Contributist Consumption

What would it look like to be able to spend joyfully, and with a clear conscience?

One of the primary ways we shape our communities and our society is with our capital — who and what do we give our money to? By committing to being contributist consumers, we can turn even our everyday spending into a practice of intentional giving.

If you’re looking to take a simple first step into contributism, we recommend starting here. Choose a tier of commitment below to begin your contributist journey:

Whether a business is contributist or not can be a hard thing to intuitively understand, so we’ve come up with a simple-to-use measure that we call the Community Stewardship Test.

If a business meets all three conditions, we consider it a contributist business. If it meets two out of three, we consider it partially contributist. While this test can’t prove that an organization has a net-positive impact on society, it captures fundamental indicators which can give you a high degree of confidence that the dollars you spend there are strengthening your community.

You can use the community stewardship test on your own to evaluate the businesses you make purchases from, or you can use our contributist business directory, which is an ongoing, crowd-sourced, collaborative effort built by those in our community who are committed to contributist spending.

Choose a tier of commitment above to begin making a real, positive impact on your community.

For more on what it means to support contributist businesses, read on below.

Giving Through Spending

Where we spend our money has a real, direct impact on the well-being of our communities.

Money that we spend at local, contributist businesses goes directly into the pockets of our friends and our neighbors — and as it circulates through the economy, it actively improves quality of life for all of us.

On the other hand, every dollar that we spend at non-contributist businesses is a dollar extracted from our communities — it directly helps to enhance the power of oligarchs and other wealthy special interests.

What do we mean by contributist businesses?

For a more comprehensive understanding of what makes a business contributist, check out our Reclaiming Business series on our online journal, The Contributist Reader.

Contributism is happening every day, all around us. An organization doesn’t have to use or even know the term “contributism” to be contributist. When we say “contributist businesses,” we are referring specifically to organizations that:

Are oriented towards giving to the communities they interact with, rather than taking from them.
Enable their employees to participate in that giving in ways that are free, active, valued, and effective.

Organizations that meet these two basic criteria have a long-term net-positive impact on their communities, and society as a whole. Organizations that don’t meet these criteria tend towards extracting value from their communities, leading to a long-term net-negative impact on society as a whole.

Baseline Commitment

Giving can (and should) be easy.

The best way to start is to make the commitment that comes the most naturally, and makes the most sense, to you.

Often, the biggest impact comes from the simplest step.

For example, did you know that more than half of the positive environmental impact of veganism comes purely from removing beef from your diet?

What if, instead of thinking they had to become vegan to be helpful, more people tried just cutting out beef?

This isn’t about veganism; it’s about fixing our society. But the principle is the same.

Think about the purchases you make regularly — the groceries, snacks, and household supplies. The materials that support your hobby. The restaurants you dine at. The news and media you subscribe to.

Now think about just one of those things.

What’s one area of your spending where you can commit to only supporting contributist businesses?

Everything else can stay the same; just take the one step with the biggest impact.

Open the Community Stewardship Test to learn how to evaluate businesses for yourself.

Or, check out our contributist business directory for a growing list of businesses to support.

And if you want to join a community of like-minded givers, come meet us at one of our meetups.

Contributist Consumer

Not all spending is the same.

That's because every dollar you spend is not just a transaction; it’s a human investment.

But this raises an important question: who are you investing in?

Being a contributist consumer simply means choosing to make your spending an intentional act of giving.

More precisely, this means ensuring that the majority of your discretionary spending goes to businesses that make our society better, rather than businesses that make it worse.

This is easier than it sounds.

There are an enormous number of businesses around you that pass, or partially pass, the Community Stewardship Test. You already give to them when you visit to your local coffee shop or hairdresser, eat at local restaurants, or buy from your local hardware store.

Even some big businesses like Costco or Trader Joe’s are partially contributist.

Being a contributist consumer doesn’t even have to mean giving up conveniences like Amazon or Uber — it just means keeping those purchases minimal, and maximizing the purchases that count as giving.

And the benefit?

You’re strengthening your community — and you get to spend your dollars joyfully, living each transaction as an act of giving.

Contributist Champion

What does it mean to be truly committed to your community?

It means working in and for your community, yes, but it doesn’t necessarily mean working for free — it means taking the capital that you earn at work and reinvesting it in your community.

Remember, every dollar you earn enters your bank account as potential value.

If you spend it at a non-contributist business, it is extracted from your community — it goes into the pockets of wealthy individuals who have no desire to increase our collective well-being.

If you hold onto it for too long, it starts to become hoarding — you’re keeping it out of productive use.

But if you spend it at a contributist business, it becomes a dollar invested — it is put in the hands of the members of your community, whose labor will continue to multiply its value and usefulness.

To be a champion of your community means committing to do most of your spending at businesses that aren’t just partially contributist, but that are fully contributist.

It means ensuring that most of the dollars you spend go to helping the people around you be happier, healthier, and more productive — accelerating the flourishing of your community.

Contributist Consumption

The Community Stewardship Test

Giving Through Spending

What do we mean by contributist businesses?

Learn more