Governance & Tools for Systems Change
The Many-to-Many System is a comprehensive framework designed to support complex collaborations tackling interconnected challenges where disrupting norms around value, ownership, and power is essential. This platform provides governance practitioners, funders, and legal professionals with tools, frameworks, and insights to structure and organize transformative collaborations.
Live Site: https://www.manytomany.systems/
Solving today's complex, interconnected problems requires bringing together many diverse groups (public, private, civic) with many new perspectives, including future generations and the natural world. The Many-to-Many System focuses on unlocking the governance, organizing, legal, and learning structures of complex collaborations to enable resources, knowledge, and relationships to flow more freely.
This system helps collaborations reimagine fundamental "deep codes" that shape how we work together, offering new approaches for rethinking core concepts like:
- Value - Multiple forms of value beyond monetary exchange
- Power - Balanced and distributed decision-making
- Risk - Collective ownership and mindful mitigation
- Ownership - Shared stewardship models
Working in complex collaborations who need suitable governance and organizing structures for their work and want to disrupt traditional norms around value, ownership, risk, and power.
Especially those seeking to disrupt these same norms or invest effectively in systemic change initiatives.
Including lawyers and accountants whose expertise is vital for societal transformation, particularly around governance, legal structuring, and contracting.
The platform offers several interconnected resources:
- Complete overview of the Many-to-Many framework
- Downloadable Field Guide for governance practitioners
- Deep dive into the core principles and deep code shifts
- Practical guidance for specific governance problems
- Challenge-based navigation to find relevant solutions
- Real-world problem-solving approaches
- Library of practical tools and actionable frameworks
- Real-world examples from complex collaborations
- Resources for putting theory into practice
- Learnings about complex collaboration legal structures
- Tools to navigate legal complexities
- Resources for innovative legal frameworks
- Real-world case studies
- Examples of people tackling complex, entangled challenges
- Practical insights from practitioners
- Origin story of the Many-to-Many work
- Core team and ecosystem partners
- The emergent process behind the system
The Many-to-Many System explores eight fundamental deep code shifts:
- Many Actors - Embracing diverse stakeholders
- Many Forms of Value - Beyond monetary exchange
- Many Ways of Relating - Varied collaboration models
- Unfurling - Adaptive emergence over time
- Balanced Power - Distributed decision-making
- Holistic View - Systems-level thinking
- Mindful Endings - Intentional closure processes
- Mission Led - Purpose-driven structures
- Risk Ownership - Collective responsibility
- Risk Mitigation - Proactive harm reduction
- Proportionate - Context-appropriate responses
This project is built with:
- Framework: Next.js (App Router)
- Content Management: Sanity CMS
- Styling: CSS Modules / Tailwind CSS [Inference]
- Deployment: Vercel [Inference based on Next.js setup]
- Package Manager: Yarn
- Node.js 18.x or higher
- Yarn package manager
- Clone the repository:
git clone https://github.com/Dark-Matter-Labs/many_to_many.git
cd many_to_many- Install dependencies:
yarn install- Set up environment variables:
# Create a .env.local file with required Sanity credentials- Run the development server:
yarn dev- Open http://localhost:3000 in your browser.
many_to_many/
├── app/ # Next.js app directory (routes and pages)
├── components/ # React components
├── public/ # Static assets (images, videos)
├── sanity/ # Sanity CMS schema and configuration
├── .gitignore
├── .prettierignore
├── .prettierrc
├── eslint.config.mjs
├── jsconfig.json
├── llms.txt # LLM context file
├── next.config.mjs # Next.js configuration
├── package.json # Project dependencies
├── postcss.config.mjs
├── sanity.cli.js # Sanity CLI configuration
├── sanity.config.js # Sanity studio configuration
└── yarn.lock
# Start development server
yarn dev
# Build for production
yarn build
# Start production server
yarn start
# Run linting
yarn lintThis project uses:
- Prettier for code formatting
- ESLint for code linting
- Configuration files:
.prettierrcandeslint.config.mjs
The project uses Sanity CMS for content management. The Sanity Studio configuration can be found in:
sanity.config.js- Studio configurationsanity/- Schema definitions and custom components
This work is part of Dark Matter Labs' Beyond the Rules Lab. For questions, insights, or participation inquiries, please contact:
Email: beyondtherules@darkmatterlabs.org
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This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
When using this work, please attribute as follows:
"Many-to-Many System" by Dark Matter Labs, licensed under CC BY-NC 4.0. Available at https://www.manytomany.systems/
This work is part of Dark Matter Labs' Beyond the Rules Lab, which explores governance innovation for systemic change.
- Website: https://www.manytomany.systems/
- Dark Matter Labs: https://darkmatterlabs.org/
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