This group is for the discussion of ideas on the subject of how to facilitate the creation of businesses that are less driven by the profit motive than your ordinary business. They may still be profit-oriented, but they should have parameters in place that mitigate the tendency toward profiteering-per-se. Some possible solutions are: -Make businesses that are owned exclusively by their employees -Make businesses that are owned exclusively by the communities they're situated in -Make businesses that are owned exclusively by the people who use their products or services -Make businesses that are nonprofit but not aimed at charity work; rather, they do ordinary things (like a retail store, for example) but are restricted by the legalities of a nonprofit organization This discussion group may act as a springboard for the eventual creation of nonprofit organization aimed at effecting these goals. Tentative names for it include Project Catalyst Organization, Project Catalyst NFP, ProCat, etc. If such an organization is created, it may also handle the facilitation of community projects such as museums, parks, libraries, hospitals, art installations, roads/rails/vehicles for public transportation, etc. The idea is that a web portal would be created where members of any given community may submit ideas for projects, submit variations on submitted ideas, vote on those variations, or pledge to donate specific amounts of money to actualize those ideas. If not enough money is pledged for a specific idea, then nobody pays; if enough money is pledged, then everyone who pledged is called upon to pay. The NPO would then handle the creation of a given project, including contracting for construction, hiring employees, dealing with the government and the city counsel to get the necessary permissions and to coordinate the duties of the NPO in creating the project with the duties that can only be carried out by the local, state and federal governments. A similar web portal could also be made for creating potential bills of legislation, creating modifications of them, voting on those modifications, pitching the end results to the government, and maybe even raising funds to lobby for those bills. That may be best implemented as a function of Project Catalyst, or it may be best realized as a completely separate entity. Only time will tell. The idea of submitting ideas, submitting variations/modifications of ideas, and voting on those variations of course could, and probably should, apply to the business-creation side of the NPO as well. Discussions in this group can serve to flesh out the best possible ways of effecting these goals (including ways that don't involve the creation of an NPO at all or of an NPO particularly as described above). Of particular use would be members who know more about the legalities and conventions of how businesses and community projects are created and run than I do.