A State UNA

Sustainable Communities Foundation will establish an “Unincorporated Nonprofit Association” (UNA) in each state to serve as the overall governing and implementation body for the Sustainable Communities Framework (SCF) program in that state. A UNA is a private association, formed by two or more parties, intended to carry out some mission of the parties.

Many clubs such as a bird watcher’s club, a camping club, a hiking club, etc. could be formed as a UNA, where the participants are considered “members” of the club. They don’t own the club, but use it to pursue some common interest. Such a club is usually structured by some form of charter, constitution or bylaws they define the objectives, organization and management of the club.  (See What Is A UNA for more details on UNAs.)

In this case, we will use a UNA in each state (the State UNA) to provide a common membership body that will function as a consortium for all the Not For Profit (NFPs) organizations in that state.  NFPs include all non-profit, tax exempt organizations (registered with IRS as 501(c) organizations (1-29)), plus all the state and local governments, including school districts, special utility districts, etc. By enrolling in Universal Exchange (UNIEX), our complementary currency bank, an NFP automatically becomes a member in their State UNA.

NFPs represent a special group that Sustainable Communities Foundation wants to help via the SCF financial ecosystem.  Unlike for-profit businesses, NFPs rely primarily on donations, grants and tax revenue to fund their operations, rather than for-profit income. And as a result, are usually underfunded, while providing much needed services to society. They more than most segments in society, need our support and encouragement.

Sustainable Communities Foundation will contract with each State UNA to:

  • Deploy the SCF Program in their state, including recruiting all the participating NFP members who will organize the management structure of the State UNA and all its committees, task forces, contractors, volunteers and other elements required to deploy the SCF in that state.
  • Determine the priorities, programs and implementation strategies in their respective states.
  • Assemble a sufficiently inclusive group able to identify all the major problems to be addressed in that state, and to assemble the expertise to create task groups (committees) that can formulate plans to address each of those problems and oversee their implementation.
  • Oversee the recruitment and support of the rest of the participants in that state’s SCF program, including businesses (primarily small and medium sized enterprises – a.k.a. SMEs), students, teachers and the rest of the general public.

Comparison to a Bank

To better understand the makeup of our State UNAs, it might be helpful to compare is roughly to another institution – that of a regional bank corporation, with a corporate headquarters and multiple retail branches. As a corporation it would normally have a board of directors (BOD) who set the priorities and objectives of the corporation. To carry out those priorities and objectives, the BOD recruits and hires the senior officers (C Suite – full list) of the company, tasked with overall administration of the company.  In turn, those senior officers establish various administrative departments under them to carry out the various functions represented by their department, which could include marketing and sales, HR, loan processing, accounting, payroll,  IT, legal, etc., all who serve the corporation as a whole. All of these people and departments are usually located at the corporate headquarters and the public rarely interfaces with them. Then you have the managers and staff that run the various branches of the bank where retail banking takes place, and the managers that oversee all those branches collectively. Those branches represent the part of the corporation (bank) that directly deals with the public – setting up checking and savings accounts, taking deposits and dispensing money, processing loan applications, and more.

Structure of a State UNA

With respect to our State UNAs, each will have an Executive Committee (EC) that would resemble a BOD in that the EC, that sets the priorities and objectives of the State UNA. The EC will likely be composed of volunteers from both the non-profit and local government communities, and others from outside those communities, folks who have demonstrated leadership qualities and who collectively want to lift up their entire state. The EC will recruit, hire and oversea the various “Officers” of the UNA that resemble the C-Suite officers of a corporation. 

Collectively they will recruit and oversee various committees that have the task of developing and implementing various priorities, objectives and strategies programs under the State UNA, aimed at the different major problems that the EC group has identified as the key objectives of the UNA. Each committee will likely be composed of members from the non-profit community that address a common area of interest, and others not affiliated with an existing NFP, and thus want to work as a coordinated effort throughout the state, rather than one-off, independent efforts. To be a member of the EC, or any of the other committees, volunteers to the organization, or a contractor to perform services for the State UNA, that individual first needs to be enrolled in the UNIEX bank.

Examples could be one group/committee/task force that addresses poverty elimination in the state. Others would focus on other problems like food security objectives, blight remediation, job creation, startup incubation (both for profit and nonprofit), renewable energy generation, environmental cleanup and much more. There will also be one special committee, tasked with bringing the program to the general public.

This way the best minds and concerned citizens focused on a common problem, can pool their talents and efforts to maximize their collective effectiveness. This is in contrast to the current environment where there is no common mechanism in place to aggregate a group of non-profits to focus on a common objective.  

A Holding Company

One of the functions of the State UNA is to acquire various properties on behalf of the citizens of the state, including but not limited to distressed real estate, corporations and other businesses, blighted properties, and more. The ownership of those properties can be directly under the State UNA or in and by a separate entity we call a State Holding Company.

What About the Rest of Society?

All of the above focus on the efforts to tackle various collective problems, and how the UNA would address them in a coordinated fashion. What about the rest of society – the business community (like non-profits, small businesses tend to sink or swim on their own, with no outside help), teachers, students and the average person on the street? How do they get engaged in the system and get benefits from it? That brings us to the counterpart to retail bank branches alluded to above. Depending on the population of a state, we will establish either a single State Partner for low population states (like Wyoming, Vermont or Alaska), or multiple Regional Partners for more populated states (like California, Texas and Florida), combined referred to as State/Regional Partners (SP/RPs). 

State/Regional Partners and District Offices

Actual implementation of the SCF Program, in every community in a state, will be managed by the SP/RPs and their agents. They are similar to the managers that oversee all the retail branches for a bank, only in the case of our State UNA, we call those branches our District Offices (DOs). The DOs are the most public facing component of our State UNA. They are staffed with contractor and/or volunteer agents who deal directly with the public and a) recruit the NFPs, SMEs, students, teachers and the general public to join the SCF/UNIEX banking system, and b) provide them with whatever level of support they need to take advantage of the SCF ecosystem.

If you are interested in helping us at the national level, or to help organize your state’s effort, by participating at the State UNA level, becoming a State/Regional Partner, or helping to setup and run a District Office, please contact us here.