The Recognition
Market

SADUNA — the Service Alliance Decentralized Unincorporated Nonprofit Association — is the member-owned nonprofit that holds authority to issue credentials, sign Issuer Agreements with partner organizations, and maintain the audit chain for every MyServiceID credential, ServiceCoin, and ServicePatch on the platform. It is organized under the West Virginia Uniform Decentralized Unincorporated Nonprofit Association Act (HB 5060) and governed by its own written Bylaws.

Service Alliance LLC is the Sponsor: the company that chartered SADUNA, contributes the platform, tools, and brand, and provides operating support. It is a separate entity, with separate finances and separate governance. SADUNA is organized exclusively for the mutual benefit of its members and the uniformed-service community it serves; under its Bylaws, surplus is reinvested in the mission and recirculated to members — never distributed as a dividend to an outside shareholder, because there are none.

The distinction matters: your members' credentials are issued under a nonprofit whose mission matches theirs, not under a private company that could be acquired, change ownership, or change its terms tomorrow. Service Alliance LLC builds and maintains the tools. SADUNA is the institution that stands behind the credentials those tools issue.

Yes. SADUNA is governed by a written set of Bylaws organized into articles covering its legal form and purpose, membership, the Founders Cohort, the Sponsor's role and its limits, the recognition economy, governance, the treasury, member conduct and disputes, identity and data, and amendment and dissolution. The Bylaws also carry the association's guiding creed — the Service Alliance M.I.S.S.I.O.N. values (Merit Over Marketing, Identity Sovereignty, Service Beyond Self, Security by Design, Intelligent Community, Operational Excellence, and No One Left Behind) — which serve as the interpretive lens for every provision. Where a provision is ambiguous, the Bylaws direct that it be read in favor of the member, the protection of the vulnerable, and the durability of the mission.

SADUNA files under West Virginia HB 5060 on or around July 1, 2026, and the first members admitted during the founding period form the Founders Cohort defined in the Bylaws. The DUNA Act requires the association to maintain at least one hundred members at all times; the Founders Cohort is built to meet and exceed that floor at formation, which is why the founding period matters and why the earliest seats carry the standing they do.

A Founding Member's commitment is to participate in good faith — to uphold the M.I.S.S.I.O.N. values, recruit and welcome eligible members honestly, support member wellbeing (including familiarity with the Safe Harbor crisis-support pathway), and take part in governance. There is no minimum issuance volume required during the founding period.

In return, Founders carry heightened governance standing during the formative period, may help seat the founding council that stewards the association's earliest policies, and receive a non-transferable Founder recognition mark recorded in MyServiceID. The Bylaws are explicit on one point: Founder status is a membership and stewardship role, not an investment. It attaches to the person or organization, is not transferable, is not a security, and confers no equity in Service Alliance LLC or any other entity. If your organization wants the credential but not the governance responsibility, the standard Issuer Member tier launching after the founding period will fit better.

SADUNA is governed through Decision Markets — not token-weighted voting and not a traditional board. In plain terms: any member in good standing can submit a proposal, and members weigh in through agents they configure to act on their stated preferences. Outcomes are resolved by a market mechanism deliberately built to resist manipulation and duplicate-account ("one person, many votes") attacks — possible precisely because identity is verified at the credential layer. The loop is Design → Decide → Deploy, and every resolution is written to the audit record as a permanent artifact.

During the founding period, configuration authority rests with Service Alliance LLC as Sponsor and with the Founders, who hold heightened standing on constitutional matters. At the close of the founding period, that authority transitions to the members: powers not reserved by the Bylaws become exercisable through Decision Markets. The Sponsor keeps a defined, mission-protective standing and its royalty, but under the Bylaws it cannot extract surplus as a dividend or override a resolved decision except where the Bylaws or protocol-level safety rules expressly permit.

Founders who remain active retain heightened standing — a permanent founding role reflecting their part in building the association. The full governance articles are shared with Founding Member organizations before they sign.

The Bylaws build in mission-protective safeguards so that the things that make the Recognition Market what it is cannot be undone by an ordinary governance decision. The recognition economy stays closed against government currency; surplus is never distributed as a dividend to an outside shareholder; and the member- and child-safety protections and the Safe Harbor crisis-support commitments cannot be amended away.

