CW Common Will
Leave it common

Your estate will go somewhere. Make part of it common.

Common Will helps people transfer real estate, intellectual property and art into community ownership, public access and permanent shared use.

Build a commons plan → Explore the assets
The three main inheritances

Property, knowledge and culture can outlive private ownership.

The goal is not simply to donate an asset. The goal is to change what the asset does, who controls it and whether it can ever return to private extraction.

01

Real Estate

Move homes, buildings and land out of speculation and into permanent community use.

  • Community land trusts
  • Cooperative housing
  • Neighbourhood centres
  • Urban farms and food forests
  • Artist and maker spaces
↘
02

Intellectual Property

Turn copyright, software, patents, archives and knowledge into a living public resource.

  • Open-source software
  • Creative Commons publishing
  • Public research archives
  • Community-held patents
  • Domains, databases and digital collections
↘
03

Art

Keep the physical work, cultural meaning and reproduction rights alive and accessible.

  • Community-owned collections
  • Public exhibitions
  • Free digital archives
  • Artist residencies
  • Open reproduction rights
↘
The transfer machine

Do not merely donate the value. Change the ownership structure.

PRIVATE ASSET
→
TRANSFER MECHANISM
→
COMMON RESOURCE
→
COMMUNITY GOVERNANCE
Commons transfer builder

Start with the asset. End with a public purpose.

This prototype produces a plain-language transfer direction. It is designed to help people arrive with a clear intention, recipient structure and fallback plan.

1. What are you leaving?

2. What should it become?

3. How permanent should the transfer be?

Your starting direction

Build in a fallback: name a second recipient or public-purpose structure in case the original project no longer exists.

“You spent a lifetime accumulating private property. It does not have to remain private forever.”
Commons registry

Make community successors visible.

A future version of this registry would show exactly which projects can receive property, hold copyright, steward collections or work through a trusted sponsor.

Housing Commons

Receives houses and buildings for permanent non-market housing.

Real estateAsset lock
Open Knowledge Trust

Stewards software, research, copyright, archives and digital infrastructure.

CopyrightOpen licence
Community Art Vault

Maintains art collections with guaranteed public access and local governance.

ArtPublic access