Communities around the world have been saving together via saving clubs for centuries, from passanakus in Bolivia to hagbads in Somalia. Kin, a co-op launched in February this year, is trying to adapt these practices to modern-day needs via a digital platform that enables people to save together and support each other.
The idea for the co-op developed during the Covid pandemic, when co-founder Rob Callender, a climate activist and yoga instructor, found himself unable to continue generating a living income, which, in turn, affected his ability to repay a bank loan.
Prior to becoming a climate activist, Callender had a short career in acting, during which he worked on a screenplay around climate change.
“I got very influenced by that work,” he recalls. This prompted him to get involved in groups like Greenpeace and Extinction Rebellion.
“I became a protester in a big way,” he says, “and as an actor without formal education and much of a platform that felt for me like the best use of my energies.” But he soon felt he wanted to contribute in a different way as well.
“We can protest and protest,” he warns, “but the emissions keep going up. We’re not changing the system, and as much as we try that, even the reforms that are happening are so minimal and so small compared to the kind of worsening actions that are happening.”
He recalls: “I was researching how to look at money, but from a grassroots, movement-building angle.
“When Covid hit I lost my yoga job and I wasn’t able to pay back my bank loan. The bank froze my loan and destroyed my credit score. So I really experienced that for myself.
“I realised I had nothing in my bank account, and I didn’t even have enough money on my Oyster card to get to work, to earn money to get to the next day.”
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His group of activist friends stepped in to help him back on his feet, which made him think some more about the potential of saving groups.
His friend and co-founder of Kin, Balgiisa Sheik Ahmed, not only welcomed the idea of a savings group, but also shared her own experience: her Somali family had set up a savings club to pay for her law degree.
Through further research Callender realised that different parts of the world had their own versions of saving cubs. He pitched the idea of setting up an “anti capitalist community saving network” during a talk at the Pelican House in East London, which proved to be a sell-out.
“People liked the idea so we got a group together, we founded the first iteration of the
co-op. We knew immediately we wanted it to be a co-op.”
After receiving advice from Anthony Collins Solicitors, they decided set up as a multi-stakeholder co-op.
“We’re half led by the workers, half led by the people who use the platform, with a very minor weighting towards the workers in a deciding vote,” says Callender.
“We wanted to be a not-for-profit so we put in an asset lock and a not-for-profit clause within our rules. And that’s really important so that any money that’s generated by the movement of money through Kin isn’t going to be distributed to anyone. It either goes into the reserves or it goes into funds that the group decides are worthy of our aims.”
Rather than being a lender, Kin simply hosts the money of members’ groups in its bank accounts, providing the space for members to save together without having to register as an organisation and apply for their own bank account.
“We don’t want to make loans. We actually don’t want to get in the way of communities at all,” says Callender.
When members contribute money to their group, the money belongs to their group. This means that Kin is only responsible for providing hosting services and, as such, it is important for group members to know and trust each other. Groups also appoint admins who approve new members and requests for money from group members.
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Kin offers different types of groups including traditional rotating funds, where everyone in the group contributes to the common pot and every week or month one person takes the whole pot.
Another option is the food co-operative group, which enables members to pay a weekly amount to buy food in bulk together – this is currently being used by Cooperation Town. Kin can also be used for community purchases, allowing neighbours, friends or family to purchase something together or to support a common cause and solidarity projects, to enable individuals to contribute to a common pot and use the amount raised as a community to purchase something together.
“We partnered with Cooperation Town and their network of food co-ops, because it works really well for that,” says Callender. “They’ve all been doing it with cash and a Tupperware up till now. And now Kin lodges every single payment that’s made, you can see it on your group page, making an account for you in a way that’s really easy to follow.”
Kin was developed using open source software with initial funding for the project coming from an individual donation to cover its first six months. The co-op, which charges individual members £1 a month as an admin fee, is now trying to secure grants to continue funding its operations. The aim, says Callender, is for it to support itself by acquiring enough members.
The co-op has a code of conduct which members have to abide by or have their membership suspended or terminated. But what happens if members are unable to contribute? In this instance, they must notify their group within 14 days. Afterwards, they may be asked to settle the balance and to leave the group immediately and/or be expected to make an extra 10% payment. Members who have received more than what they have contributed cannot leave their group, except under special circumstances and only then by resolution of 75% of the whole group.
Callender hopes the co-op can continue growing. So far, 20 groups have registered to use Kin, with 135 individuals actively using the platform, and 500 registered users.
He says that selling the idea of saving collectively has been a challenge in some communities, due to a UK tendency to value privacy and reluctance to talk about money issues.
“I think we need to break through this cultural barrier that we’ve created,” he adds. “We think of everything in intensely private terms, and that means no one really sees what’s going on. And it means that you feel alone. You feel very much like your situation is completely unique to you. I think we need to break through this cultural barrier that we’ve created.”
Kin, Callender insists, is part of “a different way of thinking about money altogether”.
