2 days ago I submitted a fundition proposal in the hopes of raising some funds to offset some of my expenses and time. My long term hope is that Homesteaders Co-op is financially sustainable. In the meantime there is a lot of building to be done both on the platform and within our community to create success and sustainability for all that are involved, most especially for our vendors. I am including the full proposal here in case you are interested to learn more about Homesteaders Co-op, our vision and some short term goals.
What is Homesteader’s Co-op?
Homesteaders Co-op is a free, international community marketplace where individuals and families offer handmade, sustainable products for STEEM and SBD (as well as USD). We are supporting their hard work and efforts to be sustainable, handmade and eco-friendly in their lives and businesses.
We aim to bring steem to a wider audience via our marketplace, which is becoming increasingly more inviting and welcoming to a non-steem audience. Anyone can relate to the ethics, community and human elements that our marketplace embodies. Reaching a wider audience will benefit both our community and steem at large.
Short-term Goals for Homesteaders Co-op
On-boarding
Homesteaders Co-op is fast becoming a perfect venue to on-board new steem members that care about sustainability, homesteading, gardening, self-reliance and personal freedom. There are many opportunities for our website to foster on-boarding in a natural way. In fact Homesteaders Co-op has already successfully on-boarded new steemians!
“Need to say thank you. Daughter [
] just finished getting signed up for Steem. Been trying for a month!”
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Showcasing Communities for On-boarding
For many, steem can seem intimidating, confusing, unfamiliar or unrelevant at first impression, which can create a barrier to entry. However, we know that there is so much value in steem communities that is not immediately apparent to outsiders. Our communities are precisely what keep many of us on steem for the long term. Using our Co-op website as a meeting ground between two financial and social worlds, we take pride in being an ambassador for steem. We will make showcase some of the amazing steem communities that our members belong to; communities that we believe will welcome and care for new steem members, helping with retention.
Strengthening Communities
We will be opening our website to other communities – not just the Homesteaders Co-op community. Communities will be integrated into our platform as a core thread. We feel that openness and sharing our success with other communities will strengthen all of the communities involved. Furthermore this model will inspire and showcase new on-boarding possibilities to other communities.
Economic Viability for Individuals
We are already offering economic viability to our community in more than one way:
- Our vendors have a place to open a free online store and take payments for their quality products.
- Our community Contributors receive beneficiary rewards, for their contributions to our community blog and for their effort to help nurture our newly on-boarded members.
- We will be identifying new opportunities to encourage, reward and hopefully even economically empower individual entrepreneurs through our community’s success.
Fostering a Gift Economy
Homesteaders Co-op embodies a gift economy. We are gifting an online store to our vendors because we believe their ethics and their hard work is making our world a better place. Operating in and fostering a gift economy will continue to open new opportunities that will both strengthen our community and empower our members. We will create new tools that will allow our vendors to gift each other. By building opportunities for gifting into our community economy we will create strength and resilience in our community.
Humans First, Ethics First
Homesteaders Co-op puts humans first. This is contradicting the industry standard of putting profit first. Large retailers assign numbers to their vendors and their customers. When companies reach a certain size, the “little” individual is no longer valued. Only profit is valued. This is why we choose not to operate as a profit hungry company, but as a community. We choose to empower, rather than enslave. The individuals’ success will ensure our community’s success.
A Slow E-Commerce Movement
We aim to start a Slow E-Commerce movement. We put ethics and individual empowerment first in our decisions and our transactions. We bring the human element back. Let’s slow down the speed of e-commerce and keep more profits in the hands of the individuals and communities.
Sustainability
We aim to be financially sustainable in 2020. Our fundition proposal will help meet short-term goals, while we continue to grow strive for sustainability. We will pursue a multi-pronged approach to financial sustainability:
- Ethical Advertising
We will gift website space to ethical businesses, so that they may provide value to our community. If they find value in our ethical advertising space and our community finds value in them, our ethical advertisers will be encouraged to make donations on a sliding scale. - Donation Based Services
We will explore offering donation based services to our community, the steem community as well as the non-steem community. - Homesteaders Co-op Sustainability = Vendor Sustainability
The founder () has a vendor account in Homesteaders Co-op and has financial incentive, as a vendor, to help our marketplace flourish.
Initial Success in 2019
Homesteaders Co-op has been online officially since November, 20th 2018 and generated its first sale in the same day (via SBD).
Community Participation
Our vendors, customers and advocates are joining our community because they feel a sense of pride, empowerment and find real value in our marketplace. Our community Contributors include: 
Delegations
At the time of writing we have received 9,751.65 in Steem Power delegations from our community. We did not incentivize incoming delegations, other than offering value to our community.
Current Sales
Our marketplace has generated $150 in sales via 12 transactions between Jan 1st - Jan 16th 2019. 100% of sales proceeds are directly in the hands of the vendors.
Vendors
At the time of writing, we have 18 vendors located in 8 different countries. Many more are excited about joining or in the process of joining our marketplace.
Budget
Server Hosting
1 year server hosting and domain name $100
Software Expenses
Multivendor software is used as a base that we are building on and extending
1 year of software license $500
Technology Development
Community Integration (30 hrs @ $40) $1200
New Gift Economy Tools (8 hrs @ $40) $320
Ethical Advertising Features (8 hrs @ $40) $320
Total: $2,440
Founder
View this project on Fundition: https://fundition.io/@homesteaderscoop/f99dxbmsj
A Free Marketplace for Steem
We provide a FREE marketplace for you to transact in STEEM, SBD and USD. Our co-op vendors are committed to sustainability, ethics and quality in their lives and work.
Unlike other marketplaces our vendors are not charged listing fees, subscription fees or transaction fees. This service is 100% free to them.
Support our alternative economy:
- Purchase handmade products with STEEM, SBD or USD at https://homesteaderscoop.com
- Spread the word that sustainable vendors are accepting STEEM, SBD and USD
- Up-vote our posts at @homesteaderscoop
- Follow our Curation Trail on SteemAuto to automatically upvote our contributors and vendors
- Delegate SP to
Why Delegate to Homesteaders Co-op?
Your delegations will help us grow our community and reward our members for their ethical choices and actions.
In our modern world it is not always easy to choose to live sustainably. To do so often means forgoing income potential and the status quo. Our SteemPower is used to up-vote Homesteader Co-op contributors and vendors in order to reward and support their hard work. Some extra STEEM may one day go a long way for some individuals of our community.
10 SP | 25 SP | 50 SP | 75 SP | 100 SP | 200 SP | 500 SP | 750 SP | 1000 SP
Who is Homesteaders Co-op?
Get to know our mission in our introduction postWant to sell sustainable, handmade products for STEEM, SBD and USD?
Learn more and apply here