Pact Collective: NYC Mutual Aid DAO

TL;DR: We are fundraising 20ETH to support mutual aid and community organizing efforts and create people-driven institutions in NYC. 

Purchasing an NFT from this campaign (starting at 0.1 ETH) gets you:

• An invite to our community Discord and mutual aid network 
• An invite to local events (discussions, community activations, social gatherings, and more) 
• Voting abilities and contribution to DAO decision making 

Visit www.pactdao.xyz to see our website that’s raised over $15K for local, grassroots organizations to date.

👋 We’re the Pact Collective.

The Pact Collective is a group of comrades, creatives, activists, and technologists contributing to the future of mutual aid and community organizing.

We don’t believe that technology alone will save us. However we do acknowledge that technology serves an important part in organizing and scaling movements, and our current toolkits are owned by extractive mega-tech monopolies. These platforms, built on maximizing profit and opposing political interests, will never lead us into freedom. That’s why our aim is to build movements with technical solutions that are created with, for, and by the people to serve the people.

Entry into our collective starts with a donation commitment (making a pact) via this crowdfund, a low monthly USD contribution at pactdao.xyz, or an offering of time and/or skills to further our mission.

We’re building our community with a few principles in mind:

• We believe in each other. Everyone brings value to the table. We all hold a place in our ecosystem and have far more power as a collective than as individuals. We place no hierarchy on the dollar amount or pedigree of our members, but rather cherish each gift brought to the table and offer every member a seat.
• We believe in the gift economy. Everyone is entitled to a dignified and prosperous life. We’re working to redefine our local economy - not based on owners and workers, or hoarders and have-nots - but one where wealth and resources are shared, and decisions made collectively. We strive for a world where everyone can live safely with their needs met.

“The currency in a gift economy is relationship, which is expressed as gratitude, as interdependence and the ongoing cycles of reciprocity. A gift economy nurtures the community bonds which enhance mutual well-being; the economic unit is “we” rather than “I,” as all flourishing is mutual.” - Robin Wall Kimmerer

• We believe in shaping the real world. Many DAO manifestos claim to be using decentralized structures for increasing collective consciousness and equality. However, these vibe-shilling, token-gated DAOs are often sharing in silos, making ‘prosperity’ only accessible to those who can afford their high entry rates. We’re not here to create a commune of the most privileged. We want to change the world we live in, connect with our neighbors inside and outside of Web3, and nourish the city we love that has already given us so much - New York City.

Pact is not a social club. We’ll call it a socialist club.

Here are a few things that set us apart from your typical “pay to play” web3 groups:

1. No elitism or fancy galas, but more of what people actually want: real spaces for real people to gather and share meaningful experiences.
2. Membership ‘dues’ are tax-deductible contributions that go to support real mutual aid initiatives and a more resilient New York City.
3. Shared values (and not financialized tokens) are at the core of our community. Members of the collective are people committed to shaping a more equitable future together. Building a safe and strong community is integral to our work, events, & interactions.

👀 Vision

We are inspired by mutual aid because it shows us the seeds of what is possible - deliberate and democratic community-run systems of care.

The problem: In an extractive, capitalist society, community organizing and mutual aid efforts are often fragmented and unsustainable because they lack consistent funding and autonomous organization.

Our solution: We want to use the power of web3 to get consistent funding to organizers and use decentralized tools to bridge coordination among the many existing revolutionary efforts.

Here’s our plan for solving this initial problem and expanding to create richer communities where members have collective ownership and sway in its future.

0️⃣ Season 0: Planting seeds 🌱 (DONE ✅)

Season 0 was for inviting people to the table to set intentions, build trust, and openly discuss local challenges and opportunities together.

Building a community 👫 We started Season 0 by casting our vision out into the world. Since then we’ve brought in over 100 members that include a mix of local artists and organizers, created an active online community server to build open communication between members, hosted multiple member meetups to discuss the future of our collective, brought members out to community gardens and protests to participate in local activist work, and even kicked off our collaborative workshop series where local and web3 organizers could learn from each other.

In short, our season zero has operated much like an open town forum. We’ve brought together people inspired by the principles of mutual aid, built relationships among them, gathered resources and laid the foundation to keep building upon.

We also piloted a peer-to-peer mutual aid model in our Discord to create reciprocity and connection in our own member community. We’ll continue to work on this and iterate on it as our community grows.

Gaining nonprofit status🙏 Our organization secured 501c3 status in Season 0. That means contributions to our mission are tax deductible via our nonprofit, Pact Donation Collective, Inc.

