wiki_ghostguild/content/curriculum/PS Guides/5-coop-structures-governance.md

5: Coop Structures and Governance

Pre-session

If you are the presenting PS for this session, prep a 15-20 minute case study from your studio covering:

• How your studio makes decisions now
• What you tried that didn't work
• One example of governance helping resolve a real issue

What happens in session

Studios learn about:

• legal structures (sole prop, partnership, corporation, worker coop)
• governance models (collective governance, advice process, sociocratic circles, board + membership, DisCOs)
• member management (adding, departing, removing members)

A PS presenter shares a 15-20 minute case study on their studio's governance journey. We also introduce Community Rule as a tool for documenting governance in plain language. We focus on making governance visible, designing structures from the patterns noticed in Session 4, and distinguishing between governance practice and legal incorporation.

👀 Your role during session

• If presenting: deliver your case study
• Observe how your studio responds to the governance models – what resonates? What causes confusion or resistance?
• Listen for whether they connect their Session 4 Informal Hierarchy Check-In observations to governance design choices
• Note how they react to the member removal discussion. It's an uncomfortable topic.

👆 Your role after session

• Make sure your studio has access to Community Rule
• Confirm they understand the homework: start a Community Rule draft with you, discuss financial sustainability, and do a personal reflection on financial access
• Note which governance model(s) they're gravitating toward

This week's Studio Support Meeting: Community Rule Drafting

📚 Materials

• Community Rule tool
• Studio's Informal Hierarchy Check-In observations from Session 4
• Notes on which governance model(s) interested them

🗺️ Context

This is a working session. You're helping the studio start documenting their governance in plain language using Community Rule. They don't need to finish – the goal is to surface where they already have answers vs. where they need more conversation. This will be a living document.

👆 Before the session

• Familiarize yourself with the Community Rule interface and fields
• Review the studio's Informal Hierarchy Check-In observations
• Have the governance models overview handy (collective governance, advice process, circles, board + membership) in case they need a refresher

🌊 Session flow

Check-in (5 min)

"What governance model stuck with you from the session? Did anything click, or feel wrong?"

Community Rule walkthrough (10 min)

Open the tool together. Community Rule works as a modular builder – you assemble your governance from pre-made or custom building blocks.

Start with the basics: Name your studio and write a short summary of its structure.

Then explore the module library together. There are four categories:

• Culture – values, norms, purpose, solidarity, diversity
• Decision – how decisions get made (lazy consensus, do-ocracy, vote, ranked choice, etc.)
• Process – how policies are implemented and evolve (accountability process, delegation, transparency, dissolution, exclusion, etc.)
• Structure – roles and internal entities (board, council, membership, ownership, roles, committee, etc.)

Drag in the modules that feel relevant. Each one can be configured with key-value pairs – for example, a "Membership" module might have configuration like "Eligibility: active worker-owners who have completed a 3-month trial period." You can also create custom modules for anything the library doesn't cover.

Don't try to build everything at once. Start by browsing the categories and noticing which modules the studio can configure easily vs. which ones lead to blank stares.

Prompts:

• "Which of these are you already doing without naming it?"
• "Where is there genuine disagreement or uncertainty?"
• "What's missing from the library that's specific to how you work?"

Draft together (20-25 min)

Start filling in what you can. Focus on the modules where there's energy or alignment. When you hit a field where there's disagreement, note it and move on. Don't try to resolve everything today.

Close and gaps list (5 min)

• Make a list of areas that still need discussion
• "What's the most important unresolved question?"
• "Who's going to take a first pass at writing up what we decided today?"

👉 Also this week

Financial sustainability conversation

Session 5 homework asks each person to reflect: What does financial sustainability look like for you personally? What would you need from this project?

This is prep for Session 6 (Equitable Economics). Check in during the week:

• "Has everyone spent some time thinking about the financial sustainability question?"
• "And the personal reflection: what financial information have you never been allowed to see at work?"

These don't need to be discussed as a studio yet – just make sure individuals are reflecting.

⭐ Tips

If they want to pick a governance model immediately:

• "You don't have to commit today. Start with collective governance or advice process – you can add complexity as you learn what you actually need."

If Community Rule feels bureaucratic:

• "You're already doing governance – this just helps you name it."

If they skip over membership/removal:

• "This is the part that matters most when things get hard. Even a rough sketch now saves a lot of pain later."

If one person is doing all the talking about governance:

• "Governance designed by one person is just management with extra steps. Everyone needs to shape this."

🏁 After the session

• Note where the studio has clear alignment vs. where they got stuck
• Note any tension around membership/removal – these conversations will deepen
• Remind them about the financial sustainability reflection for Session 6 prep
• Bring the draft status to your PS check-in

🚩 Red flags to watch for

• A studio that resists documenting anything – "we just know how we work" (exactly the problem)
• Governance designed around one person's strengths or preferences
• Avoiding the membership/removal conversation entirely
• Confusing governance with incorporation – "we're not a real coop yet so we don't need this"
• A draft that looks perfect on paper but doesn't match how the studio actually operates