# Radical Inclusion *Project 2026 Framework — Principle #5* > **"We say yes to everyone before they ask the question and before we know who they are."** --- ## Contents 1. [Definition](#definition) 2. [What Makes It Radical](#what-makes-it-radical) 3. [Inverting Eligibility](#inverting-eligibility) 4. [Who Is Usually Left Out](#who-is-usually-left-out) 5. [Changing the Institution, Not the Person](#changing-the-institution-not-the-person) 6. [Participation Before Buy-In](#participation-before-buy-in) 7. [Radical Inclusion and Sovereignty](#radical-inclusion-and-sovereignty) 8. [Tensions Worth Naming](#tensions-worth-naming) 9. [Related Principles](#related-principles) 10. [How to Get Involved](#how-to-get-involved) --- ## Definition Radical Inclusion is the commitment that every person belongs — in the Fledge's spaces, programs, governance, and vision — before they have proven anything, before they have asked permission, and before anyone has decided whether they are the "right kind" of person to include. It is not a welcoming policy. It is not a diversity initiative. It is a fundamental inversion of the logic that governs most institutions: instead of the person proving they qualify for the institution, the institution proves it is worthy of the person. > **Core claim:** Most systems exclude by default and include as an exception. Radical Inclusion includes by default and treats exclusion as the exception requiring justification. Changing the default changes everything. --- ## What Makes It Radical Standard inclusion efforts typically work like this: an institution identifies groups that have been historically excluded, creates pathways for those groups to enter, and measures success by the number of people who successfully navigate those pathways. The problem is that the institution remains unchanged. The burden of inclusion falls on the person being included — they must learn the language, meet the criteria, adopt the culture, and prove they belong. If they struggle or leave, the institution can point to the pathway it created and conclude the person wasn't ready. Radical Inclusion rejects this entirely. What makes it radical: - **The default is yes.** No screening, no prerequisites, no worthiness assessment. The answer is yes before the question is asked. - **Barriers are the institution's problem to solve, not the person's problem to overcome.** If someone cannot access a space, program, or governance process, the question is what the institution must change — not what the person must do differently. - **The institution changes to fit the person, not the other way around.** This means adjusting language, hours, formats, locations, childcare, transportation, digital access, cultural norms, decision-making processes — whatever it takes. - **Participation precedes buy-in.** People do not need to agree with the framework, understand the theory, or share the values before they are welcome. They become part of the community first. Understanding and alignment — if they come at all — come through relationship and experience, not as prerequisites. --- ## Inverting Eligibility Eligibility is one of the most powerful tools of exclusion in modern institutions. To access housing assistance, you must prove you are not too unstable. To access employment support, you must prove you are job-ready. To access healthcare, you must prove you have insurance. To access democratic participation, you must have registered, in the right place, at the right time, without a felony conviction. Every eligibility requirement, however well-intentioned, is a filter. And filters systematically exclude the people who need access most — because the conditions that create need are often the same conditions that make meeting eligibility criteria difficult or impossible. Radical Inclusion asks: what if we removed the filters? What if the only requirement for belonging was showing up? This does not mean institutions have no structure or standards. It means that structure is designed to welcome and support, not to screen and sort. The energy that currently goes into gatekeeping goes instead into meeting people where they are. --- ## Who Is Usually Left Out Project 2026 is explicit about who radical inclusion is designed to reach — not as a target demographic, but as an acknowledgment that specific groups have been most systematically excluded from power, resources, and belonging: - **ALICE households** — working people who earn too much to qualify for assistance but too little to actually afford their basic needs - **Formerly incarcerated people** — who face legal, social, and economic barriers to participation long after their sentence ends - **People experiencing homelessness** — who are routinely excluded from civic life, employment, and democratic participation - **Immigrants and undocumented community members** — whose exclusion is often legally enforced - **People with disabilities** — who encounter physical, cognitive, and social barriers in nearly every institution - **Youth** — who are rarely given meaningful governance power or treated as full participants in decisions that affect them Radical Inclusion does not require these groups to self-identify or ask for accommodation. It requires the institution to already have removed the barriers before they arrive. --- ## Changing the Institution, Not the Person This is perhaps the most demanding aspect of Radical Inclusion — and the one most institutions quietly avoid. Changing people is easier to talk about. Changing institutions requires giving up control, comfort, and the assumption that the existing culture is neutral or correct. Changing the institution might mean: - Holding meetings at times and