The four gates
A benefit counts only if it passes all four.
- 1
Observable
You can see the benefit without an economist to explain it. A deposit on a card is observable. A line in a county budget is not.
- 2
Attributable
You know where it came from. The share carries the project's name, so the link between the building and the benefit is plain.
- 3
Usable
It changes ordinary life. Money you can spend at the grocery store counts. A name on a gala does not.
- 4
Additional
It is new value, not an old obligation with a new label. It is set as a share of what the project creates, so it grows when the project grows.
Who does what
The builder pays. The builder does not decide.
- The Standard
- The published rules. It says what qualifies, how the share is set and what a project must report. The same rules apply to every project.
- The Visible Benefit Company
- Reviews each project against the Standard, administers the community fund, delivers each household's share and keeps the public record. A public benefit corporation.
- The project
- Pays for certification, for running the program and for the share itself. It has no say in any certification decision, including on its own project.
- Households
- The people the share is for. Each eligible household receives it on a card, every month.
- Everyone else
- Anyone can read the Standard and check the public record of what each project committed and paid.
Keeping the promise
Checked every year.
Each certified project is reviewed again every year and receives a new dated seal. Every payment in and out of the fund is posted to a public record, in totals, never a household’s name.
A project that stops paying its share loses its seal, and the record shows it.