Cobudget

Cobudget emerged in 2014 from the Enspiral network and The Borderland's experiments in collaborative funding: give every member a slice of the group's shared money and let them allocate it across member-proposed 'buckets' (projects), in three visible stages — dream, fund, realize. It's participatory budgeting stripped of municipal ceremony: no ballots, just continuous, transparent allocation.

Deployments range from Stockholm's Blivande creative hub (members deciding together which workshop tools to buy) to WWF Switzerland's climate funding rounds in six figures. The software is AGPL-3.0-or-later, with a free hosted tier for small groups and self-hosting for the rest.

For neighborhoods, the fit is exact: block associations, garden clubs, and mutual aid funds all hold small shared money with no legible way to decide on it. Cobudget's real product is legitimacy — everyone can see every idea, every allocation, and every receipt.

Neighborhood remix: the block's yard-sale $500 lives in Cobudget; anyone can propose a bucket — mulch, a projector for movie night, gas money for the neighbor who drives elders to appointments — and the funding *is* the vote.

Details

• maker: Cobudget contributors (Enspiral/Greaterthan lineage)
• hosted: free tier to 10 users; self-hostable
• license: AGPL-3.0-or-later
• repo url: https://github.com/cobudget/cobudget
• remix idea: The block's shared $500, allocated in the open.
• practice kind: tool