The people-facing twin of the Regenerative Covenant (GT-2). Where that promise is that every place is left more alive than it was found, this one is that every person is left more free. The reasoning behind it is in the Introduction (“Mutual Prosperity”); the money it moves is the Unified Fund (GT-4), told plainly in The Fund in Plain Language; what it records is the Network Passport (GT-3A).
Why this exists
The constellation is built around places: land offered, hubs tended, surplus circulating between them. But a network of beautifully tended places full of people who cannot make a living is not regenerative. Whatever else a commons does, it has to work at the scale of a single human life.
This covenant states what the network and its people commit to each other so that it does. It is a statement of shared intent, not a contract: it grants no rights and imposes no obligations by itself. Where it becomes binding, it does so through a written Support Arrangement (GT-1.15) between a person and the commons. The General Terms adopt this covenant in GT-2.10 and fix five guarantees no arrangement may vary: belonging is not productivity; support is not debt; capacity moves; the return is bounded; where money moves, GT-4 governs.
In one sentence: we help each other become free, and when that freedom creates abundance, we circulate part of it so more people can become free too.
Part I - What each of us brings
1. I bring what I have
I contribute my skills, experience, creativity, tools and relationships. Money is one form of contribution, not the measure of my value. I offer what I can, within healthy boundaries.
No one has to arrive wealthy. Everyone arrives willing to contribute, to grow, and to circulate value when it is created.
2. We support one another
We help each other through mentoring, skills, introductions, tools, expertise, emotional support, and whatever else is actually needed. We do not track exchanges transaction by transaction. We practise reciprocity over time: everyone both gives and receives, and the balance is read across seasons rather than across a single encounter.
What each of us gives is recorded in the Network Passport (GT-3A) and shapes what we can receive from the network - priority and price, up to and including free. It never shapes anyone’s voice: in the Association it is always one member, one vote (GT-11.5; Agreement 2 Clause 2.1).
3. Belonging is not productivity
Human value is not tied to financial output. People contribute in many ways: money, care, knowledge, labour, relationships, creativity. Different contributions do not create different classes of people. Nothing in this covenant conditions membership, voice, dignity or access on what someone produces. Membership is open on the terms of the Statute and Article 23 of the Third Sector Code, and stays that way.
Part II - Autonomy
4. Community should increase autonomy, not replace it
A community that holds people well can also hold them still. A commons generous enough to meet every need is generous enough to make leaving unthinkable, and a belonging you cannot afford to leave is not belonging.
So the network actively encourages members to build external clients and income, independent financial resilience, and portable skills and relationships. Every counterparty is free to pursue their own professional, creative and entrepreneurial work (GT-11.6). Success is measured by increased freedom, not by increased need. The goal is the ability to choose participation.
5. I take responsibility for my own development
Community support does not replace personal responsibility. The network supports the process of building a livelihood; it does not perform it on anyone’s behalf.
You are responsible for your development, but not alone.
6. The agreed rhythm
Where the commons is carrying someone while they build, the support arrangement names a rhythm: an amount of concentrated hours, agreed collectively and in advance, spent developing that person’s own livelihood or project out in the wider world, outside the internal economy of the network.
The number is not handed down and not assumed. The person and the group supporting them set it together before the support begins, weighing what the work realistically needs against what that person can honestly carry. (Around four focused hours of a working day is the reference the network has worked from; the figure that binds is the one actually agreed.)
Two things this is not:
- It is not a condition of belonging. It is a term of a specific, voluntary support arrangement, and it applies only to the person who entered one, only while it runs.
- It is not a measure of worth. It is what building something takes, and a guard against support quietly substituting for the work it was meant to enable.
7. Capacity changes
Life circumstances - illness, family, grief, exhaustion - may reduce capacity, sometimes for a long season. The agreed rhythm is revisited openly and honestly when that happens, on either side’s initiative.
Belonging is not withdrawn because someone’s capacity narrowed.
Part III - How support is given
8. We focus collective intelligence: Wise Crowds
The network’s most valuable asset is the attention of the group, pointed at one thing at a time. The practice is Wise Crowds (a Liberating Structure), and it runs in short rounds:
- The member brings a real challenge and frames it briefly: what they are building, where they are stuck, what would help.
- The group asks clarifying questions. Only questions.
