For Guides to achieve its mission, all stakeholders must have access to -- and a voice in shaping -- the strategic direction and operations of the company and platform. While it's important for everyone to be involved in the decision-making process, it is equally important that the organization can make decisions quickly and isn't bogged down in unnecessary bureaucracy. To meet these two goals, we're implementing a new governance model based on the Fair Share governance model.

Governance: The Fair Share Model

The FairShare model "envisages a society in which every adult becomes a co-owner of the organisations on which they, their family and their community depend". It is inspired by the "knowledge creation model of Wikipedia", the governance model of the John Lewis Partnership, and the values and principles of cooperatives.

For Guides, it provides a level of steward-ownership to everyone involved in creating value on the Guides platform while preserving its social objectives.

Functionally, this means creating an "advocate" board for Guides that includes the founder, investors, employees, creators / curators, ambassadors, and users. Their responsibility is two-fold:

1. To advocate on behalf of their stakeholders by collecting and representing the concerns, desires, and needs of everyone in their stakeholder group.
2. To advocate for Guides by promoting, supporting, and helping to grow the number of stakeholders on the Guides platform.

Each representative will work with other stakeholders as well as with the supporting function within the Guides core team to ensure focus on the people and organizations that are contributing to growth and adding value to the platform:

Finally, to preserve our mission and ensure that no individual stakeholder group can hijack the mission of the company, we plan to partner with the Purpose Foundation by giving them a 1% stake in the business through a "golden share" that enables veto rights on any decision by the board that contradicts the mission of the organization. This is a practical and legal way to ensure the organization always puts purpose first.