Cardboard Boots: An Open Letter to MacKenzie Scott
Dear Ms. Scott,
I don’t want your money. I’m asking for something far more valuable: your reputation.
I’ve built a public, community-owned safety net of sixteen charitable initiatives designed to sustain themselves far beyond our lifetimes — focused on economic mobility, food security, and cooperative healthcare for people who experience the sharpest side of inequality — and I’m seeking a word from you to experienced leaders in your network who could help them succeed at scale. I’ve hand-picked leaders in each field whom I’m asking—Michael Seibel for CEO, Tom Simon (26-year FBI forensic accountant) for CFO, Sal Khan for education, José Andrés for food security—because I pray for potatoes at the end of a hoe handle, but your endorsement would exponentially multiply every ask I make.
In college, as a need-based scholarship student I once had two roommates. One was wealthy - his family literally owned ten homes. The other was poor like me. When I needed a suit and couldn’t afford one, my poor roommate immediately gave me one of the two he owned. Only afterward did my wealthy roommate offer one of his fifteen. That sacrifice thirty years ago still makes me cry, and it exemplifies the truth you wrote about which gift means more - $100 from someone earning $50,000 or $100,000 from someone with millions.
My specific ask: if our work aligns with your values, would you point operators from your network my direction — people who excel at scaling community-driven solutions, or ethical CTO, COO, or operational candidates, even fractional, who could steward this platform beyond my limited capacity?
I’m prepared to hand any or all of these initiatives, and even the entire platform, to leaders you trust.
Even one connection to someone experienced in food security or cooperative healthcare — who can vet the pitfalls I don’t know about yet — could prevent costly mistakes and multiply impact. I know enough to know I don’t know enough.
This isn’t charity TO the People but infrastructure BY the People FOR the People - “nothing about us without us” - which applies your principle that communities removing obstacles for different groups become better for everyone. This is explicitly designed as member-owned infrastructure: the people most affected help govern and benefit from the tools that solve them.
Every member can start a business for just 5 dollars, build their own designs or products, or get a job in another member’s business — all under the same cooperative terms. Three commercial websites sustainably fund sixteen charitable initiatives through a baked-in 20% “Cost of Doing Good” margin. The infrastructure is backed by 1,200 documented innovations—99% utility patents, not design—eight of which survived a 130-query deep dive against the U.S. patent office with no prior art found, and are contributed to the platform under the same terms as every member. What we need is people and leadership; the money will follow.
I’m launching the alpha by using half of my family’s emergency savings to seed the launch through our medallion sponsorship program: a no-strings-attached 100-dollar sponsorship each to 10 waitresses, bus drivers, and laborers who would never otherwise see any of these opportunities to change their lives. Each recipient can share their sponsorship forward into ten 10-dollar memberships, or more with involvement, bringing their own communities into the cooperative. One bus driver becomes ten transit workers becomes hundreds understanding they can have their own part of what they themselves and others work to achieve—the chain reaction that can go on for years.
Our economics show that 500 members in any locale reach break-even and around 1,000 they are sustainably profitable, with surplus dedicated to local initiatives. Math says it’s viable; my job is to prove it works in real life so others can count on it.
If you’d like to see the architecture before making any introductions, there’s a walkthrough at LianaBanyan.com/RedCarpet that will recognize your email. No scheduling, no pitch deck, no salesman.
And if this resonates beyond introductions, there’s a seat at the table. I’m offering you the Board Chair Crown—a permanent governance role overseeing the sixteen initiatives you’d be helping staff. One Crown, One Offer. But the introductions alone would change everything.
The medallions are minted. The platform is built. The first ten members are ready. What I lack is the wisdom and experienced leadership to ensure we serve millions, not hundreds. And I have two suits.
With shared purpose,
Jonathan Jones
Founder & General Manager, Liana Banyan Corporation
406-578-1232 | Founder@LianaBanyan.com
P.S. Naturally I’ll move forward either way, but now I have asked. “I bargained with Life for a penny…” — Jessie B. Rittenhouse.