Communities, Onboarding and Gift Economy - Fundition Proposal for Homesteaders Co-op
2 days ago I submitted a fundition proposal in the hopes of raising some funds to offset some of my expenses and time. My long term hope is that Homesteaders Co-op is financially sustainable. In the meantime there is a lot of building to be done both on the platform and within our community to create success and sustainability for all that are involved, most especially for our vendors. I am including the full proposal here in case you are interested to learn more about Homesteaders Co-op, our vision and some short term goals.
What is Homesteader’s Co-op?
Homesteaders Co-op is a free, international community marketplace where individuals and families offer handmade, sustainable products for STEEM and SBD (as well as USD). We are supporting their hard work and efforts to be sustainable, handmade and eco-friendly in their lives and businesses.
We aim to bring steem to a wider audience via our marketplace, which is becoming increasingly more inviting and welcoming to a non-steem audience. Anyone can relate to the ethics, community and human elements that our marketplace embodies. Reaching a wider audience will benefit both our community and steem at large.
Short-term Goals for Homesteaders Co-op
On-boarding
Homesteaders Co-op is fast becoming a perfect venue to on-board new steem members that care about sustainability, homesteading, gardening, self-reliance and personal freedom. There are many opportunities for our website to foster on-boarding in a natural way. In fact Homesteaders Co-op has already successfully on-boarded new steemians!
“Need to say thank you. Daughter [@andiekins] just finished getting signed up for Steem. Been trying for a month!”
‐ @xcountytravelers
Showcasing Communities for On-boarding
For many, steem can seem intimidating, confusing, unfamiliar or unrelevant at first impression, which can create a barrier to entry. However, we know that there is so much value in steem communities that is not immediately apparent to outsiders. Our communities are precisely what keep many of us on steem for the long term. Using our Co-op website as a meeting ground between two financial and social worlds, we take pride in being an ambassador for steem. We will make showcase some of the amazing steem communities that our members belong to; communities that we believe will welcome and care for new steem members, helping with retention.
Strengthening Communities
We will be opening our website to other communities – not just the Homesteaders Co-op community. Communities will be integrated into our platform as a core thread. We feel that openness and sharing our success with other communities will strengthen all of the communities involved. Furthermore this model will inspire and showcase new on-boarding possibilities to other communities.
Economic Viability for Individuals
We are already offering economic viability to our community in more than one way:
- Our vendors have a place to open a free online store and take payments for their quality products.
- Our community Contributors receive beneficiary rewards, for their contributions to our community blog and for their effort to help nurture our newly on-boarded members.
- We will be identifying new opportunities to encourage, reward and hopefully even economically empower individual entrepreneurs through our community’s success.
Fostering a Gift Economy
Homesteaders Co-op embodies a gift economy. We are gifting an online store to our vendors because we believe their ethics and their hard work is making our world a better place. Operating in and fostering a gift economy will continue to open new opportunities that will both strengthen our community and empower our members. We will create new tools that will allow our vendors to gift each other. By building opportunities for gifting into our community economy we will create strength and resilience in our community.
Humans First, Ethics First
Homesteaders Co-op puts humans first. This is contradicting the industry standard of putting profit first. Large retailers assign numbers to their vendors and their customers. When companies reach a certain size, the “little” individual is no longer valued. Only profit is valued. This is why we choose not to operate as a profit hungry company, but as a community. We choose to empower, rather than enslave. The individuals’ success will ensure our community’s success.
A Slow E-Commerce Movement
We aim to start a Slow E-Commerce movement. We put ethics and individual empowerment first in our decisions and our transactions. We bring the human element back. Let’s slow down the speed of e-commerce and keep more profits in the hands of the individuals and communities.
Sustainability
We aim to be financially sustainable in 2020. Our fundition proposal will help meet short-term goals, while we continue to grow strive for sustainability. We will pursue a multi-pronged approach to financial sustainability:
- Ethical Advertising
We will gift website space to ethical businesses, so that they may provide value to our community. If they find value in our ethical advertising space and our community finds value in them, our ethical advertisers will be encouraged to make donations on a sliding scale. - Donation Based Services
We will explore offering donation based services to our community, the steem community as well as the non-steem community. - Homesteaders Co-op Sustainability = Vendor Sustainability
The founder (@sagescrub) has a vendor account in Homesteaders Co-op and has financial incentive, as a vendor, to help our marketplace flourish.
Initial Success in 2019
Homesteaders Co-op has been online officially since November, 20th 2018 and generated its first sale in the same day (via SBD).
Community Participation
Our vendors, customers and advocates are joining our community because they feel a sense of pride, empowerment and find real value in our marketplace. Our community Contributors include: @riverflows, @nateonsteemit, @stortebeker, @thistle-rock, and @sagescrub
Delegations
At the time of writing we have received 9,751.65 in Steem Power delegations from our community. We did not incentivize incoming delegations, other than offering value to our community.
Current Sales
Our marketplace has generated $150 in sales via 12 transactions between Jan 1st - Jan 16th 2019. 100% of sales proceeds are directly in the hands of the vendors.
Vendors
At the time of writing, we have 18 vendors located in 8 different countries. Many more are excited about joining or in the process of joining our marketplace.
