Our theory of change
Help good people find each other, and act together.
The Moment We Are In is our thesis. This is the experiment we are building on it: our best idea of how ordinary people, working together, can steer towards a brighter future. We will learn, adjust and improve it as we go.
Last updated 27 October 2026The 2030s are here.
Through the winter, into the spring
Entering the 2030s, through the winter
We won't wake up in 2030 to a perfect world. The problems will still be with us. What will have changed is that we've come through the hardest season together. We've rebuilt trust, connected good people, run thousands of small experiments, and laid foundations strong enough to carry us. The path ahead is clear, and nature and society are beginning to heal.
The spring of the 2030s and 2040s
On the far side of the turning, a brighter season opens. Clean energy is abundant and cheap. Advanced technology does the heavy lifting, giving people time for family, community, creativity and care. Everyone's basic needs are met. Rivers run clear, forests and wildlife return, and the climate begins to settle. Our children grow up in communities that look after one another, with every reason to feel hopeful.
We believe that spring isn't guaranteed. It depends on what we do in these next four years.
If, then
From social networking to community networking
The technology to connect us is already in place. Many of us have thousands of connections and followers online. Few of those are relationships of real trust, the kind that lead to proper conversations, great ideas and meaningful action. Too often our attention is harvested and steered towards buying things we don't need.
We believe community networking takes us to the next level. It turns loose links into real friendships, with people nearby or on the other side of the world, around what we care about and what we love doing. It offers a warm, inclusive place to meet and learn, and an alternative to deeper digital isolation.
What I care about, and what I love doing
As AI and robots take on more of our work, many people will face a new question: what do I do with my time, and where do I find meaning? Our network offers two doors, open every day.
Communities of Purpose
Through Care Share Do, people give time, skills and energy to causes that matter to them. Think of it like a great theme park with different zones of purpose. One of the largest is Climateers, for people who want to protect nature and bring us back inside the stable climate the Holocene gave us. There, people find others and projects that need their SPAN superpowers, and together they speed up the solutions as nature heals.
Communities of Interest
Through Cagora, the Community Agora, people find their communities of interest and place, to rest, play, create and enjoy life with others who share their passions. From sci-fi and pickleball to K-pop, quilting, Dungeons and Dragons and vintage motorbikes, these are the things people build part of who they are around. Find your people, from nearby or afar, and the friendships that form there can last a lifetime.
One pathway behind both doors
Every part of the network is designed to move people along that path.
Care, share, do
The foundation. The safety net.
- Connect scattered good people, locally and by shared interest
- Forever-free directories and pages of place and interest
- Local cause pages, such as Food Waste Victoria
The flow. Abundance shared.
- Ideas, introductions, skills and passions
- The charity pool and member voting
- An honest, shared view of progress through the 2030 goals scorecard
The action. The trampoline.
- Microactions, My Do Acts and My Done Diary
- Micro-grants and Tile It Forward
- Action Summits where people design the future together
The four shifts and our levers
- Scattered to connectedCagora maps communities of place and interest, while Care Share Do links people, partners and local groups.
- Fear to imaginationStorytelling, the countdown to the 2030s, and Action Summits where people design the future together.
- Bystanders to doersCare Share Do's microactions, My Do Acts and My Done Diary turn good intentions into small, regular actions that build confidence and agency.
- Captured to sharedThe charity pool, member voting, Tile It Forward and micro-grants put money and decisions in people's hands.
- Free to sustainableThe network stays forever free for members. Scarce, targeted sponsorship advertising covers costs, and half of every sale goes to charities and projects members vote for.
How the network grows and pays its way
- Lay the infrastructure. The platform, its navigation system and seeding, so newcomers never arrive to empty rooms.
- Grow free. Joining is quick, easy and free, with incentives to join early and a promise that the network is forever free. Growth comes from Ripples, supporter pages, word of mouth and shareable marketing collateral.
- Open sponsorship in waves. Once the network is established, we offer scarce, targeted sponsorship advertising at US$25 per postcode until 1 January 2030. It covers costs, and half of every sale goes to the charity pool.
Quick chats and microactions are always free. They come later in the journey, once people have joined and their ripples have spread, and they deepen connection and personal progress as the network grows.
The four years to 2030
- 2026Platinum
Founding year
Founding Believers join and earn the largest points numbers. The first charity pool comes from Tile It Forward sponsorships and local cause sponsor ads. - 2027Gold
Members start steering
Member voting with Voting Points begins at the first Giving Festival. Sponsorship sales reopen. Experiments and connections multiply. - 2028Silver
Weaving deepens
Pressures build as technologies converge. We expect the network to be doing real work as both safety net and trampoline. - 2029Bronze
Last call
The final year to join as an Early Believer, with a points number and a badge. The foundation needs to be in place before the window closes. - 2030Standard
The window closes
No new points numbers or tiers are issued. Members who joined before 2030 keep receiving their points every year, for life.
