Access to the cooperative is earned, never bought.
Future Modern is a workers' cooperative. Standing inside it (Member, Partner, governance, the lot) exists for the people who contribute to the work. There is no tier you can pay to skip into. That's not a marketing line. It's the rule.
We get asked, often, if there's a way to write a check and jump the line. There isn't. The exclusivity is part of the value. For builders and for the clients who hire them.
The upside belongs to the people who shipped it.
Contributors ship the work. Clients pay for it. The value circles back to the people who created it. Provenance, Discernment, Equity.
Three paths in. None of them include a checkout.
Invited by a builder
Someone already inside vouches for you. They take some reputational skin in the game when they do. That's the point. Quiet, reference-driven, no application form.
You'll know if this applies. If you're wondering whether you got invited, you didn't.
Apply with your work
Show us what you've actually built or shipped. We don't care about the platform on it (we left those for a reason). We care about the work, the discipline, and the clients we'd be putting you in front of.
Start an application →Contribute to a project
Pick up a piece of work on an open co-op initiative. Real work, paid to the same 85/12/3 split everyone else uses. Standing accrues from the ledger.
No account needed to offer help. Pick a project and there's a public form on the project page. Admin follows up by email.
See open projects →The vibe we're building toward, if it helps to name it: Raya for the work, or Reddit without the algorithm-bait. Earned rooms. Signal over noise. Workers, not capitalists.
Can I pay to be a Member or Partner? No. Standing comes from invitation, application, or contribution. Donations buy you a thank-you, not a tier.
Where exactly does my money go? 50% to the Treasury (long-horizon runway) and 50% to the Liquidity Pool (the LP deposit is what structurally manufactures $BUILD token value instead of leaving it to market dynamics, non-negotiable). Zero to ops, zero to any individual. While we're still pre-salary, the founder and core team eat ops out of contract revenue. Donations are war-chest only. They should still be growing the cooperative's capital base years from now.
Does the rail change what the cooperative receives? No. Either way, the full donor-intended amount routes to the 60/20/20 pools. The difference is on the donor side: card charges add a small markup (Stripe's 2.9% + $0.30) so the cooperative isn't left short. Crypto skips Stripe entirely, so the donor pays exactly the donation amount with no markup.
Can I refund? Yes. 14-day refund window, no reason required. Funds stay unallocated during the window so nothing's already been spent against your donation.
Why not just sell access? It would be easier. Easier for whom. The whole point of the cooperative is that the people doing the work own the value they create. Selling access would erode that on day one.