The jelly jar sat on the corner of the kitchen table in a Depression-era home in the American South. Every week, a small coin went in — sometimes a quarter, sometimes a dime, sometimes just a button as a placeholder for an intention. Nothing came out unless there was agreement at the table.
Jonathan didn’t know it then, but that jelly jar was a ledger, a governance mechanism, and a cooperative surplus account all at once. His grandmother had not read Ostrom. She had lived through 1929 and understood, at the level of survival, that the only money that survived hard times was money that belonged to everyone at the table.
The 60/20/10/10 surplus allocation in the Liana Banyan operating agreement — the one that locks charitable giving into the corporate structure — is the jelly jar at scale. The jar just got bigger. The table got wider. The vote still happens.
This anecdote is a placeholder. Founder to supply the specific family details and confirm the jelly jar story for prose-pass.