Rorshok is a community of people helping people build communities. Here are the main things we need help with. Some people have more formal expertise than time, others have some time and less expertise, but if you might want to commit to help us with one of these things, let us know, we'd love to talk!
We're developing an unusual but very cool management structure that brings volunteers and employees together and integrates their work in ways we haven't seen other organizations try. We want people to be able to contribute meaningfully, work together effectively, and help shape what Rorshok becomes, without recreating the conventional hierarchies and bureaucracies we're trying to move beyond. This is both a management experiment and a very practical operational challenge. We're looking for organized, thoughtful people interested in management, organizational design, and day-to-day operations who want to help build and run it.
We're looking for someone to help rethink how Rorshok manages volunteers, uses our software for that, communicates, makes decisions, sets priorities, and follows up. What administrative work can be automated, and what should remain part of our volunteer community? Ideally, you have technical experience and want to move into management, or management experience you'd like to develop further. Interested?
Rorshok plans to become a mission-locked organization, with no shareholder distributions, now or ever. Making that commitment legally binding takes some work! We're looking for someone to help establish the structure, oversee our ongoing commitments, communicate transparently about our governance, and navigate international legal and compliance requirements. Experience or interest in corporate law, organizational structures, social enterprise, or alternative governance models would be especially welcome. Let us know.
We need to develop a financial model that allows Rorshok to grow, pay people for their work, and support its projects without compromising what we're trying to achieve. We don't want to become dependent on the kinds of funding arrangements that push organizations toward extracting money from their communities or hunting donors and writing proposals. We want something sustainable, transparent, and consistent with our principles. We're looking for people who understand finance, funding models, and organizational sustainability and would enjoy helping us figure out how to make this work.
How does a social enterprise generate revenue, sustain itself, and grow without distributing profits, while keeping its community-building tools and experiments free for everyone? We're trying to invent a new financial model compliant with existing laws. We need someone who understands finance but wants to move beyond predatory financial models. We'd particularly love someone with a financial consulting background who knows but is exhausted by the train wreck of conventional late-stage capitalist finance and wants to help create a fundamentally different way of building and doing business.
We have some hilarious, cool T-shirts that people love, and we'd like to sell more of them. But we don't want to hand most of the money over to psychopathic oligarchs. We have some ideas about how to produce, market, and distribute them in a new way, and we're looking for someone who can help put those ideas into practice.
We don't want to charge people to help them build their communities. Charging for that work risks distorting who we help and why. Instead, we'd like to fund it by selling physical things people actually want. So far, we've started with t-shirts, but we're open to other ethical revenue ideas. We're looking for someone creative to lead product ideas, sales, and marketing without paid digital advertising, which is just giving money to oligarchs. Experience in sales, particularly clothing, textiles, or ethical fashion, would be fantastic. But mainly just somebody practical and interested in doing business differently.
This is a paid position, requiring about an hour a day. We'll fund buying a printer. You'll print Ourzines, order custom envelopes, and assemble and mail Ourzines to international addresses when requested. The rest of your time will be spent preparing Ourzines. We're particularly interested in someone who enjoys zines, paper art, mail, or distributing information, but reliability and enthusiasm matter most. The position involves some initial research, purchasing, and setup. It can easily fit alongside another job. Contact us if you're interested!
We're looking for someone to help introduce Ourzines to libraries across the United States, especially smaller and rural libraries. Ideally, you're a librarian, have worked in libraries, or studied library science. Even better if you currently work in a small library. This is a volunteer position requiring about an hour a day and can easily fit alongside another job. Interested?
We'd love someone to introduce Ourzines to libraries in a country of their choice, ideally where they live and are from. You'd help translate, print, and assemble different types of Ourzines, communicate with libraries, and encourage libraries to help their users make their own. The idea isn't just to distribute Ourzines, but to get people making them locally. Any country, any language. Contact us!
There's a global community of cool people who make, share, and love zines. We'd like someone to connect with them and introduce Ourzines as something complementary. Ourzines can hold more information, are especially portable, and are easy to produce. They share the zine community's spirit of decentralized, nonhierarchical information sharing. We'd love someone who knows and enjoys this community to help bring the two together.
