Open Governance

Open Financing + Governance

How LongHouse manages money, reports finances, and governs itself. Volunteer-only at this stage; any future paid roles require public ratification first. Published under the "publish-everything by default" transparency standard and subject to annual revision.

Purpose

This page states, in public, how LongHouse manages money. It is part of the "publish everything by default" standard articulated in the Penny Knights primer: a civic institution that holds itself to the same transparency it recommends to others. The policy is subject to revision; every revision is dated and the prior version archived. The current version is authoritative for ongoing decisions until amended in public.

Legal entity

LongHouse operates as a DBA (registered Arizona trade name) of Witch Haven Grove LLC, an Arizona LLC in active status. All financial obligations, contracts, and receipts are legally obligations of Witch Haven Grove LLC; "LongHouse" is the public-facing name under which the LongHouse civic mission is conducted. Future Phase 2/3 planning anticipates a dedicated LongHouse LLC once civic operations warrant separate liability partitioning; until that entity is filed and funded, this document refers to the Witch Haven Grove LLC umbrella.

Compensation posture

Volunteer at this stage. LongHouse currently operates without a budget for paid roles. The operator (Brady Hugins) and any chapter participants contribute their time without compensation. There are no representative salaries, no chapter-lead stipends, and no contract labor as of the publication date of this version.

Future change requires public ratification. Any change to this posture — activating an operator salary, paid representative roles, or contract labor — must be ratified at a public meeting, recorded in the meeting decision log, and published in this section of the governance page before any payment is issued. The seven-day public comment window applies to compensation changes the same way it applies to any other material revision.

Reimbursements. Direct project expenses (mileage on a long site visit, materials for a workshop, venue rental specific to a published meeting) may be reimbursed case-by-case when budget allows. Reimbursements are logged in the quarterly financial summary the same way as any other expense and are not classified as compensation.

No performance bonuses, equity grants, or revenue-share incentives — and this remains the design when paid roles are eventually activated. Civic work's outcomes are long-horizon and non-financial; tying compensation to short-term financial metrics misaligns incentives. The Seven-Year Goals Process explains the broader reasoning about long-horizon accountability that informs this choice.

Revenue sources

LongHouse's revenue model is currently in early formation. The categories below are anticipated; specific figures will be published in the first quarterly statement after revenue in any category exceeds $1,000 in a twelve-month period.

Expense categories

Publication + transparency standard

Quarterly financial summary. Revenue by category, expenses by category, reserve balance, and any unusual items are published on this governance page within forty-five days of each fiscal quarter's close. The summary is a one-page document; comprehensive details appear in the annual statement. Quarters that fall below the $1,000-per-category threshold in every category may be summarized in a single sentence ("No material activity in Q3 2026.").

Annual audited statement. Beginning with the first fiscal year in which total revenue exceeds $50,000, LongHouse commissions an independent certified public accountant to audit the annual financials. The full audit report is published on this page within ninety days of the fiscal year's close. Below the $50,000 threshold, an annual summary statement signed by the operator substitutes for the audited report; the summary statement is published on the same schedule.

Meeting and decision record. Consistent with the Penny Knights convention framework, every meeting that makes a financial decision publishes minutes within forty-eight hours and the decision's formal record within seven days. The record includes the decision text, the amount (if material), the named participants who voted or were consulted, and any conflict-of-interest disclosures associated with the decision.

Governance of funds

Two-signature threshold. Any single expenditure of more than $500 requires two authorized signers. In Phase 1 (current), the authorized signers are the operator (Brady Hugins) and one designated backup named on the Witch Haven Grove LLC operating agreement. In Phase 2+ (post-board formation), authorized signers are drawn from the board per the bylaws. The threshold applies to both outbound payments and binding contracts. It has no exceptions.

Operating reserve floor. LongHouse maintains a minimum of three months of projected expenses as operating reserve before any discretionary spending is approved. Discretionary spending includes new program launches, representative role expansions, and capital purchases. Spending that reduces the reserve below the three-month floor requires a public meeting-recorded decision and a reserve-restoration plan published at the same meeting.

No accumulated surpluses above the reserve floor. Surplus revenue above the three-month operating reserve is allocated, by public decision, to specific program line items within ninety days of the surplus being identified. This is a deliberate structural choice to avoid the "slush fund" failure mode common in civic nonprofits, where accumulated reserves grow beyond their stated purpose and become governance problems rather than program resources.

Conflict-of-interest disclosure. Any financial relationship between LongHouse and a representative, operator, family member of either, vendor, or donor of material size is disclosed on this page before the transaction closes. "Material size" means any single transaction exceeding $500 or any aggregate annual relationship exceeding $2,500. Disclosure includes the nature of the relationship, the amount, and the independent review (if any) that approved the transaction.