in places accessible to people who work multiple jobs or lack transportation - Making governance processes legible to people without formal education or organizational experience - Conducting outreach in languages other than English - Designing physical spaces that are genuinely accessible and welcoming, not just technically compliant - Compensating people for their participation when participation has a cost - Making decisions more slowly so that more people can be genuinely involved - Accepting that community decisions may not look like what professional organizers or nonprofit staff would have chosen The Fledge DAO is designed with this principle in mind — governance participation should feel like social engagement, not bureaucratic process. Votes feel like likes. Contribution generates voice. Onboarding is a story, not a form. --- ## Participation Before Buy-In One of the most counterintuitive aspects of Radical Inclusion is the insistence that people do not need to agree with the framework before they participate in it. Most movements, organizations, and cooperatives — even progressive ones — have ideological prerequisites. You need to understand cooperativism, or accept the framework, or demonstrate alignment with the mission. These prerequisites feel reasonable. They also quietly exclude anyone whose life circumstances have not given them the luxury of developing political or economic theory. Project 2026's position is that belonging produces understanding, not the other way around. When someone participates in a cooperative, governs alongside their neighbors, grows food with their community, or sees their vote actually change something — they develop the understanding through experience. Asking for the understanding first is asking people to trust something they have no reason yet to trust. > **The invitation is unconditional.** The relationship does the work that theory cannot. --- ## Radical Inclusion and Sovereignty Radical Inclusion and Sovereignty (Principle #3) exist in necessary tension, and that tension is worth naming honestly. Sovereignty means the community governs itself and protects its own. But a community that self-governs can also — if it is not vigilant — develop internal gatekeeping, informal hierarchies, and cultural exclusion that reproduce the same patterns as the institutions it is trying to replace. The answer is not to resolve this tension but to hold it actively. Sovereignty without Radical Inclusion becomes insularity. Radical Inclusion without Sovereignty becomes an institution that serves everyone in the abstract and no one in particular. Together, they produce a community that is both rooted and genuinely open — protective of its members without being closed to new ones. --- ## Tensions Worth Naming **Safety and inclusion.** Every community has the right — and responsibility — to protect its members from harm. Radical Inclusion does not mean tolerating behavior that harms others. It means the bar for exclusion is harm, not difference, discomfort, or non-conformity. **Capacity and inclusion.** Institutions have real limits. Radical Inclusion does not require an institution to dissolve itself by overextending. It requires honesty about capacity and a commitment to expanding that capacity over time — rather than using capacity constraints as a proxy for eligibility filtering. **Speed and inclusion.** Inclusive processes are often slower. Decisions made with broad participation take longer than decisions made by small expert groups. Project 2026 treats this as a feature, not a bug — the legitimacy and durability of decisions made with genuine participation is worth the time. --- ## Related Principles - Basic Needs are Basic Rights — inclusion requires that basic needs are met; you cannot fully participate if you are in survival mode - Decentralize Everything — distributed governance only works if the people most affected actually have power within it - Sovereignty — community self-determination and radical openness must be held in productive tension - Permeate the Culture — inclusion is sustained by culture, not just policy - Create a True Democracy — true democracy requires the participation of everyone, not just those who already have access --- ## How to Get Involved - **Listen** to the Project 2026 Podcast — stories of radical inclusion in practice - **Show up** to Fledge events — the door is open before you knock - **Participate** in Fledge DAO governance — your voice counts from day one - **Bring someone** who wouldn't normally be in the room - **Ask** what barriers exist for people in your community and help remove them > *Radical Inclusion starts with you deciding that everyone around you already belongs.* --- *Project 2026 · The Fledge · Lansing, Michigan · Initiated December 2025*
We cannot talk about radical inclusion without addressing the attack on Diversity Equity and Inclusion. We prefer IDEA Inclusion, Diversity, Equity and Accessibility. Please watch the videos below for more info. Watch them all here or go to this playlist on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLlT6Vn2m14xEFuteydRQlYH0biFXtENeG
YOUTUBE 2b2r0c-Qt5g Part 1: I have an IDEA
YOUTUBE BuULSl0yUWQ Part 2: I’ve been implementing impactful systems for 40 years all over the world.
YOUTUBE cbRJhMy3WY8 Part 3: rename DEI to the IDEA cycle.
YOUTUBE AwKKipwf-aY Part 4: inclusion
YOUTUBE BTWtncP8hzw Part 5: Diversity
YOUTUBE 9y6qrCV7l0E Part 6: Equity
YOUTUBE eGfZtIjJA1A Part 7: Accessibility
YOUTUBE yyQZcxGd0MU Part 8: Example - Cascade Engineering #ideas
YOUTUBE __uAtGdUJa0 Part 9: The Fledge is radically inclusive
YOUTUBE YrGhUeccWUI Part 10: Perpetual Motion
YOUTUBE FuSNGpwpqaU Part 11: why DEI (again)