
- Octomics multiplier
- role weighting
- milestone bonuses
- seasonal or outcome-based distribution
Payments become predictable, fair, and auditable.
6. Cooperative-to-Cooperative Interoperability
Because membership and roles are credentials:
- a farming co-op can work with a brewing co-op
- a solar co-op can work with a housing co-op
- credentials can cross between groups
Creates federations of co-ownership instead of isolated organisations.
7. AI that supports members — not replaces them
AI services can be community-controlled and permissioned:
- onboarding helpers
- proposal summaries and decision support
- conflict-resolution suggestions
- skills–to–task matching for internal projects
The AI becomes a co-op assistant, not a central authority.
What it unlocks
With the system in place, a cooperative becomes:
- easier to start
- easier to run
- cheaper to govern
- safer to grow
- less prone to politics and burnout
Members spend more time building value, not fighting over coordination.
Where this fits in the selfdriven ecosystem
| Interface | Value for a Cooperative |
|---|---|
| Identity | Fair membership + rights |
| Social | Contribution ecology + belonging |
| Infrastructure | Shared assets + co-ownership |
| Governance | Collective decision-making |
| Finance | Revenue splits + payments |
| Learning | Skill development + apprenticeships |
| AI | Augmentation + support |
| On-chain | Anchor trust + portability |
Resources
References
- selfdriven.space - Cooperation happens everywhere.
- Frameworks - e.g. the 1st, 2nd, 3rd space.
- actuate.selfdriven.community Use-Cases
- selfdriven.network Coop Infra Agreement
- selfdriven.services - Cooperation support services.