15 min read
For cooperatives, communities, and intentional projects already on the ground. Six reasons, what stays yours, what it costs, and who this is not for.
§ For whom
This page is not for people thinking about starting a community. It is for people who have already started one. A cooperative on land. A community in a building. A regenerative project with members and a track record. The question you are weighing is not should we exist, but are we better off alone or in a federation.
Syntrociety is a federation of . Each is sovereign over its own land, members, governance, and finances. What binds the federation is a shared charter, a shared practice, and shared infrastructure that no single Lab would build alone.
What follows is the case. Six concrete reasons, what stays yours, what it costs, and an honest paragraph on who this is not for. If you read all of it and feel nothing, that is information.
Becoming a Lab is something specific. It differs from being a like-minded organisation, becoming a Friend of the federation, or running a sympathising project. What makes a Lab a Lab is that it operates in the federation as what we call a cell: autonomous in its own reality, fractal-part of the shared ground, co-formative in what the federation as a whole means.
For the working-out of that principle, read /cell-principle. For the practical questions that follow below, that working-out gives meaning, because it shows what we ask of a Lab. Not as candidacy-criteria, but as what cell-being actually entails.
§ What binding asks of you
Two SYFERS tools register what your Lab does. The same registration is what funders increasingly require. One stream of effort, not two.
The Lab tool
Daily registration of what your Lab does.
Members, decisions, plant register, energy data, financial flows, project log. Outputs flow automatically into the public SYFERS repository, accessible to researchers and stakeholders.
Document Intelligence
Filing cabinet, writing helper, research buddy.
Every document searchable. Drafts new ones in house style. Hosts the consent-based proposal flow with stand-aside, object, and a clean decision trail. Linked to assemblies, deadlines, partner meetings.
The funding angle
The work the tools do is the work that funders ask about. Doing what the federation asks is what funders ask. Registration becomes a byproduct of being a Lab, not a separate task on top.
What policy frameworks ask for turns out to be the same as what the place where the work happens needs.
EU Mission SoilHorizon Europe Cluster 6New European BauhausPortugal 2030ENEI 2030Algarve 2030CLLD/LEADEREAFRDEIT Food
How Labs are supported, in detail§ Your governance
Your Lab works on consent as method at every level, not only at federation level. This is no preference; it is a Charter principle. We choose consent because it is the only method structurally consistent with the other principles that bind us. Conflict is information; welcoming and integrating every objection is how a community learns. A method that handles conflict elsewhere than in decision-making does not honour this principle.
Sociocracy is the most developed implementation of consent. Quaker sense-of-the-meeting and dynamic governance are related forms that may structurally hold the same, provided they integrate every paramount objection. Other forms, such as majority voting or charismatic leadership, do not, because they handle conflict by overruling or assignment, not by integration.
Whether consent as method works at every scale, we do not yet know. The federation is in formation; its largest open questions are practical and concern scale. What we do know is that a Lab signing the Charter commits to this method. For whom this does not fit, that is no Lab. This is not judgement; it is clarity.
See Consent in The Lens for the syntropic principle behind this choice.
§ What stays · what it costs
Stays yours
What it costs
§ Not for you if
This path is not light. It chafes. It asks for maturity. For some readers this is not the right path, and honesty asks to name that.
§ An open question
Sulitânia has grown on one piece of land. One quinta, one community, one shared daily practice. That is where we have built our Lab experience. What we know about living in a Lab, we know from this form.
Cooperatives formed differently, members who live close to each other but not together on one piece of land, communities anchored in a building or a neighbourhood rather than a piece of ground, can also consider federation. Whether that can truly be a Lab, and how, we do not know from experience. We have not yet lived with that form.
What we do want is to investigate together. When your initiative works in a form different from ours, and you are considering federation, get in touch. We bring what we know about the federation's discipline, you bring what you know about your form. What emerges, emerges in that conversation, not before.
Three years of consent meetings, conflict, and learning. Read what we have built, and what we have not.Sulitânia · Castro Marim, PT (in preparation)
§ Before you write
Compass holds the sixteen SYFERS conditions every federation Lab uses to read itself. Place your Lab on each one before you write to us. The mirror does not score you, and we do not see your answers. It tells you where you are, and where other Labs have grown.