Proposals that would touch the mission, the mutual nonprofit purpose, the closed nature of the recognition economy, those safety commitments, or the rights of the Founders and the Sponsor must clear a materially higher bar than ordinary proposals — an asymmetric threshold written into the Bylaws specifically to keep a well-funded or organized minority from capturing the association. Amendments can never cause SADUNA to violate the DUNA Act, authorize a dividend to an outside shareholder, open the recognition economy to exchange for dollars, or remove the safety and Safe Harbor protections.

This is the whole reason issuer authority sits in a nonprofit with these protections written into its governing document, rather than in a company that could simply revise its terms of service.

Nothing. Founding Members — both individuals and organizations — join at no cost. Under SADUNA's Bylaws, verification, credential issuance, and membership cost the member nothing. That principle is built into the governing document and it applies to the Founders Cohort fully.

Founding Members receive first access to the platform at the Founding on July 1, 2026. Platform pricing for individuals and organizations will take effect at a later date through Kiduna Club. Founding Members are in before that structure is set — with no obligation and no fee attached to their founding status.

Once your organization signs its Issuer Agreement with SADUNA, you receive an issuer key and access to the partner dashboard. SADUNA does not create accounts on anyone's behalf — each member enrolls personally — so your role is to invite and co-sign: upload your membership roster, configure verification requirements, send enrollment invitations to members who have not yet created their MyServiceID, and review or revoke credentials if a member's status changes.

For veteran credentials (DD-SBT), the platform cross-references against VA records or DD-214 uploads. Your organization co-signs the credential, adding your institutional authority alongside the service-record verification. For law enforcement and fire service credentials, the relevant organizational channel handles verification — POST commission records, IAFF local rosters, FOP lodge membership. Your organization is the co-issuer. You know your members. The platform handles the cryptographic issuance.

Issuer keys are held under SADUNA's authority, not Service Alliance LLC's. Your organization signs an Issuer Agreement with SADUNA that specifies how credentials for your members will be issued, revoked, and governed.

Service Alliance LLC, as Sponsor, operates the platform and manages the infrastructure. The issuer authority — the cryptographic keys that sign credentials — sits with SADUNA under its Bylaws. This means that if Service Alliance LLC changed ownership or ceased operations, SADUNA's governing document and its members would retain authority over the credential layer. Your members' credentials are not assets of Service Alliance LLC.

No. ServiceCoins cannot be converted to dollars, exchanged on external platforms, or redeemed for cash value of any kind. This is not a technical limitation — it is a foundational rule written into SADUNA's Bylaws. The recognition economy is closed against U.S. dollars in both directions: ServiceCoins cannot be bought with cash or redeemed for cash, the association publishes no exchange rate between recognition assets and dollars, and patch prices set in ServiceCoins do not translate into dollar prices SADUNA endorses or enforces. Under the Bylaws this rule is permanent and cannot be amended open.

The reason is plain: the moment recognition has a cash-out path, it stops being recognition and starts being a loyalty-points scheme. ServiceCoins exist to let organizations acknowledge what their members do, and to let members acknowledge each other. They are earned, gifted, and spent inside the Recognition Market — on patches, on programs, on community. When they are spent, they recirculate inside the system. They do not leave.

ServicePatches have two types. Commemorative patches are issued for specific events — reunions, anniversaries, campaigns. Your organization commissions the design, specifies the edition size, and pays a small issuance fee from your ServiceCoin treasury. Members who meet the criteria receive the digital patch automatically. Members who want a physical embroidered version order through the association's authorized maker. Credential patches are earned through demonstrated activity — mentorship completion, oral history contribution, advocacy participation. These carry verified credential status and are part of the member's permanent record. They cannot be traded or gifted.

ServicePatches, ServicePins, and ServiceBadges are siblings in the same expression layer — they differ only in form factor and carry identical exchange value. Yes, your organization can commission custom commemoratives. The design process is between your organization and the authorized maker; the digital issuance runs through the partner dashboard. The Founding Member onboarding guide includes full instructions for the commissioning process.

