Contribution Acknowledgement

and Agreement Template

Under construction... This draft must be translated into proper legal language

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Created by Sensorica OVN affiliates. See more governance docs.

Definitions

Currency or cash investment

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT procedure

Channel

Content

TEMPLATE (draft)

AGREEMENT

Requirements for writing the agreement

Procedure

Agreement TEMPLATE (draft)

History

This is an acknowledgement of someone’s donation or investment, a cash infusion in this case, AND an agreement of how this cash will be used.  

Definitions

Contribution: allocation of some type(s) of resource(s) to an initiative, project or venture.

Investment: a contribution with the expectation of some future tangible returns, which are associated directly, in some way, with this particular resource(s) allocation.

Donation: a contribution without any expectation of future tangible rewards, which would be associated directly, in some way, with this particular resource(s) allocation.  

Recipient: is an affiliate of the OVN who receives an investment and promises to use it in a proper way, which is defined in the Agreement.

Investor: is an affiliate of the OVN who makes the investment. If a nonaffiliate makes an investment he/she/it automatically, by definition, becomes an affiliate of the OVN.

Donor: an affiliate or nonaffiliate of the OVN who makes a donation

Currency or Cash contribution: is a special type of contribution for which the allocated resource is currency (either fiat, crypto or other). It can be cash investment or cash donation.

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Currency or cash investment

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT procedure

The purpose of this process is to objectively establish that a currency or cash investment event has occurred.

The acknowledgement must establish that

1. A currency transfer event has occurred between two parties, an identified sender and a receiver.
2. The intention of the sender is to make a cash investment in the particular initiative, project or venture.
3. The said initiative, project or venture is lead [facilitated, coordinated, stewarded] by the receiver, or has the receiver as an active affiliate.
4. The receiver is aware of the sender’s intention to use this cash as an investment.
5. The cash investment has been logged into the NRP-CAS and both the sender and the receiver know that and have been shared access to the record.   
6. Points 2 through 5 establish the sender as an investor and the receiver as a recipient.
7. An agreement is signed between the investor and the recipient acknowledging 1 to 6 and specifying the terms linking future benefits to this particular investment. 

NOTE: Qualifying the sender as an investor requires the sender’s adherence to the NRP-CAS (network resource planning and contribution accounting system), which establishes the connection between this investment event and future rewards, clearly stating that the investor understands the NRP-CAS and its role in fulfilling the investment promises. The NRP-CAS is stll under development. The agreement refers to the NRP-CAS at the time when it is signed, and allows this contribution to be treated for future projects, using the instance of the NRP-CAS at that future time. The NRP-CAS system evolves as a consensus of the entire OVN. Changes to the NRP-CAS are done through a consensus-based open and participatory decision making process.  

NOTE: Someone (affiliate or nonaffiliate of the OVN) can make a donation without any expectations for future benefits. In this case the sender is a donor (not an investor). The donor is not obliged to adhere to the NRP-CAS. A donation is not an investment. A donor can sign an agreement but it can also remain anonymous. The donor has the choice to delegate the decision about how the donation(s) are to be used, or to guide the use.  

Channel

The process of acknowledging someone’s contribution, in this case a cash investment, is open and transparent to all members of the OVN. The acknowledgement must be communicated through an established channel of communication that is accessible to all affiliates of OVN, with no barriers/restrictions. This channel can be a special channel serving this purpose, or another channel. The communication channel must be such that content vehiculated through it is acceptable as proof in a court of law. For example, a Google Group can serve this purpose, because the data is stored by a third party, Google in this case, can be retrieved at a future time, and cannot be manipulated by the members of the value network. Persistent p2p communication or messaging systems are preferable.

Content

One affiliate of the OVN initiates the acknowledgement process by sending a message describing the situations in the greatest detail. This should

1. include the date,
2. include the identity of the sender, establish that the sender is an investor.
3. include the identity of the receiver and establishing that the receiver is a recipient, by stating the receiver’s awareness of the sender’s intent to make a cash investment.
4. objectively establish that the transfer has taken place from the investor to the recipient.
5. Pointing to the agreement.

Other affiliates who are able to verify the facts MUST reply by acknowledging the facts, explicitly stating that the facts have been verified.

1. that the transfer has taken place,
2. that the sender is an investor,
3. that the receiver is a recipient.

