Open Governance
Open Financing + Governance
How LongHouse manages money, compensates its operator and representatives, reports finances, and governs itself. Published under the Penny Knights "publish-everything by default" 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 structure
Operator compensation. The LongHouse operator role — currently held by Brady Hugins, who founded the civic mission — is compensated at $25,000 per fiscal year. The figure is flat, not tied to revenue or program metrics, and reviewed at annual milestones. The operator role is defined by duties: publication of civic library content, facilitation of monthly meetings, maintenance of the LongHouse public archive, stewardship of the transparency practices documented on this page.
Representative compensation. Representatives — chapter leads, elected delegates, regional coordinators (a Phase 2+ role not yet filled) — are compensated at Arizona state median income for the scope of their role. A full-time representative earns the most recent published state median household income figure from the Arizona Department of Administration's Office of Economic Opportunity; part-time representatives earn the median pro-rated by committed hours. The figure is updated annually at fiscal-year start and does not change mid-year regardless of when state data is updated.
No performance bonuses, equity grants, or revenue-share incentives. This is a deliberate design. Civic work's outcomes are long-horizon and non-financial; tying compensation to short-term financial metrics misaligns incentives. A representative whose scope expands has their base compensation re-evaluated against the state-median framework, but there is no variable-compensation layer on top of base pay. 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.
| Category | Status | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Constitutional Platform subscriptions | Planned | Future optional paid tier for subscribers who want extended access; free tier remains free. |
| Membership dues | Planned | Voluntary; funds core operations. Tier structure to be published when activated. |
| Donations (unrestricted) | Active | Direct gift to Witch Haven Grove LLC earmarked "LongHouse" in the memo line. |
| Program fees | Planned | Event registration, publication sales, research-brief commissions (Phase 2+). |
| Foundation grants | Phase 3+ | Applications will target foundations that fund civic education + democratic institutions research. |
| Municipal contracts | Phase 3+ | Research briefs commissioned by local government; pursued only where scope and terms preserve editorial independence. |
Disclosure commitment. Actual revenue figures by category will be published in the quarterly financial summary (see Publication standard below) within 45 days of the first quarter in which any category exceeds $1,000. Until then, LongHouse operations are primarily volunteer and donation-supported under the Witch Haven Grove LLC umbrella.
Expense categories
| Category | Description |
|---|---|
| Compensation | Operator salary, representative compensation, contract labor (graphic design, legal counsel, accounting) |
| Infrastructure | Hosting (Cloudflare Pages, R2), tools, meeting venue rental (Burton Barr Library and equivalents), printing, recording equipment |
| Program costs | Event logistics, travel reimbursement within Arizona, publication production |
| Reserves | Operating reserve — minimum three months of expected expenses before any discretionary spending |
| Archive + retention | Seven-year retention of public records per Penny Knights standard: hosting, backup, redundancy across at least two geographies |
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.
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, or the reserve floor — 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.