Income Sharing Communes
Whether you want to find established income-sharing communes to join or need expert guidance to launch a community in your region, pooling assets is a powerful way to reduce expenses and live sustainably.
These intentional communities operate on cooperative principles, typically using consensus-based decision-making to manage shared wealth and property. While some neighborhoods focus on baseline resource sharing—like splitting the costs of vehicles, tools, and food—more intensive income-pooling communes completely merge financial assets to eliminate individual economic strain.
Forming or joining these groups is an ambitious goal. Many historical attempts by idealists failed due to predictable human friction and leadership breakdowns. However, by studying the structural blueprint of successful, long-standing models, you can safely navigate the realities of communal living. The examples, legal templates, and expert matching tools below will show you exactly what it takes to build a thriving ecosystem or find the perfect community to call home.
Raven shares the following quote from John Gall: “A complex system that works is invariably found to have evolved from a simple system that works. The inverse proposition also appears to be true: A complex system designed from scratch never works and cannot be made to work.” Raven continues, “I see communes as the simple systems that could be a starting place for creating the structures we need for a new society.”
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Steps to a workable income-sharing commune
1. Define Your Core Value and Mission
Identify the primary common interest that will serve as the glue for your community when challenges arise. Determine if your foundational value is egalitarianism, a shared cause, or economic resilience during downturns. A unified purpose ensures the group remains aligned.
2. Prioritize Finding the Right People First
Gather your core group before securing a physical location. Finding compatible members with a shared purpose and lifestyle is a crucial first step. You can use the free profiling tools on ICmatch to connect with local seekers who match your community goals.
3. Establish Firm Operational Agreements
Study successful models to prepare for the realities of shared living, including challenges like social loafing. Reach a clear group consensus on daily operations: assign a bill manager, schedule regular meetings, distribute chores, and define how rule infractions are handled. Always document decisions, assign clear responsibilities, and create mutual accountability systems. The agreement templates link in the footer is a good place to start.
4. Document Your Governance Structure Early
Set your group culture and decision-making style deliberately from day one, as early habits tend to persist even as members cycle out. Putting your governance process and legal agreements into writing is not pessimistic—it is a vital lesson learned from past failed communities to ensure long-term stability.
5. Research Local Zoning and Housing Regulations
Verify municipal laws regarding subletting and the maximum number of unrelated individuals permitted in a single household. If residential zoning is restrictive, look into forming a formal business entity to operate in a commercially zoned area. Always maintain excellent relationships with neighbors to avoid unnecessary legal scrutiny.
6. Maximize Cost Savings Through Trust
Lower your collective cost of living by pooling everyday expenses once a high level of mutual trust is established. Share family cell phone plans, internet services, fitness memberships, and digital subscriptions. These built-in economic benefits serve as an attractive feature for attracting new members.
7. Draft Explicit Resource-Sharing Contracts
Create binding, written contracts for every shared asset, including vehicles, appliances, and income distribution. Outline precise protocols for asset division if a member chooses to leave, and clear storage terms to legally handle abandoned property. As Brené Brown notes, “clear is kind”—formal contracts ensure everyone is completely on the same page. (See the Contracts page for templates and Safety Precautions for warning signs).
Examples
Finding communes to join or visit even for a brief time could give you valuable experience if you intend to create one.
Twin Oaks is a long-standing U.S. income-sharing intentional community in Virginia.
The Federation of Egalitarian Communities maintains a listing of income-sharing communes.
The Foundation for Intentional Communities maintains a listing of self-designated communes.
Following are quotes by members of three different income-sharing communes.
Jules: Living in community is the best choice I’ve made in my entire life. Community can be an incredible space to come out of survival mode, and to work towards self-actualization. It’s definitely not always easy, but living in community has taught me about people in a way that nothing else ever has. It’s also given me the opportunity to spend hours and hours in incredible 50 year old oak forests or even older Hemlock forests here at Glomus. The opportunity to hunt for mushrooms and to learn as much as I possibly can. It gives me space to dive into passions without having the weight of survival as something that I’m carrying alone. That’s a beautiful thing!
Irena: One reason that I think income sharing communities are important is that they give us models for how people can live in a way that doesn’t require as much money per person as the predominant models in our wider society. By pooling income, we can buy more things in bulk and we can share things that the more typical household would have to own for itself. Though these days Acorn has a whole lot more money than it used to, I still do think that being an income sharing community helps us to share things in ways that can reduce our expenses and the environmental impact of the resources that we’re using. I think the way that income sharing communities provide these different models is really important because our society needs a lot more models of living together that go beyond nuclear families, and that includes how people can support each other in raising children and how people can support each other with things that they’re struggling with, although I think that can happen even without the income sharing aspects of the communities….I think the world really needs a lot more models of business that are more egalitarian and that don’t just bring in huge amounts of money for the people who get to the top….In a lot of cases, including ours, they value how we work in a way that most other economic models don’t. That helps with reducing power dynamics associated with gender.
Anthony: It’s really clear that income-sharing communities provide an engine to accomplish more with fewer resources….you see that the amount of money per person required to live a good life is a lot less than if people are living separately. I think this ability to do more with less is powerful, and I think that soon, as things get more difficult in the world—and I unfortunately think they are likely to—what intentional communities teach will become more relevant. In difficult times, Intentional communities will continue to gain attractiveness, and they will offer blueprints that allow people to live a good life together.
Consultants for Resource Sharing Communes
ICmatch can connect you with consultants who have deep experience in projects and living environments that thrive on close, sustained cooperation. These professionals are experts at guiding groups through the unique opportunities and challenges of communal living.
The consultants listed below have subscribed to be featured on this page. For even more consultants with interest and expertise in this type of community, visit the consultants page linked in the header.
Members Interested in Resource Sharing Communes
ICmatch can connect you with communitarians who have similar interests and values. The members listed below have subscribed to be featured on this page. For even more members with interest in this type of community, visit the Match for Free page linked in the header.
Resources
Federation of Egalitarian Communities: This non-profit collects articles of incorporation that can be used as examples, facilitates visits and communication between communes that meet its criteria, and is a repository for useful information about the financial aspects of income-sharing groups.
Neighborhood sharing economy project: For additional ideas on resource sharing, see the section Minimize Cost of Living. This page can help you identify the qualities you find most valuable as you search for communes to join, or as you create your own.
Income sharing and expense sharing: Consultant Sky Blue has lived for decades in egalitarian communities. They write about the benefits of collective ownership, economies of scale that make communal life more affordable, sharing, money stress, risk and sacrifice, privacy and control.
Economic Models for Intentional Communities: Sky Blue asserts in this video that “sharing requires trust, trust requires intimacy, intimacy requires vulnerability” (1:34:35).
Economic & Cultural Change: This chapter may give your group inspiration or prompt discussion.
Current umbrella group in Western WA: Experienced organizers are working to develop several income-sharing ICs simultaneously.
Gillian Morris recommends communal life, while Raven warns about everything that can go wrong.
photo by Toa Heftiba