Kapital
An Indigenous-designed collective payment system.
Distribution
The system is designed to fairly, and transparently, distribute resources from climate projects to collectives. Most communities choose to split payments 30% direct distribution to community members, 40% into a community voting algorithm for infrastructure projects, and 30% into delayed future payouts designed to compensate for climate market fluctuations.
- Direct payments
- Collective vote
- Future payout
- Direct payments
- Collective vote
- Future payout
Design
The system was designed by Fernando Lezama after nearly 20 years of grassroots Indigenous activism to prevent corruption in lump sum payments to communities. The name Kapital came from the biokultural design work of Nkwi Flores and Kinray Hub who argues that we need to change the spelling of words like klimate, kapital, and kulture to describe the inclusion of Indigenous paradigms when they are used.
Aim
Too many Indigenous nations are being excluded from institutional funding. Communities can manage Kapital, and account for where it has been used. We simply need to give them kulturally-appropriate ways to do so.
Current accounting systems are top-down, hierarchical, and lack Indigenous languages. They also operate poorly off-grid or with communal devices. This is a simple solution to a complex problem and our intent is to disseminate it widely so communities running klimate-friendly businesses naturally attract more public funding.
Ethics
For many of our users, Kapital is the way and the reason they got their first bank account. For this reason, we take the ethics of financial education very seriously.
Savimbo does not give negative money. Kapital is not for use with microlending or debt of any kind.
We educate all users on the concepts of happy money, social capital, and ethics of conscious business. We also make sure that all legal adults in the community are given the chance to have equal financial opportunity regardless of gender.
Voting algorithm
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Indigenous leaders in traditional communities have a very strong role in guiding the community, but also ensuring each member is taken care of.
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The algorithm restricts proposal of community budget to leaders legally identified in the communitys governing charter, but requires community ratification prior to funds distribution. The quorums for both are set by the community in advance.
Consensus
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Most traditional communities already have strong in-person mechanisms for reaching consensus. Unlike many other technology options this software intentionally does not seek to replace consensus functions, only funds release.
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The software allows communities to preset their desired level of consensus (51-95%) . Funds release is directly controlled by the community and tied to the ratification of leader-proposed budgets in a vote that passes consensus (quorum) settings.
Payouts
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Traditional communities have different concepts in regards to money so members may chose to delegate individual payments or have the community receive all their Kapital in voting payments.
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The software is designed to give full community control, while enabling last mile transparency in where funds were distributed, to whom, and why using the strongest banking system available to enrolled communities.