COHOTO - Cohousing Tools

What COHOTO?

COHOTO is a network of people who share the idea of cohabitation in such models as cohousing, coliving, or acting into coworkings, co-operatives. COHOTO.net is a service that gives us specific tools to facilitate cooperation and the possibility of getting to know each other's. We do this because it's easier, happier and cheaper.

Imagine that ...

You live with a group of friends in a beautiful villa with a garden, sauna, pool. You get up in the morning and your friend treats you freshly squeezed juice. After breakfast, you're going with friends, one car to the coworking, where old friends have new ideas to implement, so creatively spend a time. Later, a friend of coworking going to the bazaar to pick up products from a trusted farmer owned co-operative food in COHOTO. There you meet another friend with whom you spend time tasty. You come home, where together, playing, preparing dinner with products from the farmer. They come together successive family members and begin a great feast, with merry talks, telling their experience today. Part of the group, stay and cleans up after dinner, and you quickly enter shopping done in COHOTO and settled everything by one button. In the living room, just start the evening session of the film, on jointly purchased, a huge screen on which you decided by vote buying. This is just a simple example of what can jointly create, together with COHOTO.
Do you think it difficult? You have to be rich? No! Because together, sharing bits and pieces of others are creating abundance. Together through economies of sharing, we all have access to every individual need.

What does the name COHOTO?

COHOTO or "COHOusing TOols":
CO – shared fun or cooperation if you prefer, which is everything that we do together,
HO – holistic treatment house, every aspect, including human, it's essential for healthy fun,
TO – toys or tools if you prefer, that is what it does the job.

COHOTO is a multifunctional tool to help organize and manage the activities of groups such as:

Are you a group of friends living together? Would you like to better organize shopping? Do you have an idea for a joint project? Provides another their services, objects, knowledge? You want to combine in action with other communities?

COHOTO will help you to it!

What does COHOTO enable to do?

Instant communication within the group.

Those who live in a larger group know that meeting with every single member to discuss an issue is close to impossible. Notices must be stuck on the fridge door (but if the cat eats them, no one will ever know about that repairman that was supposed to come, right?). Sticky notes are obsolete and calling everyone is a drag, not to mention, it can be costly too.
COHOTO notice board, where all the newest posts can be shared, is the solution. Every post can be commented on too turning a simple notice into a dialogue being constantly updated until the issue is resolved. These notices are visible only to the members of your community. You retain your full privacy sharing only the information facilitating your cooperation with other communities within the portal.

Group shopping arrangement and cost settling

COHOTO has a shopping organisation function built in which allows you to quickly create simple surveys concerning the things you think should be purchased by your group. Organised group shopping will allow everyone to save time and money. The system will also make it really easy to settle all your finished purchases. There's no need to guess "who owes what to whom", the system will figure it out for you! And don't worry if there is a change of plans. The system will automatically recalculate every transaction the moment you change the amount or the number of participants.

What makes COHOTO even easier to use is the prepaid system. All it requires is a sort of "piggy bank" (it may be a physical piggy bank or some Internet service) where people from your community can put the money to as well as withdraw from. The system will inform everyone about their balance, how much they owe others and how much others should give them back for the purchases they have made for the community. Moreover, everyone has instant access to the purchase history which gives a clear picture of all the payments and transactions. This will eliminate misunderstandings and quarrels and take your focus off the boring and mind boggling calculations leaving you with more time for creative group activities!

Communication between groups

One of the fundamental aims of COHOTO is to facilitate cooperation between all cohousing communities, cooperatives and other collaborative groups.

Every community will have the possibility to exchange their experiences, educational materials and even resources and services with others. You will share ideas and inspire one another creating a positive network of like-minded groups.

One of the initiatives that has already been successfully introduced is the Group for testing. You are welcome to check it out!