Budget
Server Hosting
1 year server hosting and domain name $100
Software Expenses
Multivendor software is used as a base that we are building on and extending
1 year of software license $500
Technology Development
Community Integration (30 hrs @ $40) $1200
New Gift Economy Tools (8 hrs @ $40) $320
Ethical Advertising Features (8 hrs @ $40) $320
Total: $2,440
Founder
@sagescrub, founder of Homesteaders Co-op holds an MS in Computer Science and is experienced in web design, user experience and web development. @sagescrub is currently a part-time web consultant and a part-time homesteader. He has a passion for learning how to live in harmony with our mother earth and exploring personal freedom.
View this project on Fundition: https://fundition.io/@homesteaderscoop/f99dxbmsj
A Free Marketplace for Steem
We provide a FREE marketplace for you to transact in STEEM, SBD and USD. Our co-op vendors are committed to sustainability, ethics and quality in their lives and work.
Unlike other marketplaces our vendors are not charged listing fees, subscription fees or transaction fees. This service is 100% free to them.
Support our alternative economy:
- Purchase handmade products with STEEM, SBD or USD at https://homesteaderscoop.com
- Spread the word that sustainable vendors are accepting STEEM, SBD and USD
- Up-vote our posts at @homesteaderscoop
- Follow our Curation Trail on SteemAuto to automatically upvote our contributors and vendors
- Delegate SP to @homesteaderscoop
Why Delegate to Homesteaders Co-op?
Your delegations will help us grow our community and reward our members for their ethical choices and actions.
In our modern world it is not always easy to choose to live sustainably. To do so often means forgoing income potential and the status quo. Our SteemPower is used to up-vote Homesteader Co-op contributors and vendors in order to reward and support their hard work. Some extra STEEM may one day go a long way for some individuals of our community.
10 SP | 25 SP | 50 SP | 75 SP | 100 SP | 200 SP | 500 SP | 750 SP | 1000 SP
Who is Homesteaders Co-op?
Get to know our mission in our introduction postWant to sell sustainable, handmade products for STEEM, SBD and USD?
Learn more and apply here
I just made my first purchase! I'm so excited this is available and growing.
Posted using Partiko Android
Wow! Thank you @belleamie for believing in our community marketplace and for supporting our vendors! 💚💚💚
You may already know - but in case you don't we have an ongoing contest for reviewing products purchased on Homesteaders Co-op and you may want to enter :)
https://steempeak.com/contest/@homesteaderscoop/contest-product-review-1000-sp-in-delegations-reward-for-shopping-at-homesteaders-co-op
I'm just excited to get a bulky weight plant died wool yarn in green. Wish there was time to knit it into something before the contest deadline ;) I'll for sure write a little something up and leave a review on the website. Best to you.
WOW. We have similar tastes @belleamie. My first order was also for a skein of the green wool yarn.
I haven't knitted for a very long time, but had been thinking of making some knee warmers, so will most likely make them with the yarn ~ Hopefully in time for our next winter. ♥︎♥︎⚖️♥︎♥︎
OMG this is so funny in a coincidence that is almost too good to be true way. How great!
💗 it when things like that happen @sagescrub and @belleamie
💚 :)
Cool. It will be fun to compare what we make. I'm a newbie knitter, but am looking forward to this.
I just knit pearl and plain ~ But you can actually do some nice things when you keep it simple. ♥︎♥︎⚖️♥︎♥︎
Oh you purchased from Idyllwild! She is so glad to have your support and purchase of her dyed yarn :) It would be nice to see what you do eventually knit with it :) Good luck in the contest!
I feel super lucky that the thing I wanted most was just one state away, so the shipping is not such a big deal. I'll be sure to post what I make...eventually.
Very cool... we will patiently await ;)
Thanks for putting it into perspective! I didn't realize costs of running something like this. My question than lies on the sustainability or running the operation long term... I'm guessing the revenue from the steemit account is what will sustain the costs?
Good question @senorcoconut! Pure passion and sweat equity have been sustaining HSCO until now. Passion and sweat will take us far but it likely won't be long term sustaining, especially if our success hinges on growing beyond what my free time and capabilities are. I haven't shared much about how much time I have put into this project (countless hours) because I am enjoying working on it. But going forward as we gain more traction I will be more transparent about my time and setting goals for sustainability. I think it will help everyone involved to understand the full picture. Steem payouts can help but we can't rely on them to sustain us because of the instability of the currency, etc. I see the steem/steempower we accrue more as a way to build our community as well as build some long term savings.
This project is being supported by @Fundition the next-generation, decentralized, peer-to-peer crowdfunding and collaboration platform, built on the Steem blockchain.
Read the full details of Fundition Fund program
Learn more about Fundition by reading our purplepaper
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Thank you! This is a great day for our community :)
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Thank you for sharing this post @pennsif and for finding it share-worthy :)
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The Homesteaders Coop is supporting people who are striving to live and work in harmony with their environment and each other.
It simply wouldn't have been possible for vendors with eco-friendly and sustainable wares to showcase the things they produce and create, without the dedication, talent and energy of @sagescrub and his partner Idyllwild.
It's wonderful to have a way where vendors and others in the community can now support the development of this worthwhile and much-needed community project. ♥︎♥︎⚖️♥︎♥︎
This was so beautifully said! Thank you for your support, encouragement, appreciation and being part of the journey with us :)
It's fantastic to be part of the journey with you. I feel the HSCO has so much potential. One of the most exciting and truly purposeful ventures I've seen on Steemit. ♥︎♥︎⚖️♥︎♥︎
Gratitude! The HSCO baby has wings :)
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