Open the create flow to set up your organization in six steps: Template, Identity, Team, Governance, Settings, and Launch.
Before you begin, have a short description of your group, your initial team, and one project you want to start. Use that project to make the setup choices concrete: who will add the work, who will review it, and what decisions will the team need to make? If you are still choosing a structure, start with create an organization.
1. Template
Choose the template closest to how the group will work. The templates start with these roles:
| Template | Initial roles | A useful starting point for |
|---|---|---|
| Student Organization | Member, Executive | Clubs that need member participation and leadership handovers |
| Worker Cooperative | Worker, Steward | Teams sharing work and workplace decisions |
| Open Source Project | Contributor, Maintainer | Projects with a contribution and review process |
| Creative Collective | Artist, Curator | Creative peers with responsibilities for selecting or organizing work |
| Community Organization | Neighbor, Delegate | Local groups with members and people coordinating projects |
| Custom | Member, Admin | A group that wants to define its own arrangement |
Role names are editable starting points, not legal statuses. Review the permissions behind them. The template's discovery questions can recommend variations, so check the resulting Team, Governance, and Settings screens rather than assuming the gallery describes your final setup.
Simple mode exposes the main choices. Use Advanced mode when you need detailed role permissions or voting classes.
2. Identity
Add a name, description, logo, and useful links. Describe what members will actually do together. “A neighborhood group sharing tools and organizing repair days” is more helpful than a broad promise about changing the world.
You can also name the participation units your organization awards. Choose a name members will recognize on tasks and balances, and explain what it means in your contribution policy. Naming the units does not fund rewards or create legal shares.
3. Team
For each role, review three things:
- Entry: who can join, whether they need vouches or an invitation, and any membership limits. Use open entry for roles you want newcomers to take easily; require an introduction or invitation where someone needs to judge readiness.
- Powers: which actions role holders can take. Give a reviewer approval authority and a coordinator the ability to organize work; neither role needs every available permission. Advanced controls expose additional task rights, including assignment and budget editing.
- Management and initial members: who can manage the role and who will hold it at launch. Confirm the initial team can welcome someone, create work, and review a finished task.
Membership, task powers, and voting eligibility are separate settings. Check the Governance step as well; a role name alone does not grant a vote. Roles and permissions explains how these checks fit together.
4. Governance
In Simple mode, adjust the voting balance between equal member weight and contribution weight. Use the actual percentages to assess the result: a blend still includes contribution weight even when the equal-member share is large. The creation guide explains when each approach fits.
In Advanced mode, review each voting class:
- Eligible roles: whose votes count in this class.
- Weighting method: equal member weight or the configured participation balance.
- Share of the result: how much this class contributes to the combined outcome.
- Square-root weighting: an option for contribution classes that reduces differences between larger and smaller balances. For example, balances of 100 and 25 have a 2:1 weight ratio with square-root weighting, instead of 4:1.
Then review proposal thresholds and optional minimum voter counts. Higher requirements ask for broader support but can leave decisions unresolved when too few members participate. Check them against the people who will actually be active at launch, including whether a contribution class has balances to use.
The binding proposal system supports these different weightings. The separate direct-democracy poll system records preferences. A poll does not move funds or change permissions. See hybrid voting for how binding decisions work.
5. Settings
Review the options shown for your organization, including:
- Education Hub: enable it when newcomers need guides or training material. Learning modules pair material with a question and a configured participation reward; completion does not automatically grant a role.
- Election Hub: enable it when your group intends to elect people to leadership roles.
- Email Invites: where enabled, configure and activate the invitation rules after launch before inviting people through that path.
- Hide Treasury: remove the treasury page from navigation if it is unnecessary for your group. This does not make public financial records private.
- Metadata Admin: select a role if routine name, logo, and description updates should happen directly. Choose Governance Only if each profile change should require a passed proposal.
- Initial projects and tasks: prepare useful first work when the setup offers it. Check the outcome and configured contribution reward. An optional task bounty needs its own funding; participation units are not a cash balance.
- Network and sponsorship settings: review the selected network and any available support for transaction fees. Sponsorship depends on eligibility and funding.
Available configuration can vary with the deployment version. Use the review screen as the record of what you are creating.
6. Launch
Review the complete setup, sign in if needed, and follow the launch prompts. Wait for confirmation before sharing the organization as ready.
Many rules can be changed later through the organization's authorized actions or governance. Check who can make those changes so your first team understands how to adapt the setup as the group grows.
Once live, open the organization as a newcomer would: is its purpose clear, can someone join, and is there something useful to do? Use your first week on Poa to prepare that welcome.