Community is both a safety net and a trampoline. It catches us when we fall, and propels us through the chaos towards a future worth wanting. Our job over the next four years is simple to say and worth everything to do: help good people find each other, and help them act together.
Measuring the weave
Every other outcome depends on the size and spread of the weave.
Supporting measures Proposed
- Communities of place and interest with active pages
- Connections that become conversations and collaborations
- My Do Acts completed and Done Diary entries
- Sponsorship revenue, charity pool size and the share steered by members
- Local communities reaching a tipping point of engagement
- Members reporting more connection, purpose and hope
Assumptions and risks Proposed
We assume
- Many good people want to help but are disconnected from each other
- Relationships built before a crisis hold up during one
- Small, visible actions build agency and spread through tight clusters
- Early-joiner rewards create real urgency without feeling like a gimmick
We watch for
- Overwhelm: too much doom drives people away, so hope leads
- Empty rooms and slow growth in a window that does not wait
- Polarisation creeping in, so we keep to common ground
- Trust: the charity pool must stay transparent and clean
The design of the experiment
For the systems thinkers among us, here's how the network is intentionally designed, and the role each part plays.
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The skeleton: navigation
The foundation is a platform with a navigation system that helps anyone land quickly in something local they care about or love doing. Door A leads to causes through Care Share Do. Door B leads to interests and passions through Cagora. Every path is built to be found in a click or two.
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Seeding: no empty rooms
Most new platforms fail because people arrive to find nobody there. We solve this by loading in what already exists before the people come: organisations, activities, events and jobs. Newcomers discover things on their doorstep they never knew about, from the local men's shed to the repair cafe.
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Reasons to join
Joining takes about five minutes, with no password and very little personal information. Every stakeholder, whether an individual, organisation or community, gets real value that is forever free.
- Reward Points and Voting Points: the earlier you join, the bigger your number (see the incentives to join early, below).
- Profile cards: your presence across the communities you belong to.
- Boards: your card turned into a personal launchpad for the wider web, with one click to your favourite podcasts, news, search tools and socials, your chosen cause and interest communities, and the organisations you work with, volunteer for or support. Boards also help people and organisations get found, whether for volunteers, donors, work or customers.
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Personalised pathways: your SPAN superpowers
Everyone brings superpowers: their Skills, Passions, Assets and Networks. Based on yours, we suggest relevant microactions, and give you ready-made prompts so your own AI can find even more opportunities to put your superpowers to work. AI becomes a helper for human connection, not a replacement for it.
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Reasons to act
Once people have joined and their ripples have spread, the network becomes rich enough for deeper engagement. These are always free, and they grow in value as the network grows.
- Quick chats: no-risk conversations with people who share your interests and concerns, without handing over your email address.
- Ripples: watch the experiment unfold. See who joined because of your invitation, who they invited in turn, how far your ripple has spread, the microactions happening within it, and the sponsorships flowing from it.
- My Do Acts: the microactions you plan to do.
- My Done Diary: the record of what you have completed, which also feeds your Ripple.
The incentives to join early
Everything above is forever free. The incentives below shrink every day until 2030, so the best time to join is now.
Your points number is the days left until 1 January 2030 on the day you join. You receive that many Reward Points and Voting Points every year, for life. Join today and your number is 1,162. Join five days before 2030 and it is five.
| Points | What they do |
|---|---|
| Reward Points | Loyalty-style discounts on events, books, courses, AI tools and other offerings across the network. |
| Voting Points | Votes at the yearly Giving Festival that decide how the members' share of the charity pool is distributed. The more points you hold, the more say you have over where real dollars go. |
| Join year | Badge |
|---|---|
| 2026 | Platinum Early Believer and Founding Believer |
| 2027 | Gold Early Believer |
| 2028 | Silver Early Believer |
| 2029 | Bronze Early Believer |
| 2030 on | Standard free member |
Everyone who joins before 2030 is an Early Believer, and their badge shows the year they joined. Those who join in 2026 are also Founding Believers.
Sponsorship advertising and the charity pool
Once the network is established, we open scarce, targeted sponsorship advertising in waves, at US$25 per postcode until 1 January 2030. This freemium model keeps the network forever free for members while covering costs. Sponsorships include postcode and larger tiles on Tile It Forward, and local cause or interest pages such as Food Waste Victoria. Each cause page carries three sponsors, each with at least twelve months of advertising that starts once all three slots are sold.
Half of every sale goes to the charity pool, and members vote on which non-profits and projects benefit.
The pool closes 15 November. From Giving Tuesday, members have two weeks to distribute their Voting Points across approved, member-nominated charities and projects. Funds are distributed by 31 December. The 2026 pool is split 20% Wikimedia Foundation and 80% micro-grants, with member voting from 2027.
