The Party Members Fund constitutional amendment deliberately says nothing about how members make allocation decisions. That design work belongs to the party, expressed through its Fund Governance Policy. This note surveys the main approaches parties and civic organisations have used or are experimenting with — what each one is, what it requires, what it trades off, and where it has been used.
No mechanism is perfect. Each makes a different trade-off between expressiveness, simplicity, participation burden, and resistance to gaming. The right choice depends on your Fund membership size, the technical literacy of your members, and how much governance complexity you want to manage. Most parties should start simple and evolve toward more expressive mechanisms as the Fund matures.
The mechanisms
A small panel of members considers all eligible proposals, deliberates publicly, and produces a funded recommendation with written reasoning. The full membership reviews and can ratify or object within a short window. How panel members are selected — random draw, rotation, nomination — is left to the party.
Used by: Citizens assemblies globally (Ireland, France, Australia). Most cooperative governance models at small scale.
All members vote directly on how to allocate the cycle budget across approved proposals. Each member distributes their share of the fund across proposals as they choose. Simple majority or proportional allocation determines outcomes.
Used by: Porto Alegre (Brazil), Paris municipal budget, many local councils globally. Classic civic participatory budgeting model.
Members individually pledge their contribution toward specific destinations. A destination only activates when a minimum threshold of pledges or total pledged amount is reached within the cycle window. Below threshold, contributions return to members. No panel, no collective vote — pure individual conviction.
Used by: Kickstarter, Pozible, Open Collective funding campaigns. Common in open source project funding.
Each member receives a budget of tokens each cycle and spends them across eligible proposals like shopping — allocating more tokens to things they care about most, fewer to others. Proposals are funded proportionally to total tokens received. Captures intensity of preference rather than just binary support.
Used by: Token allocation models used in various DAO governance frameworks and civic innovation funds. Gitcoin has used adapted versions alongside quadratic funding.
Members contribute directly to proposals of their choice. A matching pool amplifies contributions based on the number of unique contributors rather than total amount — meaning many small contributions from different people attract more matching than a few large ones. Designed to fund broadly supported projects over well-funded ones.
Used by: Gitcoin (Ethereum ecosystem funding). Subject of significant academic research — see Buterin, Hitzig & Weyl (2019) “A Flexible Design for Funding Public Goods.”
Members continuously signal support for proposals over time. Voting power accumulates the longer a member sustains support for a proposal — rewarding persistent conviction over tactical last-minute voting. Proposals reach a funding threshold when accumulated conviction is sufficient. No fixed voting window — funding happens continuously as conviction builds.
Used by: Gardens (1Hive). Theoretical foundations in Commons Stack research. Emerging in DAO governance.
Most mature funds combine mechanisms. A common hybrid: deliberation panel screens and recommends a shortlist (quality filter), then token allocation or participatory budgeting determines final allocation among shortlisted proposals (preference expression). Individual pledge threshold runs in parallel for niche projects that wouldn’t make the shortlist. Each layer does what it does best.
Used by: Many mature participatory budgeting programmes and cooperative governance bodies at scale. Various DAO governance models combine curation with token or quadratic mechanisms.
At a glance
| Mechanism | Complexity | Bandwidth | Best membership size | Expresses intensity? |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Deliberation panel | ● Low | Low | Any | Via panel reasoning |
| Open participatory budgeting | ● Low | Moderate | Small–medium | Partially |
| Pledge threshold | ● Low | Very low | Any | Yes — via pledge size |
| Token allocation | ● Moderate | Low–moderate | Medium–large | Yes — via token spend |
| Quadratic funding | ● High | Low to participate | Large | Yes — via breadth of support |
| Conviction voting | ● High | Very low ongoing | Large | Yes — via time |
| Hybrid / staged | ● Variable | Variable | Medium–large | Depends on design |
Design guidance
Most parties should launch with a deliberation panel for collective decisions and a pledge threshold for individual ones. These are the simplest mechanisms, require no special software, and are explainable to any member without technical background. They also leave room to evolve — a deliberation panel can be replaced by token allocation later without any constitutional change, just a Fund Governance Policy update.
Resist the temptation to start with a complex mechanism because it sounds more democratic. Complexity that members don’t understand or engage with produces worse outcomes than a simple mechanism they trust.
Consider moving to more expressive mechanisms — token allocation, quadratic funding — when: the fund has more than 50 active members; participation in the current mechanism is consistently high; and members are asking for more nuanced ways to express preference. The sunset review after two cycles (required by the amendment) is the natural moment to make this assessment.
Whatever mechanism you choose, the governance principles in clause [X.X.6] of the amendment apply. Equal governance rights per member, regardless of contribution level. Mental bandwidth respect. Transparency. No technical literacy required. These are not design options — they are the floor every mechanism must sit above.
Participatory budgeting: Participatory Budgeting World Atlas (Sintomer et al.). Quadratic funding: Buterin, Hitzig & Weyl (2019). Conviction voting: Conviction Voting: A Novel Continuous Decision Making Alternative to Governance (Commons Stack). Token governance: Governing the Commons (Ostrom, 1990) remains the foundational text on collective resource governance regardless of mechanism.