9: Post-distribution: Governing Deployment

While pre-distribution shapes how wealth accumulates, post-distribution governance addresses how accumulated wealth is deployed – particularly through foundations, philanthropic vehicles and corporate structures. This chapter elaborates on democratic accountability mechanisms ensuring that concentrated resources serve public purposes.

As established in Chapter 3’s second principle, foundations controlling significant resources should face citizen oversight with binding authority. This section specifies implementation details.

Foundations with assets exceeding $1 billion or annual distributions exceeding $50 million must establish citizen oversight panels. This threshold captures approximately 120 foundations in the United States – those with outsized social impact (Foundation Center, 2024).

Panels should include 15–25 members selected through stratified random sortition – lottery selection from affected populations, ensuring demographic representativeness: