Enterprises and projects

Shared ventures with their own beans: find one, back one, or start one.

What they are

An enterprise is something people run together for the community: a tool library, a market stall, a community garden. It has its own beans, its own Offers and Needs, and its own credit line. It is run by keepers.

A project has a goal and usually a deadline, like raising 500 beans for a new roof.
An ongoing enterprise keeps going.

An enterprise has its own daily limits, ten times a member's: 1,000 payments, 300 people it has never paid before, 1,000 deals approved, 1,000 new posts and 50,000 changes. What a keeper does for it counts against the enterprise, not against the keeper's own. It also counts against what that keeper does for all the enterprises they keep together, which has the same limits: however many enterprises you keep, you can do one enterprise's worth for them in a day, on top of your own. So an enterprise with two or more keepers can still use all of its limits. Once an enterprise has used up one of its limits for the day, what you do of that for it counts against your own limits instead, as if you had done it for yourself. If you then reach one of yours, the app says so and names the enterprise. So one keeper who uses up its day can only stop themselves: every other keeper still has all of their own. Running the enterprise always counts against the keeper's own changes: taking on, removing or replacing keepers, stepping down, pausing, winding up, and completing or turning down its deals.

Finding them

Tap Commons, then Enterprises. The Community Treasuries come first, then every enterprise with its status, purpose and balance. Tap one to open it.

What an enterprise page shows

Every member can see:

its Purpose;
its Balance, credit line, live Offers and surplus;
Income & Spend: every bean in and out. Its keepers see who paid or was paid and the note with it; other members see the amounts, and their own payments in full;
its keepers;
its Listings, Recent activity and a Discussion you can write in.

At the bottom, Report Enterprise if something is wrong.

Backing an enterprise

Pledge beans to a project: on its page, under the funding box, enter an amount and tap Pledge Beans. You can make or change up to 20 pledges in any 24 hours, a keeper's backing included, and a pledge of beans is one of your payments too. Pledges are held in trust until the project reaches its goal, and then they all go to the enterprise. After that it takes no more pledges, and nor does an enterprise that is winding up or has closed: its page says so where the pledge box was, and your beans stay with you.
Trade with it: its Offers and Needs are in the Market like anyone's.
Become a keeper: see "Keepers".

Starting one

Tap Commons, then Enterprises, then the round + button.
Choose Bounded Project or Ongoing.
Give it a Name and a Purpose statement.
For a project, set a Funding goal and, if you like, a deadline.
Add a photo if you like.
Tap Start Initiative.

It starts straight away, and you are its lead keeper. There is no community vote to start one.

The name, purpose and photo cannot be changed in the app yet.