DOC 06 — FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
Ask us the hard ones.
If your question isn't here, bring it to the weekly Discord or contact us — hard questions are welcome.
§ 01 — MONEY
The $20,000, the $500, and what happens to it.
Land, your home's construction, and the shared infrastructure that makes the village work — wells, solar, roads, common buildings. It's pooled with the other founders' contributions and donations to build Phase One.
No. Once it's in the ground — literally — it can't be pulled back out. What you keep is a lifetime right to return to any available CLC home, in this village or future ones. The membership agreement puts all of this in writing before you pay anything.
Because you receive something in return — a home in the village. The IRS only treats gifts with no personal benefit as charitable. Donations through the Give page, where you receive nothing but a receipt, are fully deductible.
Yes — 40 hours a month of community work covers your full monthly contribution. Building, gardening, cooking, repairs, teaching, admin, care work. Mix and match: 20 hours plus $250 works too.
Founding Member Contributions aren't collected until there's land to build on — that's the point of the interest list stage. Donations to the land fund are spent on exactly what they're given for. If the mission ever became impossible, nonprofit law requires remaining assets to go to another charity with a similar mission — never to any individual.
§ 02 — LIVING THERE
Privacy, family, pets, and rules.
No. Your income, savings, job, beliefs, and life remain entirely yours. The village shares infrastructure and about ten hours of work a week — not bank accounts, not ideology. Think "very good neighbors with a shared farm," not commune.
Your own private home with a locking door, quiet hours the whole village honors, and no obligation to attend anything. Shared meals and gatherings are there when you want them, invisible when you don't.
Both, yes. Home sizes will vary to fit households, and a village with kids and dogs in it is the kind we want to live in. Specific pet agreements (numbers, livestock, etc.) get settled with the founding members.
Members do, inside the nonprofit's legal guardrails. Daily agreements live in the Living Guide (community-editable); the board holds fiduciary duties it legally can't hand over — keeping homes affordable and the mission intact.
§ 03 — TRUST & TIMELINE
The questions we'd ask before joining anything.
Don't take our word for it. Search EIN 39-2800509 in the IRS Tax Exempt Organization Search ↗. Read our filings as they're published. Come to a Discord call and ask anything. Legitimacy is verifiable, not claimed.
Honestly: we don't know yet. Land must close first, then permits, then construction — each with its own timeline. What we promise is real-time transparency: the land-fund ledger and phase tracker on this site are the same numbers we look at.
The three-month integration period exists for exactly this — live the life before committing to it. Full members can leave anytime; monthly contributions stop and return rights stay with you for life.
No. CLC is secular and non-partisan. The only shared belief required is that housing should be affordable and neighbors should know each other.