organizations owned by the people in them
Start something
that lasts.
Poa turns a group into an organization: rules you choose together, members who vouch for each other, and a treasury that pays people in dollars.
Built for worker and community ownership. Nothing to install.
An account is a username and a passkey. Poa charges nothing.
How groups usually end
The dues live in one member's payment app, next to their grocery money.
The treasurer graduates in May. By June nobody remembers what was decided, or why.
The community spends six years on a platform. The platform changes the rules in an afternoon.
None of this is anyone's fault. Becoming a real institution used to take months and lawyers, so almost nobody did it. The group stayed a group chat, and everything it built stayed borrowed.
Three steps to an organization
Choose your rules.
Start from a named template, worker cooperative to student organization. Each one is a readable set of rules: who can join, how votes are counted, who approves the work. Adjust anything, or write your own from scratch.
Invite your members.
People join because a member vouches for them. Your group decides how many vouches it takes, and which roles stay open to anyone. Trust is the membership system.
Run it together.
Propose, vote, assign the work, and pay for it in dollars, all in one place. Every decision is recorded with its reasoning and stays readable for as long as the organization exists.
Hill Street Bakery
a worker owned cooperative
founded
9 October 2024
members
14
rules
worker cooperative, adjusted
votes
one worker, one vote
treasury
$12,408.90
the record
no. 0006
Hire a Saturday baker. passed, 9 to 4
no. 0007
Buy the second oven. passed, 11 to 2
What an organization gets
Votes
One person one vote, weight earned by participation, or a hybrid your group tunes.
kept forever
Tasks
Post the work, claim it, review it, pay it.
paid in dollars
Treasury
The books in the open, spendable only by the rules.
every transfer public
Members
Vouches, roles, and exactly what each role may do.
trust, written down
Learning
Onboarding courses your organization writes; passing them earns voting weight.
earned, not bought
Where the money lives
- Who holds the money?
- The organization does, under its own rules. Poa never holds it and cannot move it.
- How does money come in?
- Anyone can fund the treasury: members, supporters, revenue from what you do. Giving requires no vote.
- How does it go out?
- Spending follows the rules the group chose. Work gets paid, and payouts land in the member's own account, not in a pile someone guards.
- Can I turn it into cash?
- Yes. Cash out to Cash App, Venmo, Revolut, or a bank account in a few minutes. The rate and any small marketplace fee are shown upfront. Poa charges nothing.
- What if Poa disappears?
- The treasury keeps working exactly the same way. The records stay readable, and any organization can run its own copy of the tools.
What makes it different
Owned by the members.
Voting power is earned by participating, not bought. There are no shares to sell and no investors to please. The people who do the work decide what happens next.
A memory.
Every proposal is kept with its reasoning, in a record no one can quietly rewrite. Ten years from now, a new member can read what was decided and why.
The door is open.
What you earn is always yours. The record is public, and any organization can run its own copy of the tools. Built so no one can lock you in, including us.
Who it is for
Student organizations. Officers change every spring; the organization keeps its memory.
template: student organization
Worker owned businesses. One worker, one vote, and the books in the open.
template: worker cooperative
Creative collectives. Decide together what gets made, and what it pays.
template: creative collective
Community organizations. Dues, decisions, and projects, all in the open.
template: community organization
Open source projects. The people who build it steer it.
template: open source project
Every organization on Poa is public: its rules, its decisions, its books.
Read the books for yourselfWhy we built it
Most software is rented. An institution should not be. We built Poa because we believe worker and community ownership is how a better future gets made, and that the tools for it should be a public good: the organizations made here keep their own records, hold their own money, and can host their own copy of everything. Good institutions outlast their founders. We think the tools should too.
Poa itself runs as an organization on Poa. Our books are public too.
Starting takes minutes. Lasting is the point.