Is essentially that many problems can be resolved without the intervention of big business, big government or big charity. That by utilising local resources, people and funding, appropriate solutions can be developed.

My intention is not to solve problems directly; it is to provide a loose organisation or community that empowers and enables others to do this by :

• Providing a ‘community’ to act as home to the project. A kind of non-profit think tank.
• Building a resource base of information, contacts, facilities and funds.
• Providing Consultants, mentors and other individuals who can help get the project off the ground.
• Publicising it’s own existence to groups and individuals who might benefit from this approach - effectively ‘touting for business’.
• Providing the problem solving resources to the groups and individuals who seek assistance.

A central part of the philosophy is to move away from the dependency culture that I believe a lot of well meaning NPOs, local authorities and central governments have engendered in the last 30 years. By increasing reliance on the State to do what communities and charities used to do, and massive reliance on large financial grants and other outside ‘expert’ resources, a dependency culture has developed. Many projects stall at the first meeting because ‘we can’t get the money’. Whilst this is valid in some cases, I believe that it is not valid for many.

The idea that nothing can be done WITHOUT money is a dangerous one that has crippled many startup companies as well as many community projects. If the only tools for problem solving that people know of are financial, then they will effectively sell their ownership to get a solution which may ultimately be non-sustainable and leave them with a dependency culture.

CommunityNet is designed to get around this problem.