1️⃣ Season 1: Tending the garden 🐝

Season 1 will focus on co-creation with local organizers and inviting them into the world of web3 via education and material support.

Collaborative Education 📚 In Season 0 we kicked off our collaborative workshop series - discussion panels between local and web3 organizers where we talked about unions, mutual aid and more. We’ll be continuing these workshops regularly to continue the shared learning and relationship building around critical local and international issues.

We’ll also be expanding on these educational efforts by creating a digital resource library for organizers to learn about web3 and intersectional activism/coalition building through articles, videos, and resources made by people and groups who share their values. Similar to our workshops, we’ll also be asking them for contributions to bring their wealth of knowledge about democratic governance, community care, and more to the web3 audience and beyond.

Community activism 🫶 Now that we’ve established an engaged network, we’re going to ramp up our local activism within our local and member community. This means continuing volunteering and protests with our members, but also recruiting regular support to existing mutual aid efforts. We’ll be partnering more closely with organizers and community groups to support their efforts via technical support, programming, funds and people power.

We’ll be allocating our funds and energies towards timely issues in our city. At present that means focusing on the housing crisis by working with/supporting groups providing rent relief, helping organize tenant unions and advocating for occupant rights, as well as those building sustainable housing solutions in our city. As well, we’ll be providing support for safety alternatives to the police with the rise in police funding and violence.

2️⃣ Season 2: Bearing fruits 🍓

Season 2 will focus on creating systems for consistent mutual aid and community organizing support for neighbors and contributors to participate.

We want to build on the efforts of existing mutual aid to create self-sustaining local communities through dual power.

Pilot our dual power program 🤝 Dual power is a two-part strategy that consists of public resistance to oppression (counter-power) and the building of alternative democratic, participatory institutions (counter-institutions). In other words, one part fights the existing systems by mobilizing against them / providing material support to members of the community (mutual aid), while the other builds resilient, people-led institutions to take their place. To learn more about dual power and its potential within web3 you can read this article we wrote alongside our comrades at the Breadchain Cooperative.

We see an opportunity to strengthen and accelerate grassroots organizing to create systems of safety within our local community. In a city like New York City where there are already countless progressive groups doing meaningful work in silos, we can help bring coordination via web3 tools (multi-sig, Snapshot voting, etc.) between these efforts - giving agency to local leaders and making citizen participation easy.

A fund for mutual aid 🤝 We will continue our mutual aid fund to support local/general mutual aid (food, water, and clothing) networks in NYC. This will include at least 1 mutual aid group per borough, a handful of community gardens, and other one-off local projects that work to address the immediate material needs of New Yorkers. These groups will be welcome to invite others into our network of support to grow organically.

For this pool of funds, we will continue to make web3 an entry point and not a blocker. All community groups will be invited into our multi-sig to gain consistent access to funds, but those who do not wish to participate will still receive support via USD.

A fund for a movement ✊ We’ll be experimenting with more intentional organizing by creating a fund for a broad but specific objective. To meet our lofty goals we’ll source community groups and organizers accordingly who are already working to solve this problem. We’ll provide the funding, coordination, technical support, and multi-disciplinary local network to bring this goal to fruition.

Some ideas for goals we’ll pursue:

• Building a prominent and reliable safety alternative to the police.
• Creating networks for reliable childcare and support.
• Building housing equity so lifelong New Yorkers are not displaced.
• Ending NYC food deserts so everyone has access to healthy and nourishing food.

We’ll also continue connecting with our community via educational/playful events, local activism, mutual aid work, and more.

⏳Why join now?

Each NFT provides access to Pact’s rich/thoughtful member community and impact network. Join to be on the ground of a movement towards a more collective future in NYC and beyond.

You will also receive “Collective coins” but they are purely for fun and engagement within this crowdfund.

You can contribute as much ETH as you'd like above the minimum NFT price. You can also contribute more than once.

👯 Team

Alfredo - NYC-based abolitionist, writer, and producer organizing communities towards a more just world through art, media, and technology.

James - NY-based software developer passionate about designing new frameworks for digital platforms which empower creators and users with governance.

Jess - NYC based artist with a business development background - focused on utilizing decentralized technologies and metamodernist principles to  cultivate equity and community for minority groups.

June - NYC-based project manager currently: coordinating for public goods, building towards a society rooted in abundance, and listening to music (probably).

Marisa - NY-born writer and marketer with experience in fintech, nonprofit, and community building, looking to use her skills to further the socialist agenda.