Community Projects

Kiwi Web App Paves Way for Everyday Democracy


A Collaborative Decision-Making Tool

Editor’s Note: I believe many permaculturists will find this new collaborative decision-making tool of extreme value. Please watch the short, easy-to-understand intro video at top, and learn more about the reasons for its creation via the TEDx video at bottom. Thanks to all involved in creating Loomio! This simple software will help a great many people reshape the world more efficiently and peacefully — a scenario whose time has come. Please share this page widely for maximum positive results!

Loomio, a much-anticipated online collaborative decision-making platform built by a Wellington, New Zealand-based social enterprise startup, launced in August.

Through its 18 months of development, Loomio has fielded wide international interest. The platform is already being used by more than a thousand organisations worldwide, ranging from software projects to grocery stores to political parties. The doors are now open for any group that wants to sign up.

The idea behind the user friendly decision-making tool was sparked by the experience of some of the Loomio team in the Occupy Wall Street movement of 2011.

Team member Jon Lemmon says, “For me, the Occupy movement was essentially saying that everyone should have a say in decisions that affect them. So we set out to use the Internet to make collaborative decision-making easy and accessible for all kinds of groups.”

Based at Enspiral, Wellington’s tech innovation hub, people from diverse professional backgrounds have come together to build a cooperative social enterprise around Loomio — the Loomio Cooperative is a business with a social mission that is collectively owned by its staff.

Former CEO of CCS Disability Services Vivien Maidaborn is a Director of Loomio Cooperative Ltd.

Maidaborn says that the time for community decision-making has arrived. “It has never been more important to talk locally, in our families, communities and workplaces, and at the same time to connect globally.”

The tool has already had on-the-ground impact, internationally as well as locally. Loomio is currently being used to organise an international conference in India, to manage a community-run book store in San Francisco, as well as being used for citywide public consultation by Wellington City Council earlier this year.

Bestselling author and NYU media theorist Douglas Rushkoff is an international advisor to the Loomio project. Rushkoff says, “I’m excited about Loomio because it finally unleashes the Internet’s potential to bring people towards consensus greater than the sum of its parts, rather than debate and polarised discussion that reduces public discourse to the lowest common denominator.”

Try Loomio!

//www.youtube.com/embed/4vCL4I19o9U

3 Comments

  1. Hello Richard,
    loomio is one of the best decision making tool and has becoming a popular among many people.

  2. I have just opened Permaea on Loomio.
    Permaea is a superset group, though, but it’s a start. Check it out, and join it.

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