Organizational Template
A helpful compilation of industry "best practices" to help level the playing field between regular people who want to run a local cooperative, and pre-established powerful corporations.
Design
Delivery cooperatives already exist, so on one hand there is no need to re-invent the wheel. On the other hand, there are currently two options for would-be organizers. Both carry significant barriers to entry.
A formal franchise-model exists, geared toward restaurants owners, where the parent company will come in and set everything up and basically train the founders. There is a minimum number of buy-ins (founding members) at a couple thousand dollars each initially, plus monthly dues of about $200 per month. Out of these dues the co-op employs a fleet of independent drivers to make deliveries.
The other option is for local organizers to piece together fragments of existing ideas and examples, and commission the development of their own app.
The vision of this project is to lower the barrier to opening a local delivery co-op, and empower responsible drivers and customers at the same time. The technology exists. Gig delivery mega-apps have paved the way as first-to-market and demonstrated the new industry’s best and worst dynamics.
Initial Ideas
A 30-page document of Initial Ideas is available as a starting point for discussions.
Spring 2023
Round Table Discussions
The overarching idea of the project is to lower the barrier to entry for regular people in a neighborhood to create an independent delivery cooperatives.
In addition to an open-source platform we would like to provide something of a template that outlines the “best practices” of such an organization.
To accomplish both of these goals, we will open a public forum to suss out those best practices.
Round table discussions will begin in Spring 2023, to establish parameters which amount to a task list for designers and engineers.
A dedicated forum system will contain subforums for each of the categories on the outline below. Interested experts and devotees are welcome to apply for moderator positions.
Round Table discussions are expected to last 3-6 months, allowing ample time for information gathering and discussion, and a generous public commentary period.
Subscribers will receive email invitations.
January 2023
Project Outline Commentary
A beginning outline of project parameters is available for commentary.
Until then discussions will be held on the project’s Reddit page to finalize the tentative outline above.
If you have expertise in any of the components above and would like to moderate that particular forum, please reach out!
Send email to: admins@deliverycats.com.
See outline discussions at: www.reddit.com/r/deliverycats.
Note: Reddit is a good option to foster intellectual commentary, for a new enterprise without organic followers. A dedicated forum system hosted on our servers will facilitate round table discussions.
Whatever your role or station,
You can help.
To bring this concept to fruition, we need some experts, engineers, and designers - and lots of grass roots support.
Support doesn't always mean cold money.
People are the lifeblood of any organization. We need personable, thinking minds to work together to design and create the system. We will need people to use and test the system. Most importantly in the beginning, we need people to spread the word so we can reach a critical mass of participants.
Thanks for your contribution whether time, money, or a simple share on social media.