Templates · Mutual aid networks

Solidarity, not charity. Receipts, not faith.

For mutual aid networks, pods, and hubs running peer-to-peer support without a hierarchy. Shared pot, group decisions on disbursement, every contribution and every receipt visible to participants — the operational transparency the movement principles demand, in tooling sized for grassroots organizing.

Quick answer

EnDAO is the shared treasury and decision tool for mutual aid networks — neighborhood pods, disaster-response networks, queer and trans support funds, immigrant solidarity groups, climate adaptation collectives. Contributions land in a shared pot no single coordinator controls; disbursement requests are voted on or vetted per the network's own process; every dollar is on a record participants can audit. Built for non-hierarchical organizing where transparency IS the trust mechanism, not a feature on top.

What this looks like

A page from one mutual aid pod's ledger.

Northside Mutual Aid Pod · 47 participating neighbors

Q1 2026
Jan 12Pod contributions · 41 participants+$4,820.00
Feb 03Rent assistance · request 17 · vetted by 3 stewards−$1,200.00
Feb 21Grocery support · monthly distribution · 12 households−$2,400.00
Mar 14Mutual fund transfer · solidarity to Southside pod−$600.00

The infrastructure gap

What makes mutual aid hard to sustain past the initial energy, and what shared infrastructure preserves.

Mutual aid networks spike during crises and quietly atrophy in the long stretches between. The work happens in group texts, cash apps under one organizer's name, and spreadsheets nobody else can see. Transparency is the movement's organizing principle, but the tools that scale with it haven't existed. EnDAO is built so the next pod doesn't reinvent the same wheel from scratch.

What goes wrong

  • Cash app under one organizer's name — single point of failure, no shared visibility
  • Disbursement decisions made in DMs or chat threads with no durable record
  • New participants can't catch up on the history without asking three people for context
  • Treasury opacity contradicts the non-hierarchical principles the network is supposed to embody
  • No clean way to receive donations from people outside the immediate network without pairing with a fiscal sponsor

What EnDAO does

  • Shared pot held collectively, with multi-steward approval thresholds the network sets itself
  • Disbursement requests recorded with the vote tally and the participants who weighed in
  • Full history visible to every participant from the moment they join
  • Transparency built in by default — the architecture matches what the principles already promise
  • Pair with a fiscal sponsor when 501(c)(3) status helps; the EnDAO record reconciles to the sponsor's books

What’s built in

The things every mutual aid network needs, already there.

Shared pot, no single keeper

Funds held collectively with multi-steward approval. No coordinator can move money alone. If a steward burns out or steps back, the pot keeps working.

Request workflows

Participants submit disbursement requests; vetting happens per your network's own process — steward vote, consensus, lottery, whatever you use. Every decision recorded with the rationale.

Participant-visible ledger

Every contribution and every disbursement visible to network participants by default. New people see the full history when they join, not just what someone tells them.

Pairs with fiscal sponsorship

When you need tax-deductible giving or grant eligibility, pair with a fiscal sponsor. The EnDAO ledger reconciles to the sponsor's books; the sponsor handles 501(c)(3) compliance.

Works for

All kinds of mutual aid networks.

  • Neighborhood mutual aid pods
  • Disaster-response networks
  • Queer and trans support funds
  • Immigrant solidarity collectives
  • Climate adaptation and resilience groups
  • Abolitionist bail and defense funds
  • Tenant solidarity and rent relief networks
  • Food security and grocery cooperatives

Common questions

Questions mutual aid networks ask first.

How is this different from Brightest or Action Network?
Brightest is the closest purpose-built mutual aid tool, focused on volunteer coordination and program management. Action Network is campaigns and organizing software. EnDAO is specifically the financial-decision layer — the shared pot, multi-steward approvals, transparent ledger. We coexist with both: Brightest or Action Network for organizing, EnDAO for the money side.
Do we need to incorporate as a nonprofit to use EnDAO?
No. Mutual aid networks frequently operate as unincorporated groups or pair with a fiscal sponsor for tax-deductible giving. EnDAO works for both. If you incorporate later, the ledger continues — no migration.
Can the network make decisions by consensus rather than majority vote?
Yes. Approval thresholds are configurable per decision type — steward vote, full participant consensus, steward consensus with veto, lottery, or any pattern your network already runs on. EnDAO records the decision and the participants who weighed in; the decision-making process is yours.
How do we vet disbursement requests without surveilling the people we're trying to help?
The level of vetting documentation is your call. Some networks record only the amount and stewards' approval; others require a description; others have a sliding scale by amount. EnDAO surfaces what the network has agreed to require — and nothing more.
What happens when our pod splits or merges with another?
The historical ledger persists. A split creates two new groups, each inheriting their share of the pot and the history that brought them there. A merger consolidates the records without losing either pod's prior decisions. Pods grow, change, and reorganize without breaking institutional memory.

Related templates

EnDAO also runs…

Ready to set up a mutual aid network?

Or browse other templates