Catalyst Hub Tulum

Catalyst Hub Tulum is a proposed regenerative community building in downtown Tulum that is collectively developed, governed, financed, owned and programmed by the local community. It is organized as a DAO (decentralized autonomous organization) to provide a living, working, gathering place for those in Tulum to catalyze regenerative change based on the values of caring and nature.

Partners

• Regen.Tribe - A collective growing regenerative communities and building self-sustaining villages, based in Tulum.
• Be The Change Cooperative - A cooperative of local communities co-creating regenerative community buildings governed and owned by local neighborhoods through a shared platform.
• SEEDS - A regenerative culture + economy co-created by a global citizenry through a decentralized financial system and currency.

Regenerative organization systems

• Partnerism - A socio-economic system that values and rewards caring for one another, nature, and our collective future. Partnerism is based on Cultural Transformation Theory, which proposes that societies used to follow a mutualistic, caring “partnership model” of civilization, giving way to today's current “dominator model” of civilization, but with growing evidence that we are returning to the partnership model.
• Prosocial - An orientation toward the welfare of others and society as a whole. This might be an attitude, a behavior, or an institution. It might be directed toward family and friends or the social acceptance of all people. Ultimately, Prosocial is an entire worldview.
• Self organization - A process where some form of overall order arises from local interactions between parts of an initially disordered system. The resulting organization is wholly decentralized, distributed over all the components of the system. As such, the organization is typically robust and able to survive or self-repair substantial perturbation.
• Co-Creation Systems - Systems, models, tools for co-creation, designed, governed and owned by participants with a shared purpose, such as campaign teams and local communities.

Examples

• Commongrounds is a 50,000 s.f. innovation hub cooperative in Traverse City, Michigan, United States, which serves as both a pilot project and learning laboratory. It is presently the only project of its kind in the country - a mixed-use community building that is owned and governed as a cooperative. It is currently under construction, to be completed in Fall 2022.

Development phases

1. Phase I: Develop Core Team and Vision
   1. Define and pre-develop the mission, vision and founding support team
   2. Seed the idea, enable emergence of partners
   3. Develop project access
   4. Develop cooperative governance and financing agreements
   5. Develop interim staff

1. Phase II: Develop Founding Membership and Vision
   1. Develop 15/150 founding membership
   2. Launch publicly
   3. Support visions from the membership
   4. Launch successive series of campaigns
   5. Conduct feasibility studies

1. Phase III: Property Acquisition
   1. Secure down payment for property acquisition
   2. Secure tenant partners
   3. Secure finance partners
   4. Finalize financing

1. Phase IV Optional: Construction/Renovation
   1. If necessary: Secure development and construction team
   2. If necessary: Secure development and construction loan

1. Phase V: Ongoing Management and Emergence
   1. Financial accountability
   2. Restorative practice
   3. Self organization
   4. Crowdsourced placemaking

Resources

• Solidarity cooperative - A place-based multi-stakeholder cooperative bringing together all stakeholder membership categories around a shared neighborhood vision. These can include workers, customers, tenants, patrons, and members of the larger community.
• Collective Impact Lab blog - A collection of articles on projects and systems related to innovation hubs, including The Rise of Mutual Stakeholding