PAIX

A second code, for everyone else. No religion test. No membership test. No obligation.

Status

Pre-approval. This page describes a proposal being prepared for presentation to Holy Trinity Parish in Lenexa, Kansas, and, in due course, to the archdiocese and to Amazon Business. Nothing on this page has been blessed by a pastor, approved by a chancery, or negotiated with Amazon. It is a design, not a program.

The idea in one paragraph

The parish code (e.g. HTCLENEXA) is for parishioners of Holy Trinity. When they route their ordinary Amazon spend through the caisse's link, the nonprofit procurement spread lands in their parish caisse — supporting their own neighbors, their own hardship fund, their own certified households.

The PAIX code is for everyone else. If you are not a Catholic, not a parishioner, not in Lenexa, not in Kansas — you can still route your Amazon spend through a caisse-affiliated link, and the flowback lands in PAIX, the shared umbrella under which every caisse is chartered. PAIX supports the shared ledger canon, new-parish onboarding, and a network hardship pool any caisse can draw from.

Two codes. Same technology. You choose the destination.

Who this is for

The caisse is for people who produce value in their community and want the flowback from their ordinary spending to circulate among neighbors: households buying groceries and school supplies, professionals doing real work for other households, tradespeople, teachers, healthcare workers, small-business operators, and the parishioners who volunteer their hours.

The caisse is not oriented toward political actors, financial intermediaries, or sales professions. Not because there is anything wrong with any of those roles — the world needs all of them — but because our structural advantages (parish tax status, a real community, a public ledger, and covenanted volunteer hours) are useless to those roles and would only complicate their lives. We are not trying to reform them, replace them, or compete with them. We simply do a different kind of work, in a different kind of container, for a different kind of purpose.

We do not name names. We do not endorse or oppose any public figure, any political party, any bank, any brokerage, or any employer. We do not lobby. We do not petition. We do not run for anything. The caisse's board and steward are forbidden by charter from any partisan political activity conducted in the caisse's name.

The reason for this is practical, not moral. A parish-scale mutual-aid economy is a small, quiet thing. If it stays small and quiet, it does its work without drawing attention. If it becomes political, it draws attention, and the people it was built to serve get hurt. The Fathers built parish structures precisely because they last longer when they mind their own business. We are following that pattern deliberately.

Why this is allowed

There is no legal restriction on a non-Catholic supporting a Catholic parish or a Catholic-affiliated fund in the United States. Catholic parishes and their 501(c)(3) affiliates are open to donations from any person, of any faith or no faith. The IRS does not impose a religion test on donors. The diocese does not either.

Practically:

The parish code routes flowback into the parish's own 501(c)(3) instrument (parish bank account, parish-owned co-op, or diocesan-blessed subsidiary — the exact legal shape is a decision Father and the archdiocese make, not us).
The PAIX code routes flowback into a separate PAIX-level entity — a religious-affiliated 501(c)(3) or non-profit co-operative — chartered under PAIX and governed by its own board with a Catholic-tradition governance structure.
Neither code buys governance rights. Donating money does not buy a vote in the parish or a vote in PAIX. The Fathers' governance model — Church authority, community authority, and a public ledger — is untouched by donor identity.

What PAIX is for

The parish caisse serves parishioners. PAIX serves the network that lets parish caisses exist:

Ledger infrastructure. The shared canon of the caisse ledger schema, the shop configuration format, and the build tools that any parish can fork. This costs real money to maintain (hosting, developer time, security audits) and no single parish should carry that.
Network hardship pool. When a caisse somewhere in the network takes an unexpected hit — a natural disaster, a leadership transition, a fraud loss — PAIX can advance an interest-free bridge that the caisse repays over time. This is exactly Desjardins' original mutual-aid architecture, one level up.
New-parish onboarding. The cost of standing up a caisse (legal paperwork, ATEP enrollment, professional-provider recruitment) is real. PAIX can carry the first-year overhead for parishes that want to start a caisse but do not yet have the surplus to bootstrap.
Never for salaries at the top. PAIX is not a foundation for network executives. Its charter should forbid any single individual from drawing an ongoing salary greater than a parish-level median household income. This is a promise the network makes to every donor, parishioner and non-parishioner alike.

Why this is not a solicitation

We are not asking anyone to donate. We are giving anyone who is already going to spend money on Amazon a way to route the affiliate spread — money Amazon was going to pay to someone anyway — to a fund whose books are public and whose beneficiaries are neighbors. If you like the destination, use the code. If you do not, do not use the code. Nothing changes for you either way. The buyer pays the same price. The item ships the same way. Amazon takes the same margin. Only the destination of the affiliate spread changes.

That is the entire proposition. It is a routing choice, not a donation solicitation.

What we still do not know

Three honest caveats we want on the record:

Amazon Associates commission rates are 1–10% depending on category (Amazon Associates rate schedule). The higher spreads (14–22%) that appear elsewhere in this packet assume negotiated Amazon Business nonprofit purchasing rates, ATEP sales-tax exemption, and cooperative-purchasing contracts stacked on top. Those are not the same instrument as consumer Amazon Associates. Until the caisse actually negotiates its Amazon Business account and its OMNIA Partners cooperative membership, the realistic flowback rate is closer to 1–10%, not 17%.
Amazon can revoke an affiliate account at any time, for any reason. PAIX cannot depend on Amazon for its existence. It has to be one lane of many, alongside direct giving, cooperative purchasing, and eventually locally-covenanted merchants.
The PAIX entity does not exist yet. Before a single dollar can be routed through the PAIX code, the entity has to be chartered, a board seated, a governance document adopted, and a fiscal sponsor engaged. That is months of work, not a weekend.

What PAIX means

PAIX is a Latin-French word for peace. It is also the shared name for every caisse under this umbrella — the Holy Trinity Caisse in Lenexa, and, in time, any parish that wishes to fork the canon. Every caisse keeps its own name and its own governance. PAIX is only the shared spine.

Someone who is not a parishioner and does not intend to become one can still support the network by routing their Amazon affiliate spread to PAIX. Their money supports the ledger infrastructure and the network hardship pool, not any single parish. It costs them nothing. It commits them to nothing. It is a routing choice, not a membership.

One good deed. One witness. One hour. One token.

The Rule is the same in every caisse. The destination is up to you.