Abundance mapping worksheet
The exercise we run in week two. Surfaces what a community already circulates before anyone touches software.
Guides and
reference
Playbooks from fourteen networks, a working glossary, and a knowledge base on circular and reciprocal economies. Written for stewards, borrowed freely by anyone.
Playbooks
Steward handbook
Approving members, setting categories, handling a dispute, and knowing when to say no. Written by stewards, revised every quarter.
Founding circle plan
A six-week plan to get thirty real exchanges logged, which matters far more than signup counts.
Network charter template
A starting document for what your network is, who belongs, what circulates, and how decisions get made.
Corridor agreement template
What two networks settle before opening routing between them: scope, limits, dispute path, and exit.
Data governance guide
Applying CARE principles for Indigenous data governance to an exchange network's records, in practical terms.
How this kind of
economy works
Background reading for anyone deciding whether this model fits their community. Short, opinionated, and grounded in what we have actually seen work.
Why a marketplace is the wrong shape
Marketplaces optimise for transaction volume and price discovery. Both work against reciprocity — a settled price ends the relationship, which is exactly what a community economy needs to keep alive.
Reciprocity versus barter
Barter settles immediately and symmetrically. Reciprocity carries forward: you give because you will receive later, from someone else, through the network. That deferral is what builds the network.
Surplus is more common than scarcity
Most communities are not short of resources — they are short of visibility. Tools sit idle, produce rots, skills go unused. The first job of an exchange is making surplus legible.
Why local-first ranking matters
If discovery is not bounded by place, circulation drifts toward whoever has the most volume. Ahupuaʻa-shaped zones keep the first look local, which keeps the relationships local.
Measuring without deforming
Any metric a network optimises for will bend its behaviour. We count logged exchanges and active reciprocity, and deliberately do not count time in app, sessions, or growth rate.
Indigenous data sovereignty in practice
CARE principles — collective benefit, authority to control, responsibility, ethics — applied to a live system means records stay in the jurisdiction that produced them, and aggregation requires consent.
Terms we use
Hawaiian words, engine terms, and economic vocabulary, in one list.
HAWAIIAN
Ahupuaʻa
A land division running from mountain to sea, containing everything a community needed. The structural pattern behind how Exchange Ave nodes are bounded.
HAWAIIAN
Aloha aku, aloha mai
Aloha given, aloha returned. The reciprocity principle the platform is built on.
ENGINE
Attestation
A member vouching for another member's identity, skill, or standing. Replaces platform-issued trust scores.
ECONOMY
Circular economy
An economy where materials and value are kept in use rather than extracted, consumed, and discarded.
ENGINE
Corridor
An agreed routing path between two networks, letting offers in one become visible in the other. Opened by both sides, never imposed.
HAWAIIAN
Ea
Sovereignty, life, breath. Also the name the app takes at cutover: ea.exchange.
ENGINE
Exchange Engine
The five shared systems — identity, offers, geography, ledger, reciprocity — that every Exchange Ave network runs on.
ENGINE
Federation
Independent networks operating their own governance and data while remaining interoperable through shared contracts.
HAWAIIAN
Hui
A group, club, or association formed around shared purpose.
HAWAIIAN
ʻIke
Knowledge, understanding, awareness. Treated as a listable, exchangeable good.
HAWAIIAN
Konohiki
The steward who managed resource flow within an ahupuaʻa. The historical model for a network steward.
HAWAIIAN
Kuleana
Right and responsibility held together — a privilege that carries an obligation.
HAWAIIAN
Lāhui
The nation, the people. The collective Exchange Ave was built to serve.
ENGINE
Ledger
The tamper-evident record of completed exchanges. Confirmed by both sides, auditable by the network, held locally.
ECONOMY
Mutual aid
Reciprocal support organised by a community for itself, distinct from charity, which flows one direction from outside.
HAWAIIAN
Moʻolelo
Story, history, account. Can be attached to an offer so a thing travels with its context.
ENGINE
Node
A single exchange network. Independently governed, running the shared engine.
HAWAIIAN
Pilina
Relationship, connection, association. The relational layer the ecosystem is organised around.
ECONOMY
Reciprocity
Exchange that builds obligation and relationship rather than settling and ending it.
ENGINE
SovID
Sovereign digital identity. Lets a person carry their standing between networks without a central account provider.
ENGINE
Steward
A person accountable for a network — approving members, setting rules, opening corridors, answering to the community.
ECONOMY
Surplus
Anything a household or organisation holds beyond its own current need. The raw material of circulation.
ENGINE
Token
A network-defined unit used to recognise and account for exchange. Set by each network, not by Exchange Ave.
HAWAIIAN
ʻĀina
Land; literally that which feeds. Place is treated as a first-class relationship in the engine, not a filter.
Something missing?
The library grows from what stewards ask for. If you looked for a guide that is not here, that is useful information.