How social tipping points spread
Ripples are our experiment in positive social tipping points, held with humility. Research by Damon Centola suggests a committed minority of around 25% can flip a group's norms. We don't expect our work to tip the whole world. Tipping points happen at a local level too, though, and some communities in the experiment may tip: a significant share of people choosing to come together and engage around these ideas. Each community that tips becomes a working example for others to learn from.
It is not just a matter of telling a friend. Research on how ideas and behaviours spread points to a few lessons:
| Source | Key insight | What it means for Ripples |
|---|---|---|
| Malcolm Gladwell, The Tipping Point (2000) | Ideas spread through the Law of the Few (connectors, mavens and persuaders), a sticky message, and the power of context. | Find and invite connectors, mavens and persuaders deliberately. Make each microaction memorable and easy. |
| Malcolm Gladwell, Revenge of the Tipping Point (2024) | Groups often tip at around a quarter to a third, and each community's shared story shapes what spreads. | Tell a local story in each community, not one global message. |
| Everett Rogers, Diffusion of Innovations | Adoption moves from innovators to early adopters to the majority; crossing to the mainstream is the hardest part. | Treat founding members as early adopters and design the bridge to the wider community. |
| Duncan Watts, network research | A receptive community matters more than a few special influencers. | Invest in ready communities, not celebrity champions. |
| Damon Centola, complex contagion | Behaviour change needs repeated nudges from several trusted people, so it spreads through tight clusters. | Build dense local clusters rather than chasing reach. |
What collapse science tells us
Three thinkers, read together, explain why this moment matters and what to do with it.
| Thinker | Core idea | What it means for us |
|---|---|---|
| Peter Turchin (Seshat database, structural-demographic theory) | Instability builds when wages stall, elites multiply faster than top positions, and states run short of money. He forecast the turbulent 2020s back in 2010. | We are in a stressed phase of the cycle. The pressure is visible in the data. |
| Luke Kemp, Goliath's Curse (2025) | Civilisations are domination systems that fail through inequality, extraction and hoarded power. Ordinary people were often better off after collapse, though today we are one global system with nowhere to walk away to. | Concentrated power is the root cause, which matches our theme of abundance captured versus abundance shared. The remedy is spreading power out. |
| Thomas Homer-Dixon, polycrisis | Tightly coupled systems carry shocks from one crisis into the next. Good ideas can cascade the same way if they are prepared before the window opens. | Build connected, ready communities now, during the 2026 to 2030 chrysalis. |
Turchin diagnoses the pressure, Kemp names the cause, and Homer-Dixon offers the strategy. Together they underpin our thesis: weave people into real relationships and shared power before the window of chaos peaks.
From collapsology to mutual aid
French researchers Pablo Servigne and Raphaël Stevens coined collapsology in How Everything Can Collapse (2015), arguing that industrial civilisation is fragile because its systems are tightly linked and dependent on fossil fuels. In Another End of the World Is Possible (2018), with Gauthier Chapelle, they argued facts alone are not enough: people also need ways to work through grief, fear and meaning, which they called collapsosophy.
In Mutual Aid, Servigne and Chapelle show cooperation is as much a law of nature as competition, and that people in disasters mostly help one another rather than panic. Rebecca Solnit found the same in A Paradise Built in Hell. Critics warn collapsology can slide into fatalism, yet we believe the arc from alarm to inner resilience to mutual aid sits close to our Optimistic Alarmist stance.
We rehearse the crisis to build the community
Milton Friedman observed in 1982 that in a crisis, the actions taken depend on the ideas that are lying around. Homer-Dixon calls renewal out of breakdown catagenesis, and it only happens when alternatives are ready like seeds in the soil. COVID-19 showed the gap: plans and simulations existed, yet practised consensus did not, so most countries improvised.
Our answer runs from seed to plan to rehearsal:
- Seed: the ideas vault holds ideas ready to plant when a window opens.
- Plan: the plans vault, through 10P, captures and prepares them as ready plans.
- Rehearsal: Action Summits and simulations let communities speed run what could go wrong and agree on what to do.
The rehearsal matters even if the crisis never comes. The troubleshooting itself builds trust, a shared language and relationships that carry over to whatever shock does arrive. Daniel Aldrich's disaster research found social ties predicted neighbourhood recovery better than money or infrastructure. Our own inaugural Food Waste Action Summit found the same: the bonds formed in speed networking, by meeting people and sharing ideas on a real issue, left participants elevated by the human connection they had created.
Closing the ingenuity gap
In The Ingenuity Gap (2000), Homer-Dixon argued that as problems grow more complex and fast-moving, our need for workable ideas and the institutions to apply them grows faster than our ability to supply them. Collapse risk lives in that gap. We believe the ideas vault, the plans vault, 10P and Action Summits are our ingenuity-gap closers: essential infrastructure for a turbulent decade, not optional workshops.
Be part of the experiment.
Join free at Care Share Do, choose what you care about, and see who else is out there.