Seven-year financial arc

Revenue, expenses, and reserves are tracked on a rolling seven-year horizon. Each annual review includes a forward-looking seven-year financial projection in three scenarios — best case, expected case, and worst case — with clear assumption statements for each. The projection is published alongside the annual audited statement. The practice aligns LongHouse's financial reporting cadence with the Seven-Year Goals Process used elsewhere in the organization's planning, and permits honest mid-arc course corrections when the expected case drifts from actuals for two or more consecutive years.

Operator succession + continuity

Succession clause. If the operator is unavailable, incapacitated, or otherwise unable to perform the duties of the role, the designated backup signer named on the Witch Haven Grove LLC operating agreement holds authority for all decisions meeting the two-signature threshold and for maintenance of ongoing obligations (publication cadence, civic library continuity, scheduled payments). Material governance decisions — changes to compensation, thresholds, or the policy on this page — pause during any operator-unavailable period and resume when the operator returns or, in Phase 2+ operation, when a successor is appointed by the board per the bylaws. The intent is to prevent a single point of failure: the civic mission continues under backup authority; the governance structure does not drift in the operator's absence.

Incapacity threshold. "Unavailable" means absent from LongHouse operations for more than thirty consecutive days without a published return date. Planned absences (sabbatical, family medical leave, research travel) are announced on the public monthly meeting calendar in advance and do not trigger succession; the operator may continue to authorize the two-signature threshold remotely as long as the second signer is reachable for confirmation.

Regulatory + transparency compliance

Beneficial ownership disclosure (Corporate Transparency Act). Witch Haven Grove LLC files a Beneficial Ownership Information (BOI) report with FinCEN per the federal Corporate Transparency Act in effect since 2024. Required updates are filed within the 30-day statutory window following any change in beneficial ownership. The Arizona Corporation Commission registration for Witch Haven Grove LLC is publicly searchable and linked from the LongHouse legal page. Acknowledging the filing here — rather than keeping it silently compliant — is consistent with the "publish everything by default" standard: regulatory obligations are civic infrastructure, not a separate track.

Document retention. Financial records (invoices, receipts, ledger entries, tax filings, payment processor logs) are retained for a minimum of seven years from the close of the fiscal year they pertain to, matching IRS default record-retention recommendations. Governance records (this page and its archived prior versions, public meeting minutes and instances, civic library content, published civic library primers, published quarterly financial summaries, conflict-of-interest disclosures) are retained indefinitely. No governance record is ever destroyed. The retention commitment is the structural opposite of a destruction policy: LongHouse's civic value depends on a long accessible record.

Entity separation roadmap

Current Phase 1 posture. LongHouse operates as a DBA of Witch Haven Grove LLC, as stated above. This is the minimum-viable structure for a civic mission in formation; it is not the intended long-term arrangement.

Target Phase 2 posture. As soon as practicable, LongHouse is moved to its own dedicated legal entity — most likely a distinct Arizona LLC or, if program scale warrants and tax-exempt status is pursued, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit corporation with its own EIN, operating agreement, and banking. "As soon as practicable" means: (1) when LongHouse revenue in any twelve-month period reaches the reporting threshold stated in this document, or (2) when paid representative roles are activated, or (3) when any contract LongHouse enters would create liability exposure separable from the broader Witch Haven Grove LLC operations — whichever comes first. The entity separation is an active goal of Phase 1, not a contingency: it protects the civic mission from commercial risk held by the umbrella LLC, and protects the umbrella LLC from civic governance obligations it is not structured to carry.

What moves with the entity. When the dedicated LongHouse entity is formed, this governance document, the civic library, all published meeting instances and archives, and the LongHouse brand marks move with it. Financial records that pertain to LongHouse program activity transfer under a formal assignment. The transition is itself published: a dedicated archive entry at /governance/archive/entity-separation/ records the formation date, the assigned assets, and the continuity of governance policy across the entity change.

Revision process

This governance document is a living policy, not a constitution. Non-material revisions (clarifications, link updates, formatting) may be made by the operator with a dated changelog note appended to the bottom of the page. Material revisions — changes to compensation structure, publication commitments, governance thresholds, the reserve floor, or the succession clause — require a seven-day public comment window announced on the monthly meeting schedule and the LongHouse mailing list. Comment responses are published with the revised document.

Every version is archived. The current version's effective date appears in the banner at the top of this page; prior versions are reachable at /governance/archive/YYYY-MM-DD/. The archive is read-only and maintained indefinitely.

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