---
title: "Resource distribution"
description: "Protocols for how resources flow between organisations – solidarity contributions, co-budgeting, mutual aid"
url: "/resource-distribution/"
tags: [area, resources]
readingPathPosition: 34
---

# Resource distribution

The resource distribution area governs how resources flow between the nodes of the network. It is central to [enable a cycle of deepening relationships](/protocols-enable-a-cycle-of-deepening-relationships.md). It includes protocols for:

**Solidarity contributions** – how resources flow between network members of different means, with what transparency, governed by what contribution and distribution criteria.

**Needs-based co-budgeting** – how shared resources are allocated through participatory process. Example protocols include:

- Enspiral's Cobudget, where any member proposes projects and participants distribute pooled funds transparently
- Greaterthan's Happy Money Story, where a team that completed shared work collectively distributes its budget through rounds of appreciation, individual proposals, and refinement until every participant is genuinely satisfied – treating financial distribution as a relational act rather than a calculation

**Mutual aid** – how members support and call on each other in times of need.

Each protocol requires [ritual, critique and contemplation](/every-protocol-has-three-inseparable-layers.md) attending to: whose labour is invisible, whose needs go unmet, and whether resource flows are prefiguring alternatives or reproducing extraction.

This area is sketched at the principles level; its specific protocols remain to be developed.

## Sources

- Cobudget as participatory resource allocation from the Enspiral network; see Enspiral Foundation (2016), *Enspiral Handbook*
- Happy Money Story practice adapted from Davies' bill-splitting game by Greaterthan; see Pick, Arora & Bumke (2022), "Happy Money Story: Decoupling Remuneration from Calculation" (greaterthan.works)

## In this vault

- Previous: [Boundary-tending](/boundary-tending.md)
- Next: [Feedback and learning](/feedback-and-learning.md)
- Referenced by: [Living systems become protocol areas](/living-systems-become-protocol-areas.md), [Protocols enable a cycle of deepening relationships](/protocols-enable-a-cycle-of-deepening-relationships.md)