Decidim is powerful software: calendar, coordination, PB, assemblies, proposals, accountability tracking. In practice, city-funded deployments use maybe a third of those capabilities. Not because cities are doing it wrong, but because the funding structure creates constraints: features serve government workflows, participation happens on government timelines, residents and orgs are users, not governors.

gathers.today asks: what happens if we flip who owns it? Community organizations co-fund the instance. Local steward co-ops govern it. Cities can sponsor without controlling the norms or features. The platform serves the whole community's coordination needs, not just official processes.

The hypothesis: shared ownership increases usage. Communities configure features they need. Activity concentrates on one platform instead of fragmenting across tools. Residents trust infrastructure their neighbors govern.

The reality: we're learning. Boston is the pilot. Eight orgs funding it, PB and advocacy campaigns running on it. We're discovering what collaborative governance actually requires, whether residents adopt platforms faster when communities own them, whether Decidim's architecture supports this model, how to sustain it financially. Cities, orgs, and residents are all figuring this out together.

Sovereign, local, cooperative infrastructure.