1. What this is

An economy can be started on purpose, by a group, out of what that group already has. Every lasting one comes down to the same few moves: decide what is being built, bring in what it takes to build it, and agree where the value goes once it starts to flow. Making those agreements at the start is what keeps the value working for the people who helped, year after year.

The way in is collective financing. A group with a shared vision agrees what they are building and how, then funds it together inside that agreed scope. Money can come back out on terms set at the start, and it does not buy ownership or profit. What it buys is the shared result, and access to it for everyone who helped.

2. The five routes

Each route is a full package, and most groups combine two. The route is chosen from what a group already has, rather than from what it wishes it had.

One project. A group builds one thing together, financed by people who believe in it. The land is held free of bank debt; the buildings are financed separately; the people using it pay toward it, and that covers running costs and repays the lenders in turn. Fits a group with a clear project, a place in mind, and a circle willing to lend.

Many businesses, one pool. Several working businesses each trade as they do today and each send part of their surplus into one shared pool, which buys what all of them need and none could buy alone. Fits businesses that already know each other and want to build something larger together.

A gifted start. A gift is shared from the moment it lands, with no repayment stage in between, so every dollar turns straight into access. Fits work meant to stay open to people: education, open material, care, or seeding something before it can carry a loan.

Land rich, cash poor. Many places that look poor already have the land, the food, the skill and the labor, and are missing one piece: a school, a clinic, water, somewhere to store the harvest. Unlocking that one piece starts the economy. Fits a community with surplus and a clear need money has kept out of reach.

Partner with a place that exists. The cheapest start of all uses buildings that already stand. A group that fills a half empty center brings it steady income and builds a fund of its own at the same time. Fits a group with people, programs and momentum, and little land or starting money yet.

3. The four questions, kept separate

Most broken structures come from blending four questions that have to stay apart. The work is answering them one at a time, in writing:

1. What is being financed. The thing itself, scoped tightly enough that a lender knows exactly what their money built.
2. Who signs, and who carries the risk. Rarely the same people, and never assumed.
3. Where the money is held. Which entity, which account, how many signatures to move it.
4. How it comes in. Loans, gifts, revenue, contributed labor and materials, shared pools, combined into the shape this project needs.

4. How the money works, on every route

Money comes in as a loan or as a gift. Loans are repaid on the terms agreed at the start and nothing more: no share, no profit, no piece of what was built. Gifts are shared the moment they arrive.

Decisions stay with the people the decisions affect. Putting money in does not buy a vote that putting time in does not.

Surplus goes into shared assets and wider access. The date the payments stop is the date the economy starts, because from then on what the project earns belongs to the shared work and keeps housing, feeding and equipping people.

5. What you get, and what the help is

The package is the plan. The route, the agreements to write, the four questions, the shape of the pool, and the order to do it all in.

The help is the real work, and it is where most of the value is. Every group's situation is its own: their land, their people, their money, their laws. Working through the route with somebody, catering it to what is actually in front of you, is what turns a template into a thing that gets built. That is charged by the hour at the standard rate, separately from the package.

An ETHOS gets the package itself at no cost and still pays for a person's time.

Building the project together with us is a separate conversation. It is an option, not part of the price.

6. What this template does not do

It does not raise money, hold money, or introduce anyone to a lender. It does not promise a return, a share, or a profit, because nothing here produces one. It does not give legal, tax or financial advice, and the entity question goes to counsel before anyone raises a dollar. It does not carry the numbers: those live with New Paradigm Economies, which owns the model. What it does is give a group the route, the agreements, and the order to do them in.