- The member turns away and stays silent while the group talks about the challenge as if it were their own - advice, experience, contacts, warnings, alternatives.
- The member turns back and reflects on what was useful.
Then the chair passes. Everyone takes a turn receiving; everyone takes a turn advising. The question is never whether someone deserves the group’s attention. It is only: what would most help this person move forward?
Support may include strategy, expertise, mentoring, tools, introductions, design, communication, thinking about funding, and plain human encouragement. Where it extends to network resources or money, it moves through the Unified Fund under the ordinary rules (GT-4), and where it takes the form of teaching or a programme, through Mentorship (Agreement 4).
9. Support is not debt
Receiving help creates no personal obligation to the individuals who gave it. No one acquires control over another person through contribution, and no amount of giving purchases authority, a vote, or a say over the commons (GT-4.5; GT-11.5).
Support does not purchase authority. Generosity here is recorded, remembered and honoured. It is never enfranchised.
10. Experimentation is allowed
We support people and directions, not guaranteed outcomes. Projects may fail or change course; the purpose is learning and capacity-building.
Failure does not create debt. What is asked instead is sincerity, effort, and honest reflection - so that what was learned returns to the network even when the venture does not.
11. Fair and transparent governance
No individual controls another’s access to support or to belonging. Questions about contribution are handled through transparent processes, not private judgement, and we distinguish reduced capacity from unwillingness before drawing any conclusion. Decisions that affect a person are made by the bodies that are accountable for them, with the ordinary routes of challenge available (GT-7).
Belonging is not governed by personal favour.
12. Clear expectations
Support arrangements are explicit and written down: what is being offered, by whom, for how long, what is expected in return, and how either side raises a difficulty. Changes are communicated openly.
Clarity protects trust and autonomy.
Part IV - How prosperity circulates
13. Success circulates
Where the network’s support has helped create economic value, an agreed portion of that value returns to the commons.
This is the principle the Fund already applies everywhere else, pointed at a person’s success rather than a hub’s: the slice that goes to the network when a project earns (the Network Regeneration Contribution), and the slice that goes back to a borrowed place when that place is monetised (the Asset Regeneration Contribution). Monetising a gift should rebuild the gift.
Each arrangement is written down before the support begins, and names:
- the scope of the support it relates to;
- the income basis it is read against (revenue, profit, or another defined measure);
- the portion;
- the threshold below which nothing is due;
- the duration, and any cap.
Bounded, temporary, and pointed at the mission.
What it is not. It is not an investment and not a loan. It creates no equity, no security, no ownership of anything the person builds, and no claim on their future income beyond the terms agreed. The Association distributes no profit or surplus to anyone, ever (Agreement 2 Clause 5.2; Statute; GT-4.5), and nothing returned here becomes anyone’s personal income. What a person builds stays theirs.
Status. This clause states intent; its guarantees are fixed in GT-2.10(d). The instrument that makes any particular return binding - its form under Italian law and the Third Sector Code, and its treatment for tax - is to be settled with the Association’s legal and fiscal advisors and held as LGR-10 before any arrangement is signed. No one should sign one on the strength of this page alone.
14. Prosperity replenishes the commons
Returned value is not accumulated. It funds:
- the support of future members;
- shared infrastructure;
- tools and education;
- regenerative projects;
- seed funding and collective initiatives.
What supported one person becomes support for others.
15. Mutual commitment
The network commits to supporting members regardless of their financial starting point. Members commit to contributing what they can, developing their own autonomy, supporting others, and sharing returns when prosperity is created.
The shared principle
We are neither a charity nor a collection of individuals sharing overheads. A charity gives to people who need. A market lends to people who can repay. This is a third thing: mutual aid, empowerment, and regenerative reciprocity.
We pool capacity so people can build viable lives. We support individuals because it strengthens the whole. We strengthen the whole because it enables more individuals to flourish.
Companion to the Introduction (“Mutual Prosperity”) and the Constellation Overview. Twin of the Regenerative Covenant (GT-2). Money and flows: GT-4 and The Fund in Plain Language. Recognition and access: GT-3A and the Network Passport. Independent work: GT-11.6. No rights by role: GT-11.5. Those the network serves without a role are covered by the Participant and Community Charter.
Not a legal instrument. Adopted as shared intent by GT-2.10; Clause 13’s instrument pending legal review (LGR-10).