If possible a proof is given (ex. sharing a bank receipt, etc.). Other members can also acknowledge the event. Not all members must acknowledge the event.

Acknowledgement TEMPLATE (draft)

On __date__, the SENDER __name of donner/investor__ has contributed:

[  ] donated

[  ] invested

    * enter X for the proper case above

the amount of _amount_ [currency type symbol].

[  ] OVN

[  ] OVN initiative named: _initiative name_

[  ] OVN project named: _project name_

_name of the OVN affiliate handling the transaction_, a SENSORICA OVN affiliate, has been the RECEIVER of this transaction.

The SENDER’s condition(s) for the use of this contribution:

1. _enter first condition_
2. _enter second condition_
3. ...

The total amount of this contribution has been

[  ] Deposited into the OVN’s Custodian account

[  ] Transferred to: _enter name/entity_

AGREEMENT

Requirements for writing the agreement

The agreement establishes how the contribution should be treated/used. The process of resource allocation in an OVN is bottom up, i.e. investors, donors and active affiliates decide how their resources are to be allocated, used. This means that the donor or investor is the one who decides in which project to allocate the resources, and to what purpose.

IMPORTANT NOTE: resources are deployed ONLY if their effect is constructive, they cannot be deployed to stop an initiative, to slow down a project, to destroy other resources, etc.

The agreement should contain

1. the donor or investor’s final decision for the allocation of the resource(s), details about the allocation target(s), time considerations, modalities, etc.

1. the donor or the investor can also delegate the decision for allocation to any other active affiliate of the OVN.

2. the donor’s or investor’s statement that the donation or the  investment  is not intended to destructive purposes, to the best knowledge of the donor/investor,
3. the recipient’s statement that he/she/it will respect the donor’s or investor’s final decision for the allocation of the resource(s), within the boundaries of the possible, to the best of his/her/its ability. If this decision is delegated to another active affiliate this affiliate must commit to respect the donor’s or investor’s final decision for the allocation of the resource(s), within the boundaries of the possible, to the best of his/her/its ability.
4. The investor’s adherence to the NRP-CAS, which establishes the connection between this investment event and future rewards, clearly stating that the investor understands the NRP and its role is redistribution of benefits. The donor is not obliged to adhere to the NRP/CAS.

NOTE: Qualifying the sender as an investor requires the sender’s adherence to the NRP-CAS (network resource planning and contribution accounting system), which establishes the connection between this investment event and future rewards, clearly stating that the investor understands the NRP-CAS and its role in fulfilling the investment promises. The NRP-CAS is stll under development. The agreement refers to the NRP-CAS at the time when it is signed, and allows this contribution to be treated for future projects, using the instance of the NRP-CAS at that future time. The NRP-CAS system evolves as a consensus of the entire OVN. Changes to the NRP-CAS are done through a consensus-based open and participatory decision making process.  

Procedure

The agreement must be signed by the investor, the recipient and by other active affiliates. Not all active affiliates need to sign. It can be on physical support (paper) or electronic. The recipient can be the CUSTODIAN.

Agreement TEMPLATE (draft)

enter text here... get some inspiration from our first precedent of cash infusion, see History below

History

This is based on a case of cash infusion by Bayle on Aug 13, 2012, see official message (only SENSORICA members have access to this message, in our mailing list)

Kurt proposed

Sensorica should become a UK llp with a partnership agreement that contains the value equation and reference to other legal structures - along with this the is a SENSORICA holdings corp in each relevant jurisdiction (where physical property resides) and a board that manages said property on behalf of the value network.  The final piece is a trust whose board is made up of members of the value network.  The nondominium agreement applies to all property held by the holding company and binds the trust.  This agreement, unlike open source approaches says in effect that no one has exclusive control ownership rights but everyone who is a signatory to the SENSORICA partnership agreement and nondominium agreement has equal access to the assets in the holding corp but agrees to compensate the value network for their use according to the value equation.  (Beneficial ownership is driven by the value equation) [See Ishan’s work]

[Tibi | Dec. 2019] Jake has also donated multiple times to Sensorica, after this document was created, and these exact procedures were not respected to the letter. We forgot this document existed… Governance needs to be more embedded into the IT infrastructure and procedures need to be formalized and hard linked to rules.

You can find many templates made by sensoricans that can help you save a lot of time. Search the term "template" on Sensorica's Google Drive.

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