FairShares Brand

Introduction

The FairShares Model is a brand and concept advanced by The FairShares Association to assist the creation of FairShares Enterprises. At the heart of the brand is a definition of social enterprise established by Social Enterprise Europe Ltd based on:

• Specifying the social purpose(s) and evaluating the social impact(s) of trading activities;
• Conducting ethical reviews of product/service choices and production/consumption practices;
• Promoting socialised and democratic ownership, governance and management by primary stakeholders.

Central to the brand is the FairShares approach to power and wealth sharing through organisation design and intellectual property management.

Brand Principles

The brand can be used by FairShares Association, Companies, Co-operative Societies, Consultancies and Educators to communicate:

• wealth and power sharing with primary stakeholders;
• ethical review of the choice of goods/services offered;
• ethical review of production and retailing processes;
• specification of social purpose(s) and auditing of social impact(s);
• a social democratic model for the ownership, governance and management of capital.

Levels of Conformance

We have designed a FairShares Information System. Within this, we propose three levels of conformance with the FairShares Brand Principles:

• Level 1 - an enterprise actively disseminates the FairShares Model, but there is little evidence that the Brand Principles are applied to itself.
• Level 2 - an enterprise actively supports use of the FairShares Model and implements the Brand Principles using proprietory / alternative design principles.
• Level 3 - an enterprise actively supports use of the FairShares Model and puts them into practice by adopting (and adapting) one of our model constitutions.

On Ownership, Governance and Management

A Level 2 / 3 Compliant FairShares Association / Company / Co-operative Society / Consultancy or Educator will:

• recognise founder members and enfranchise them through Founder Shares (or equivalent share/member type)
• recognise providers of Labour and enfranchise them through Labour Shares (or equivalent share/member type)
• recognise users/customers and enfranchise them through User Shares (or equivalent share/member type)
• recognise creators and providers of financial capital and enfranchise them through Investor Shares (or equivalent).

You can find out more about when, why and how each type of share is issued using the following two documents:

V2.0 - FairShares Company - Share Types

V2.0 - FairShares Co-operative - Share Types

On Intellectual Property (IP)

A Level 3 Compliant FairShares Enterprise will:

• give individual and group recognition to members who create IP
• agree a Creative Commons licence for the use of members' IP
• prevent the transfer of IP ownership from members to the Company or Co-op Society except where this is the express wish of the IP creator(s).
• manage members IP as an Intellectual Commons

Brand Variants

All Level 2 / 3 compliant FairShares Enterprises issue Founder Shares or offer membership to Founders. All Level 3 compliant FairShares Enterprises manage members' IP as an Intellectual Commons.

• A Level 2/3 FairShares solidarity enterprise also issues Labour Shares, User Shares and Investor Shares (under Company Law)
• A Level 2/3 FairShares solitarity co-operative also issues Labour Shares, User Shares and Investor Shares (under Co-operative or Society Law)
• A Level 2/3 FairShares solidarity association offers membership to Labour Members and User Members (under Association, Company or Charity Law).

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• A Level 2/3 FairShares employee-owned company also issues Labour Shares and Investor Shares (under Company Law)
• A Level 2/3 FairShares worker co-operative also issues Labour Shares and Investor Shares (under Co-operative or Society Law)
• A Level 2/3 FairShares labour association offers membership to Labour Members (under Association, Company or Charity Law).

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• A Level 2/3 FairShares user-owned company issues User Shares and Investor Shares (under Company Law)
• A Level 2/3 FairShares user co-operative issues User Shares and Investor Shares (under Co-operative or Society Law)
• A Level 2/3 FairShares user association offers membership to User Members (under Association, Company or Charity Law).

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If neither Labour nor User membership/shares are issued on an open membership basis, the enterprise does not conform to Level 2 or 3 of the FairShares Brand, but may still qualify as Level 1 compliant.

Brand Identity

Logos for printed and electronic use are available in PNG and JPG formats.

Brand Value and Auditing

To use this brand, a FairShares Company / FairShares Co-operative should have convincing answers to the following six questions during a social audit:

1. Who are your enterprise’s primary stakeholders?
2. What is the purpose of your enterprise?
3. How is the social, environmental and economic impact of your enterprise assessed?
4. What values and principles guide the choice of goods/services that you offer?
5. What values and principles guide the way you produce and/or sell those goods and services?
6. How do the ownership, governance and management systems ensure equitable distributions
   of wealth and power to primary stakeholders?

Creative Commons Licencing

The FairShares Model V2.x is licenced to the FairShares Association by Rory Ridley-Duff and Cliff Southcombe using the following Creative Commons licence:

© FairShares Association Ltd, 2014, Creative Commons 4.0: Attribution, Share Alike

All variants and adaptations of FairShares Model V2.0 should acknowledge the FairShares Association using the above copyright notice, and new adaptations must carry the same Creative Commons licence. Discussion of the FairShares Model itself should acknowledge the work of Rory Ridley-Duff and Cliff Southcombe. For further details see the FairShares Wiki for [V1.1 and V1.2] of the FairShares Model.