Forum is a multi-stakeholder Platform Cooperative providing verifiable Decision Management to Member-Owner Communities.
Forum is a multi-stakeholder Platform Cooperative providing verifiable Decision Management to Member-Owner Communities.
Forum is evolving.
The Forum Cooperative was founded in Washington State [UBI Number: 604 339 753] in 2018 to be the non-profit ‘foundation home’ for Govurn, Inc., a blockchain-voting startup that was token-funded by Seattle’s (now defunct) RChain Project. A victim to that year’s Crypto Winter, Rchain took Govurn down with it. However, a few survivors of that failed enterprise retained Forum ownership and, in 2021, formally converted it to a for-profit Limited Cooperative Assocation (LCA).
Since that converstion, the Forum LCA Board of Directors and Advisory Stewards have met regularly to plot the Co-op’s 2026 re-emergence as a Digital Decision Utility to be built, operated, used and owned by member stakeholders, or Co-op Patrons.
Forum Patrons will include academics, platform technology partners, operations staff and - most importantly - individual citizens and whole communities that will collectively build and use the Utility’s robust digital tools to enable 21st Century deliberation and decision-making.
Starting in Q2 of 2026, on-boarded Forum members will join one of two Patron Cohorts:
The Platform Cohort will include individuals, organizations and Co-op staff, all working collectively to design, develop and test the Forum’s real world integration of Open Source Decision Technology, Data-Trust Fiduciary Responsibility and Decentralized ID Engagement for the Co-op’s end-user Patrons.
The Citizen Cohort will comprise indiviuals as just themselves or as members of a participating Platform-using community (e.g., HOA or Food Co-op). Benefits of this membership will include: 1) Self-sovereign digital identity); Data ownership; and 3) Verfied Access to robust deliberation, proposal, petition and decision tools.
Of course, as Co-operators, Patrons of Both Cohorts will have Equally-Weighted Votes in ongoing Forum governance. And, when the Co-op is able to turn a profit, each will be rewarded with annual Usage Credits - or ‘rebates’ - commensurate with their participation in Forum’s Utility.
Importantly, like most other cooperatives across the globe, Forum conducts its affairs according to a set of ideals based on the Rochdale Principles.
While current plans are to begin formal, membership-based Patron on-boarding in Q2 of 2026, interested organizations and individuals can pre-register with the Co-op to start co-operating on our ongoing Beta-build of Forum’s Decision Utility.