Mutual Aid Network Basic Start-Up Guide

  1. Establish your core group
    1. Ask your friends to help if they share your goal. You'll need at least one outgoing person.
    2. Host exploratory meeting/s – here’s a link to a checklist for organizing an in-person event.
    3. Developing your message
    4. Using varying media
      • neighborhood papers
      • flyers
      • emails
      • social media
      • word of mouth
      • fun invitations
  2. Establish goals
    1. what needs are you aiming to fill?
    2. host visioning gatherings
  3. Establish decision-making process and light governance model. Sociocracy and consent decision making work well for the HUMANs.
  4. Vision for how MAN framework could meet those goals
    1. visioning exercises to follow goal-setting exercises
    2. share videos and stories of how others have begun projects
    3. The Dream Time Visioning Game-pdf and The Dream Time Visioning Game-odt (modifiable)  This is designed to help you envision how you can use timebanking to meet specific community goals, or start projects.
  5. Identify assets and needs as they apply to your goals
    1. The Timebanking Yarn Game – Instructions for basic, interactive game to demonstate how timebanks work. Download as Word Doc and a PDF
    2. The Build a Better World Game – for group project facilitation learning 
  6. Join the HUMANs global Mutual Aid Network
  7. Start timebanking – Join our HOME marketplace and play there or ask us to help you set up your own. 
  8. Set up project page and account in our HOME marketplace (or your own timebank).
  9. If you want more active support in creating or sustaining a sister project, consider joining with a Dreamer level membership, and benefit from some of our open source tech tools along with our peer support network.
  10. Pay HUMAN hours from project for all the time going into it
  11. Use Poshterity budgeting tools to create budget for project and individual budgets for participants
  12. Organize, adopt MAN Cooperative legal structure if desired
  13. If you decide to create a Common Fund to pool money for the organization and/or its members
    1. Play NZ Savings Pool Game
    2. Adopt base agreement
    3. Open Common Fund account