WEARE OTR: Rewarding Participation and Building Community Economic Power

What if the everyday actions that strengthen a community could also be recognized and rewarded?

Supporting a local business. Completing training. Volunteering. Referring a new member. Participating in a community project. Creating content. Helping an organization reach people it serves.

These actions create value.

WEARE OTR is being developed to help the OTR Community recognize that value.

From Community Participation to Community Economic Power

Economist and author Dr. Claud Anderson, through his PowerNomics framework, has emphasized the importance of communities pooling their resources and developing systems through which they can produce, distribute and consume.

The official PowerNomics organization describes this approach as pooling resources and aspects of power to create goods and wealth.

The principle raises an important question:

How can a community use more of what it already has—its people, businesses, organizations, skills, purchasing power and relationships—to strengthen itself?

For the On The Rise Community—a Community of Communities—WEARE provides one potential answer.

Reward What Strengthens the Community

WEARE is not simply about owning a digital token.

Its greater potential is creating an incentive and recognition system around activities that strengthen the OTR Community.

Imagine community members being recognized for qualifying participation. Creators helping introduce community programs. Businesses offering products and services to OTR members. Members supporting participating businesses. Volunteers contributing to CommunityImpact projects. R2PIP campaigns establishing incentives for specific community activities.

Instead of participation ending with a single transaction or event, WEARE can help create a continuing cycle:

Participate → Earn → Shop → Support → Reinvest → Participate Again

That is where a digital token can become part of a larger community ecosystem.

From Aggregating Dollars to Aggregating Community Resources

Economic power is not created by money alone.

A community also possesses purchasing power, businesses, knowledge, labor, relationships, technology, creativity and collective participation.

The opportunity is to connect them.

WEARE can help the OTR Community aggregate and recognize these resources by connecting community members, businesses, creators, programs and organizations through a common digital incentive structure.

The objective is not to replace the dollar.

The objective is to encourage more intentional economic relationships within the community.

When a community member chooses to shop with a participating business, that purchase supports more than a transaction—it strengthens a relationship.

When businesses support community programs, programs can reach more people.

When participation is recognized and rewarded, people have another reason to remain engaged.

That is how individual actions can begin producing collective impact.

Put the Principle Into Practice

The potential of WEARE will not be determined by technology alone.

It will be determined by participation.

If we want stronger community businesses, we must support community businesses.

If we want stronger community programs, we must participate in community programs.

If we want greater economic circulation within our community, we must intentionally create relationships through which value can circulate.

And if we want WEARE to have meaningful utility, we must build the community in which that utility can exist.

Join. Participate. Shop. Support.

Don't simply watch the OTR Community grow.

Become part of building it.

JOIN the On The Rise Community and connect with people, businesses, organizations, creators and programs committed to strengthening communities.

PARTICIPATE in OTR programs, training, CommunityImpact activities and qualifying incentive opportunities.

SHOP the OTR Marketplace and intentionally look for opportunities to support businesses and vendors participating in the community.

SUPPORT the development of an ecosystem where community participation, commerce and impact can reinforce one another.

WEARE is more than the name of a token.

**WE ARE the community.

WE ARE the participants.
WE ARE the businesses.
WE ARE the creators.
WE ARE the consumers.
WE ARE the opportunity.**

The question is no longer simply:

“How do we keep resources circulating within our community?”

The next question is:

“What will each of us do to help them circulate?”

Join the OTR Community. Shop the OTR Marketplace. Participate. Support. Build.

Come! Let Us Rise! Let Us Prosper!