§ How it begins
You write to the federation, describing what you have built and why federation is on your mind. We come visit your Lab, or you come visit Sulitânia, or we meet online if that is all that fits. No pitch. A conversation about your work and ours.
You read the charter, the practice, and the existing handbook. You meet with current Council. You discuss it within your Lab. You decide whether the five principles fit what you are building, or whether they would force a shape that is not yours.
Your Lab signs the charter, registers a first decision in Council, and begins onboarding to the registration trail. The federation publishes your Lab page. You are now a member. From day one, the thirty-day portability also applies.
Write to us. Tell us what you have built and why federation is on your mind. We will respond within a week with a few questions and, if it fits, an invitation to talk.
You are not signing anything by writing. You are opening a conversation about whether your work and ours belong in the same field.
§ Within the broader methodology
The anchor gap (Lab form on a single piece of land versus distributed) is the open question; the other gaps are more developed.
Read boundary work →§ Frequently asked questions for this page
That is an open question. Sulitânia has grown on one piece of land, one shared daily practice. That is where we have built our Lab experience. Cooperatives formed differently, members who live close to each other but not together on one piece of land, communities anchored in a building or a neighbourhood, can also consider federation. Whether that can truly be a Lab, and how, we do not know from experience.
What we do want is to investigate together. When your initiative works in a form different from ours, get in touch. We bring what we know about the federation's discipline, you bring what you know about your form. What emerges, emerges in that conversation, not before.
→ See this answer on the central FAQ pageAbout twelve weeks from first contact to Charter signing. Three phases: a first real conversation (4 weeks), reading and internally discussing Charter and Practice (4 weeks), signing and attending the first Council (4 weeks).
For some cooperatives it takes longer because internal governance adjustment is needed. For others it can be faster, though the federation does not push for speed. The time it takes to truly decide is usually the time needed to truly be ready.
→ See this answer on the central FAQ pageAn annual federation contribution whose scale and structure is set in Council. The first Labs are working this out together, so we cannot name a fixed amount. Federation is built on shared value, not on profit margin.
Beyond the financial contribution, onboarding takes about 6 to 12 weeks of work: setting up your Lab page, integrating with SYFERS registration, presenting at Council. Plus 2 to 4 hours per month for Council participation, varies by activity. No one-time setup fees, no hidden charges.
→ See this answer on the central FAQ pageStays yours: your land, your members, your finances, your governance at Lab level, your name and identity, your relationships with third parties (funders, partners, neighbours, contracts), your right to leave without penalty.
Changes: you sign the Charter (five principles), you practice open registration via SYFERS, you invest time in federation Council, you commit to consent in federation matters (you can object; you cannot ignore), you pay the annual federation contribution. For the rest the Lab remains the Lab it is.
Read more at /become-a-lab, or /charter
→ See this answer on the central FAQ pageYes. The Charter contains a 30-day clause: a Lab can leave within 30 days, no penalty, no negotiation. Your land, members, governance, and all data remain yours.
The federation is structurally different from a franchise or a network that uses lock-in. We would rather see you stay because it works, not because leaving is too expensive. When the federation no longer fits, leaving is the honest choice, and federation discipline protects that.
→ See this answer on the central FAQ pageThe federation requires no specific legal form. Sulitânia is a Cooperativa Integral, CRL under Portuguese law, but that is how Sulitânia has been formed, not what the federation demands.
What the federation does require is that you are an entity that can sign with legal validity (Charter signing requires legal capacity). Cooperative, association, foundation, or another legal form: all are possible when they fit what you do. The federation adapts; you do not have to change your legal form.
Read more at /implementation-gap
→ See this answer on the central FAQ pageYou can leave. The Charter contains a 30-day clause that guarantees data portability: you can take your share of the records, and the Lab can arrange your removal from the federation within 30 days.
Your departure carries no financial penalty. You do not have to negotiate. What you have built within the Lab (relationships, experience, documents you contributed to) remains your own experience; what the Lab has built remains with the Lab. How the federation handles data of departing members in the longer term is a question still being weighed by Council.
→ See this answer on the central FAQ pageWith an email. Write to the federation, describe what you have built and why federation comes to mind. We answer within a week.
What follows is not a sales conversation. We want to understand your work before we offer anything, and you want to understand the federation before you sign anything. We come to you, or you come to Sulitânia, or we begin online when that fits. Twelve weeks later you know whether this fits, or not.
→ See this answer on the central FAQ page