Mosaic Commons:
Associate / Equity Member Checklist

Requirements to become an Associate:

To become an Associate, state your intent during the approve agenda / announcements portion of the meeting. If the group agrees that you have met the requirements below, you then sign this agreement: Associate Agreement. This checklist details the current requirements.

Actively participate in the group for at least 30 days. During that time:

• Be familiar with the history and process of creating cohousing. To do that, we recommend you review the cohousing.org website and that you read Cohousing: A Contemporary Approach to Housing Ourselves by Kathryn McCamant & Charles Durrett and The Cohousing Handbook: Building a Place for Community by Chris Hanson.
• Attend meetings regularly and workshops as scheduled. 
• Participate on teams and perform action items necessary for the project to proceed.
• Demonstrate the ability to work constructively with Mosaic Commons community.
• Be familiar with, and agree to support, our previous decisions. For additional background on our decisions, you may want to review:
  • The minutes of our meetings and/or
  • The archives of our discussion list.
• Read, and agree to support, all currently prepared policies, agreements and legal documents.
  • Vision Statement
  • Decision Log
  • Affordability Statement
  • Cash Call Policy
  • Early Incentives to Join
  • Ground rules
  • Membership: How to Get Involved
  • Policy Handbook (Current Draft) (waiting from Kai)
  • Sliding Scale (pdf)
  • Unit Costs & Information
  • Urgent Decisions
• Read and agree to support additional Documents from Cohousing Resources:
  • Legal diagram
  • Buckets diagram
  • Cohousing Resources development model
  • Current Contract and Extension with Cohousing Resources
  • Current Budget
• Let the Coordinating team know about your involvement with any other cohousing groups/organizations.
• Financial contribution: $50 initially, then monthly dues of $20 for the first, $15 for the second, and $10 for each additional participant from your household.

Requirements to become an Equity Member

People wishing to become Equity members should announce their intention to do so during the "announcements" portion of a general meeting, or in email to the group at least two weeks before a general meeting.

The Current Associates and Equity Members will decide on the membership by consensus at the following meeting. All individual Equity Members must be present or give their proxy to a member of the Coordinating Team (San, Catya, Rosa). Decisions on Equity membership must be reached by consensus and cannot be taken to a vote.

Any Equity Members or Associates with serious concerns about the new membership must bring those concerns to the Conflict Resolution Team at least one week before the next meeting.

The Finance Team will contact households who have announced their intention to become equity members to determine if the household will use the standard payment schedule or make a custom arrangement. This contact will take place before the meeting in which the group is asked to come to consensus on the new membership.

Presuming the group comes to a favroable consensus, you sign this agreement: Equity Member Agreement. This document details the current requirements:

First, you must fulfill all of the requirements above for Associates in order to become an Equity Member. You may become an Equity Member without being an Associate first, but you must still fulfill all of the above requirements.

In addition you are committing financially, as follows:

Make an initial threshold contribution amount of $1500 and make monthly payments in the amounts at right until 5% of their unit cost is met. Exceptions may be made by the Finance Committee on a case by case basis. (Policy to be revisited in September, 2002, or when we select a site and calculate a new working budget.)