Acorn Community

Income Sharing
All community income is from Southern Exposure Seed Exchange (SESE), owned by Acorn Community. Occasionally the community makes small amounts of income from other areas (selling a goat, doing consulting work for another organization).

Individual members can make personal income by working outside in addition to their labor requirement to the community.

Labor System
All members and potential members staying at the farm are expected to work 42 hours/week. Members are not obligated to record or track their labor.

Labor includes income-producing work for SESE, domestic work, agricultural work on the farm, and other business of running the community. There are not strict definitions of what is and is not labor.

Resource Sharing
The community shares 78 acres, two kitchens, four residential buildings, and one bank account.

Membership
Application for membership requires a three-week residential visit. Applicants must have clearnesses with all current members and be accepted by consensus.

For the first year, members are provisional and must be approved by all full members at the end of their provisional period.

Governance and Decision Making
Acorn operates by modified consensus. Consensus is the standard, but modifications can be made in order to get certain things done. For example, in order to expel a member, the community can ask this member and their family or romantic partners to stand aside in the decision.



Legal and Financial
Acorn Community is an LLC, taxed under 501(d).

In the event of dissolution, all remaining funds would go to the Federation of Egalitarian Communities.

Acorn does enough accounting to be prepared for an IRS audit, barely. All money transfers are (ideally) recorded with receipts and filed under a certain budget area. Annual financial reviews show interested communards increases and decreases in different budget areas.

Communication and Conflict Resolution
Acorn's go-to process is the "clearness." There is a written Communications Covenant.

Other standard conflict resolution procedures are advocacy, support teams, and mediation, sometimes used in conjunction.

Culture
Less alcoholic than East Wind. Better parties than Twin Oaks. Anti-authority. Low group cohesion.

Infrastructure
Is this a test?