Shared Society Startups:
An Earned Governance Accelerator

A proposal to the Spungen Foundation

Overview

Working together is a powerful way to build shared society. Having a shared goal with mutual benefit creates healthy collaboration. Shared, earned equity and governance creates healthy deliberation. Success together creates a virtuous flywheel for organic growth of a thriving shared society.

We propose a small pilot accelerator for Shared Society Startups.

The Program

The accelerator will be a normal startup accelerator: mentors, a curriculum, networking.

There are two differences.

The first is the shared-society element. To qualify, a team must have diverse membership. There must be at least one Jewish Israeli member and at least one Palestinian or Arab Israeli member, and there may be some members from around the globe who may broaden perspective. To receive the stipend, a team must include at least 50% shared-society membership.

The working sessions of the program will run virtually to ensure that travel restrictions and geographical location are not barriers to participation. Local events will be held for recruitment, kickoff and graduation; exact locations may depend on team member locations and travel barriers.

The second is the shared-governance element, a tested and piloted toolkit that empowers members to earn equity and governance through peer-reviewed work. The toolkit includes equity-drops via task tracker, tested legal frameworks via SlicingPie or Fairmint, ranked-choice work-weighted voting, and a sortition-based steering committee for larger groups. As presented at Metagov and the Ownership Economy Summit in NYC, October 2025. Teams may adapt the toolkit to their needs.

Impact or double-bottom-line startups are encouraged. Small stipends tied to milestones provide incentive and inclusiveness.

Vision

Shared society work should be experienced as a way to thrive, not as a burden or a sacrifice.

Right now, people who invest in shared society bear a cost. Our vision is to show that diverse teams are more successful together. With an ecosystem thriving and growing, when it is beneficial to be a member of shared society, then we will see organic change.

Partners & Participants

Dr. Nasreen Haddad Haj-Yahya — Co-Founder & Co-CEO, NAS Research & Consulting (Arab-Jewish consultancy); Director, Arab-Jewish Relations Program, Israel Democracy Institute. Will help as mentor and with recruitment of participants.
Pesia's Kitchen — Israeli food-rescue and food-bank non-profit serving Jewish, Arab, Bedouin, secular, and religious communities. Participant interested in shared society.

The Ask

We are requesting $25,000 for an 8-week pilot cohort to run August 15 – October 15, 2026.

Preparation of materials, outreach and advisor commitments	$2,000
Accelerator program management and technical support of teams	$8,000
Travel and events	$5,000
Milestone-based stipends	$10,000
Total	$25,000

Up to 12 teams of 2-5 participants each will be recruited, based on interest, idea quality, and demonstrated commitment to shared society work. The program will be based on successful startup accelerators for working adults such as Founder Institute, but will be more formative than selective and will be adapted for greater flexibility in order to meet the genuine needs and goals of participants.

Outcomes, Measurement, and Flywheel

The aspirational outcome is successful, durable ventures; but the result we most want to demonstrate is shared society itself: that diverse teams are more successful together, and that this success compounds.

We will measure, on a timeline running to the showcase with a six-month follow-up survey to each cohort:

Who we reached — applications, acceptance rate, and cohort makeup, including the Jewish Israeli / Palestinian or Arab Israeli / global balance, and household income at intake.
Shared-society collaboration — formation and persistence of mixed teams; cross-group working relationships sustained through and beyond the cohort; and equity actually shared across group lines.
What teams produced — evidence of traction, completed experiments and products, and mentor evaluations.

We report on a custom IRIS+ framework based on our theory of change and the above rubric, in the themes of Diversity and Inclusion; Employment; and the SDGs of Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions and Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure.

We will also help promote the work of the teams. Success together creates visible benefit, visible benefit draws more diverse teams, and the thriving shared society ecosystem grows organically.