My name is Jonathan Jones. I’m a 52-year-old father of eight, a U.S. Army veteran, and the founder of Liana Banyan Corporation — a cooperative commerce platform with sixteen charitable initiatives designed to be self-funding and sustainable.

I was a child of missionaries in Tanzania — no television until 13, so I read a lot, and I’m good at chess. I’ve spent 47 years thinking about cooperative economics and nine years building this platform. I’m not a billionaire. I’m not famous. I’m just someone who wants what SHOULD be good to ACTUALLY be GOOD.

Liana Banyan is a cooperative platform in which three commercial divisions — .com, .biz, and .net — drive sustained funding for the .org charitable initiatives. All the time, by design, sustainable beyond our lifetimes because of the infrastructure we build that operates far beyond us.

The economic principle is simple: Cost + 20%. Creators keep 83.3% of every transaction. The platform takes 16.7% to fund operations, and 100% of charitable funds go directly to the people doing the work. Helping each other help ourselves.

We have sixteen initiatives — everything from meal delivery (Let’s Make Dinner) to music licensing (JukeBox) to microloans (VSL) to protection systems (Defense Klaus). Each one is designed to benefit those who need it most and be sustainably charitable.

MSA — the Member Service Account — is our cooperative banking initiative. It’s designed to:

• Provide financial services to platform members at cost
• Eliminate the extraction that plagues traditional banking
• Build financial infrastructure that serves communities, not shareholders
• Create an account system where members govern the rules

You said it yourself: “When people with shared communities form a system, it creates the best outcome.”

That’s exactly what MSA is building.

You’ve spent 20+ years in cooperative finance. You lead the national federation of community development credit unions. You understand that financial inclusion isn’t charity — it’s infrastructure.

What convinced me to write was your philosophy. Not just the work you do, but how you think about it.

Credit unions exist because traditional banks wouldn’t serve certain communities. They’re member-owned. They’re democratically governed. They put people over profit.

That’s exactly what Liana Banyan is building — but across sixteen initiatives, not just financial services.

MSA is the financial backbone. It’s where platform members store value, make transactions, and participate in the cooperative economy. It needs to be governed by someone who understands that finance can serve people instead of extracting from them.

That’s you.

I want you to lead the MSA Council.

Not to run it day-to-day — you’re leading Inclusiv. But to guide it. To set the standards for what cooperative member banking should look like. To help us build the infrastructure that serves platform members the way credit unions serve their communities.

Every initiative in Liana Banyan operates as a council. The Crown is the First Seat — the leader, the tie-breaker, the voice on our Steering Committee. As the council grows with workers and members, they elect their own representative to the Board of Directors. In the early days, that representative would likely be you.

You’ve built trust with 500+ credit unions serving 20 million people. MSA is the infrastructure that brings that same trust to the Liana Banyan ecosystem.

MSA operates on what we call the Three-Gear Currency System:

This isn’t cryptocurrency. It’s not speculative. It’s a practical system for cooperative commerce — where the medium of exchange serves the community instead of extracting from it.

You understand this already. Credit unions have been doing it for a century. MSA is the same principle, applied to a platform economy.

You wouldn’t be leading an isolated initiative — you’d be part of an ecosystem of hundreds that lead thousands to benefit millions.

I’ve also written to:

• José Andrés for Let’s Get Groceries — food access
• Maneet Chauhan for Let’s Make Dinner — meal delivery
• Jessica Jackley for VSL — microfinance
• Dale Dougherty for Let’s Make Bread — business incubation
• Mary Beth Laughton for Let’s Go Shopping — cooperative retail
• Ruth Glenn for Defense Klaus — protection systems

If any of them are too busy or have other commitments, I’ve asked for referrals to others who might carry the torch. I’m asking the same of you.

Check out the structure and connections at cephas.lianabanyan.com/The300.

These aren’t disconnected initiatives. They’re interlocking systems where the small business might need a microloan, the creator might need cooperative retail access, the family might need affordable prescriptions. The whole system is designed to catch people where they are and lift them up.

MSA is the financial infrastructure that makes all of it possible.

Community development credit unions prove that cooperative finance works. Member-owned. Democratically governed. Serving people traditional banks won’t serve.

But credit unions are standalone institutions. They serve their members, but they’re not connected to the broader cooperative economy.

What if the credit union was embedded in a cooperative platform? What if every transaction — meals, music, microloans, manufacturing — flowed through member-owned financial infrastructure?

That’s what MSA is building. And that’s what you could help shape.