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Sovereigns

A distinctive term in OGM's vocabulary, defined in OGM Structure/Bootstrap Needs for a Sovereign.md:

In OGM and its sister organizations, a "sovereign" is an entity, for- or not-for-profit, that has leadership and presence enough to be addressed and make decisions about its future.

A sovereign, in OGM language, is the unit of organization OGM works with and supports. OGM, Lionsberg, ALLFED, and other organizations in Organizations/ are all "sovereigns" in this sense.

What a sovereign needs

Per the bootstrap needs page, a sovereign should have:

• a good name
• web presence
• persistent async messaging (chat channel, email list)
• document library (wiki, Notion, Google Docs)
• project management tools
• charter (mission / vision)
• who we are (at least leadership, and contact info)
• roles we need to fill
• fundraising started (an endpoint to donate to, what we're trying to fund)

This list serves both as a checklist for new sovereigns and as the schema for what gets recorded about each sovereign in Organizations/.

The Sovereign Template

Source: Templates/Sovereign Template.md

The template instantiates the bootstrap needs as a fillable wiki page. The instruction is to copy it into Organizations/ and fill it out. Organizations/Open Global Mind.md is the canonical worked example.

Sovereigns in the wiki

Per Organizations/Organizations.md, the sovereigns currently catalogued:

• Open Global Mind — fully filled-out worked example
• ALLFED — substantive page
• Braneframe — single-line stub (see Orphan Gems)
• FairShare Commons — short stub
• Fission — empty
• Flotilla Tools for Connectors — single-line stub
• Massive Wiki — one-line pointer
• Pairagraph — URL only

The pattern: most sovereigns in the catalogue are placeholders. The Sovereign Template is a strong artifact, but applying it consistently across sovereigns has been done for OGM and partially for ALLFED, and not yet for the rest.

"Membrane"

A related metaphor that appears in OGM Structure/OGM Infrastructure (Evolving).md:

"Experiment with defining our membrane (what protections we need around 'open')"

The "membrane" of a sovereign is the boundary between open and protected — a deliberate counter-metaphor to "wall" or "border." It's permeable, semi-selective, and an organ of the sovereign rather than an external imposition.

Related

• The Five Layers — Governance layer is where sovereign-as-concept lives
• The Generative Commons — what sovereigns participate in together
• Stewardship Hub

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Sources:

• OGM Structure/Bootstrap Needs for a Sovereign.md
• Templates/Sovereign Template.md
• Organizations/Organizations.md
• OGM Structure/OGM Infrastructure (Evolving).md

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