I want to contribute financially to get things done in my community fast

I wonder if this might benefit from a few specific "worked examples", where you deal with eg:

- "ownership of the problem" - you mention "park cleanup, river cleanup, etc" but there are often local agencies who feel such things are their own responsibilitity, and may not like (or even approve) ad-hoc efforts from others?

- "nature of the skills required", specifically whether volunteer skills, or paid-for skills - and if paid for, how you do your quality control in advance (you might get a lot of volunteers for fence-painting, say, and a lot of badly painted fences?)

There may be *loads* of workable examples, still, for all I know. These are just questions that spring to mind. (We have a local volunteer litter-picking team where I live, and volunteers manage the local bluebell wood, and various other community volunteer groups. I wonder if sending money to such volunteer groups, to make them more effective (buy tools, pay expenses, do PR to find more people, etc), rather than actually paying volunteer *workers*, might be easier to manage/implement?)

[PS new to posting. Let me know if such free-form /big-picture /open-ended chat is inappropriate - TIA]

Local government as a framework for community participation is older than "we the people", making it work is the challenge. Think of all the civilizations that have gone before us.

Do we reinvent the wheel or tweek it? Reinvention will require dismantling of governance as we know it.

I've been thinking about a clean up America initiative for some time. So many of our freeways, streets and parks are littered with trash carelessly disposed of. This could create a national effort and inspire citizens to be more thoughtful about their actions and more responsible for the environment

Good core to the idea. Many loose groups of people already get together and do things like park/river/creek cleanups as well as other projects for the public good (e.g. the Incredible Edible Projects worldwide as well as community gardens in general). Volunteerism is strong in many communities but so many of those volunteers pay out of pocket for things (supplies) that a marketplace could support. Further, gig workers could make inroads in areas with high-wage earners who have more money than time and would like to donate to some local causes. I like the idea a lot.

Is this a better version of an HOA?