The ones you could join

Four arrangements in this gallery are not history. They take members, and a reader could be one.

This is a description of what that involves, not an invitation. Each panel says what it takes, what it costs, what legal form it has where it is, and what usually goes wrong in the second year — which is the part that decides whether these things last, and the part most accounts leave out.

None of these panels has been checked by a practitioner yet. The tasks that will check them are open on Tinkerism.

Acequias of the Rio Grande

New Mexico, US

Community ditches in New Mexico, still run by an elected mayordomo, that cut every member's water by the same fraction in a drought instead of letting senior rights take it all.

What it takes: Land inside an acequia's service area with a water right attached to it. You do not join an acequia by applying; you join by acquiring a parcel that is already a member, and the association's bylaws then apply to you. Expect to turn out for the spring cleaning in person or to pay someone to go in your place.
What it costs: Annual dues or an assessment set by the association, usually modest and usually per unit of water or per acre. The real cost is labour: the spring limpia is days of work, and the obligation is not optional.
The legal form: In New Mexico an acequia is a political subdivision of the state, governed under Chapter 73 of the statutes, with an elected commission and mayordomo. That status is unusual — an acequia elsewhere in the US south-west may be an unincorporated association or a mutual ditch company instead, with different powers.
What usually goes wrong in year two: The transfer fight. An acequia's authority to refuse the sale of a water right away from the land is the thing that keeps it alive, and it is also the thing a new member is most likely to run into and least likely to expect. The second common surprise is that the mayordomo's decisions about turn order are not negotiable in the moment.

Community energy co-ops

Øresund, Denmark, DK

Turbines and solar arrays owned by the people who live beside them, on one member one vote. The shortest sanction ladder in this gallery — because the thing that actually kills them is not a member, it is a tariff.

What it takes: A site, a grid connection offer, a group of people willing to put money in before there is anything to see, and someone who can read a power purchase agreement. The development phase is where co-ops die, and it is the phase in which nobody is being paid.
What it costs: A share, for a member — often a few hundred to a few thousand in local currency, capped so no one member dominates. For a project, the number that matters is development capital at risk before financial close, which is usually raised from members and is usually the hardest money to find.
The legal form: Varies sharply by country, and this is the row to check locally rather than generalise. Denmark, Germany, Belgium and the UK each have a co-operative or community-benefit form with different tax treatment and different rules on who may invest. The European federation REScoop.eu maintains country guidance; national law is what binds.
What usually goes wrong in year two: The tariff. A co-op that modelled its returns on a support scheme and then saw the scheme changed is the standard failure, and it is not a governance failure — the members did nothing wrong. The second, smaller one is that the volunteers who did the development are rarely the people who want to run an operating business, and the handover is often unplanned.

Dudley Street community land trust

Roxbury, Boston, US

A Boston neighbourhood that took its own vacant land into a trust and kept it there — separating the house, which can be sold, from the ground under it, which cannot.

What it takes: For a home: an income inside the trust's limits, mortgage approval from a lender that will write against a ground lease, and acceptance that the resale price is formula-set rather than market-set. For membership and a board seat: residency in the trust's area, which is a lower bar than buying and is the part most people skip.
What it costs: A below-market purchase price for the building, plus a ground lease fee that is typically nominal — often a token monthly amount. The cost that is not money is the resale cap: you give up most of the appreciation, which is precisely the mechanism that keeps the home affordable for whoever comes next.
The legal form: In the United States, usually a 501(c)(3) non-profit holding fee title to the land and granting 99-year renewable ground leases, with a tripartite board of residents, wider community and public-interest seats. Comparable forms exist elsewhere under different names — community land trusts in England and Wales have their own statutory definition — and the details vary enough that the local one is the one that matters.
What usually goes wrong in year two: Financing. The recurring problem is not governance, it is finding a lender who understands a ground lease and will underwrite against it, and finding a buyer's agent who does not advise the buyer against the resale formula. The second is that a resident-majority board only stays a resident-majority board if residents keep turning up to meetings.

Open-source infrastructure

No single place, Global

The software everything else is built on, maintained by people who are usually not paid for it. Apply the seven rows and six of them fit — the seventh is where the frame breaks, and that is the finding.

What it takes: Showing up more than once. Every governance document in this space describes a path from contributor to committer to maintainer, and in practice the path is sustained, unglamorous review and triage rather than large contributions. For a project with a foundation, there is a written process; for a project with one maintainer, there is a person who has to decide to trust you.
What it costs: Unpaid time, indefinitely, with an obligation that does not pause. The cost most maintainers report is not the work — it is that the work has no natural end and that stopping feels like a failure owed to people who did not pay for anything.
The legal form: Usually none for the individual. The project may sit under a fiscal host or a foundation that holds the trademark and the funds; the code itself is governed by its licence, and the licence is a contract with the world that no assembly can amend after the fact.
What usually goes wrong in year two: Burnout, and specifically the discovery that the demands scale with users while the help does not. The second is succession: a project with one maintainer and no named successor is one life event away from being unmaintained, and almost nobody writes that plan down before they need it.