Rorshokitos are a new way to gather, and we want to help people everywhere organize their first one. Once you've done one, it's pretty straightforward, but getting started is easier with some help. We're looking for someone to guide people through the whole process: preparation, publicity, recruiting participants, running the gathering, and following up afterwards. Ideally, you're organized, sociable, enthusiastic, and enjoy helping people bring things together. You can be based anywhere.
We're looking for someone to help improve the digital tool that makes Rorshokitos work. You'll talk with users, understand what they need, translate their feedback into a product roadmap, and help oversee testing. Experience with digital products, agile development, or product management would be great. Particularly welcome is someone with user research experience who's interested in moving into product management. Contact us if this sounds interesting.
Chat Task is a new way for communities to talk, organize, plan, strategize, and just chat. It's free, has portable data, works on phones and desktops, and has no advertisements or distractions. We're looking for someone, based anywhere, to help communities get set up and start using it, freeing themselves from big messaging groups and oligarchic platforms. Anyone who is well organized can do this, but experience in organizing, particularly in-person community organizing, would be especially valuable. Interested? Get in touch!
Rorshok produces three weekly Updates in English, each about ten minutes long, covering the most important things going on in Argentina, Spain, and Georgia (the country on the Black Sea, not the U.S. state). We're looking for someone to help people discover them by reaching out to groups and communities that might be interested. No paid digital advertising, just good communication and outreach. Someone interested in public relations, marketing, or community development without supporting oligarchic platforms would be ideal. You can be anywhere, though being in one of these countries would be especially helpful. Interested?
Fair Pick helps groups, large or small, make decisions as equals. Whether it's a family choosing a movie, friends picking a restaurant, or a club selecting its coordinator, decisions can be complicated, divisive, and exhausting. Fair Pick makes them easier and fairer. It's already built, but needs improvement and a launch! We're looking for someone to manage the project launch, improve the product, and introduce it to communities. An interest in digital products, community development, or the political science of decision-making would be ideal. Whadaya think?
We want to develop a new way for people to meet strangers in libraries and discuss books together. We have a pretty good idea of how it will work, but the product still needs to be built, tested in a few locations, and improved. We're looking for someone to lead the whole process. It's a role requiring a broad range of skills, and experience with digital products, libraries, community development, or simply a love of books could be a great starting point. Interested? Get in touch!
We want to create a Game, a swiping game that's genuinely fun but not addictive. Players decide how long they want to play before starting, and the game stops when that time is up. We have a pretty good idea of how it will work, but need someone to oversee its development and popularization. We're especially interested in someone who's voraciously curious, loves trivia and factoids, history, and likes having fun. We don't care about game development experience or even if you have played computer games. But big bonus if you've read a book by Thomas Pynchon and loved it. Yea?
The Rorshok Reader is a new kind of history book, written by one person, long like a book but in some ways more like a magazine. We need someone to manage two equally important projects: getting the book written, produced, and printed, while building a community of people who will read and discuss it. We're looking for someone highly organized, widely read, sociable, and enthusiastic about community building. An interest in publishing would be great. The book will be crowdfunded and Creative Commons licensed, so you'll learn a lot about crowdfunding, and experience with open licensing would be especially welcome. Interested?
We haven't named this yet, but the idea is clear. LinkedIn and Handshake are deeply enshittified, for-profit platforms that prioritize making money over serving users. We want to build a free, open alternative in the Fediverse using ActivityPub, especially for university students, recent graduates, and employers. Anyone could also preserve their LinkedIn data there. We're looking for a coordinator, ideally a college senior on the U.S. East Coast, to build a coalition of students across universities to help develop it. This could become something enormous. Let us know if you're interested.
Increasingly, we live our digital lives on enshittified, oligarchic, venture-capital-funded platforms. But there are a million ways to deshittify. We want someone to lead the creation of practical advice on replacing corporate platforms with open protocols and better alternatives, and communicate those ideas through social media, especially showing people how to leave those very platforms. Ideally, you're enthusiastic about FOSS (free and open-source software), digitally savvy, organized, sociable, comfortable on camera, and able or eager to learn how to make engaging Reels and TikTok videos. Will be fun.
