Should we apply to the CUK platform coop accelerator project?

Context: In recent weeks I've been spending time thinking about the needs of the cooperative development sector and how they might be addressed. I've spoken to a good number of people in that process and considered various options. I've come to the conclusion that a two-pronged solution is required:

1. To bring together the existing cadre of people involved in cooperative development work, both 'pros' and 'barefoot' types, to provide mutual support and to leverage their knowledge and expertise to enable this small group to meet a growing level of demand.

2. To engage with the wider cooperative sector and beyoned to enable financial and other support to flow in so that the level of resources within the coop dev sector can increase, growing the number of people and skill levels within the sector. This is best delivered through a common digital platform.

This makes us a platform co-op by the definnition as expressed at http://unfound.coop

If we're able to get on to this scheme it will of course be highly useful in terms of building our profile within the co-op sector.

Thoughts?

I think that we should, even if it only forces us to get our shit together around mission, values, governance etc. thru the application process: The application (by end March) would need us to define:
1. Purpose - vision,mission,values
2. Current steering group, governance model
3. Business idea - market research
4. Technology - do we have an actual MVP?
5. Membership model
and finally
6. The three main challenges we face
They also want a business plan as supporting documentation

I've made a start.

I was about to post a link here to my working doc, then I noticed that @jonnygordonfarleig is part of this group, and also one of the Unfounded project organisers, and I don't know what the potential conflict of interest/ethics are on this. Jonny, your thoughts?

Hey @graham2, well, I will only be one of five application assessors. I've also seen the docs of others who will apply - i.e. Fairmondo UK - so I don't see it as a problem. I guess I'll see the majority of the working doc in your application, answering the questions Mark has outlined above. So up to you!

I think if you restrain yourself from working on any application Jonny, but contribute to any wider discussions (such as vision and mission) that would be useful. However you would still need to declare a potential conflict to Unfound IMO.

Here's a link to an early working draft. Please add to it as you see fit, but let's limit access for the moment until we have something that we are happy to share elsewhere. https://docs.google.com/document/d/10hcVtjsh-LIzo--RoFzErxeUKeCy3TMvpCO4kqpQYfY
I'm doing this on my aging and tiny iPad so I'm not sure right now what level of access this link might afford. Let me know if it needs attention.

We've got edit rights so should be good

Excellent. Feel free to do so. Very happy to talk about this also.

On my "to do" list when I get some time