No. Most Founding Member organizations will not have a graphic designer on their board, and the platform is built around that reality. Every ServiceCoin and ServicePatch can be designed in partnership with a Kinship Agent — an AI that has been informed by your organization's history, the visual traditions of your domain, and the specific story you want the design to honor.

You describe what you want in plain language. The agent generates four to six candidate designs. You pick, refine, or start over. When you approve the final design, it passes through Service Alliance's alignment review — which screens for stolen valor, accidental copyright issues, and content that is not appropriate for the population the design serves — and is issued under SADUNA's authority.

If your organization does have a designer, you can upload finished art directly. The agent's role becomes validation and alignment review rather than creation. Most designs in practice are hand-in-hand: you sketch, the agent refines, or the agent drafts and you redirect.

The design step is paid in ServiceCoins from the organization's treasury. No member ever pays a dollar to create or receive a design.

Yes. The MyServiceID credential family includes types for every uniformed-service community: LE-SBT for law enforcement professionals (verified through FOP lodge membership, POST certification, or agency records); FFR-SBT for fire service and EMS professionals (verified through IAFF local membership or state certification records); and PSP-SBT for public safety professionals who may not fit the other categories.

The issuer framework is the same as for veterans. Your organization — FOP lodge, IAFF local, POST commission — becomes the co-issuer alongside SADUNA, acting as the Verifying Authority for your members. Verification requirements are configured to match your organization's existing membership standards. Your members prove their credentials to your organization, which already knows them. The platform issues the cryptographic record.

Verification depends on credential type and the standard your organization sets as the Verifying Authority. For the DD-SBT (veteran), verification uses DD-214 upload with AI review, VA API integration where available, or organizational vouching — your organization chooses which standards apply. For active-duty AS-SBT issuance, service data from the member's unit of assignment is the source. For law enforcement and fire service credentials, POST commission records, badge verification, IAFF local membership, or FOP lodge membership in good standing serve as the verification source — configured by your organization.

Your organization is the co-issuer. You know your members. The platform handles the cryptographic issuance. Organizations that use association-vouched verification take responsibility for that verification in their Issuer Agreement.

MyServiceID credentials are issued on a public audit chain. Once issued, a credential is a cryptographic record that does not depend on Service Alliance LLC's servers to exist. The credential exists independently of any platform.

SADUNA's Bylaws include winding-up and continuity provisions. If Service Alliance LLC dissolves or ceases to operate, issuer authority remains with SADUNA and its members, who have a defined path to move infrastructure. And on any winding up of SADUNA itself, the Bylaws require that remaining assets — after liabilities — pass to a sibling mutual-benefit association or to organizations serving the uniformed-service community, never to an outside shareholder. Members' soulbound credentials, being bound to the person and evidentiary of fact, are unaffected by dissolution.

This is precisely why issuer authority sits with a nonprofit separate from the operating company — a nonprofit whose mission is service-member recognition has structural incentives, written into its Bylaws, to keep credentials standing even if the platform around them changes. Member profile data is subject to Service Alliance LLC's data-retention policies, published in full before platform launch.

No — and we want to be direct about why we say that.

The audit chain underlying MyServiceID credentials uses cryptographic infrastructure that is technically described as blockchain-adjacent. These are implementation details. They are not the product. We do not lead with them because they are not what matters to a Veteran, a first responder, or a law enforcement officer.

What matters is that the credential is permanent, cannot be faked, cannot be transferred to someone else, and does not depend on any single company's servers to survive. The cryptographic implementation is how we make those properties technically true. It is not an ideology, a financial instrument, or a community to join.

ServiceCoins and ServicePatches are recognition assets, closed against the dollar — they are not securities and not cryptocurrency. For counsel or program officers who need the technical disclosure: yes, the audit chain uses distributed-ledger infrastructure; no, the recognition economy does not interface with financial markets. Any separate capital-formation instrument SADUNA may use is governed by its own securities-reviewed documentation and is distinct from the recognition assets described on this page. Securities and money-transmitter analysis under separate counsel.

We are not your counsel, and this answer is not legal advice.

Two protections matter. First, the DUNA Act gives SADUNA's members a liability shield: a member is not personally liable, directly or indirectly, for an obligation of the association solely by reason of being a member or participating in its governance. The debts, obligations, and liabilities of the association are solely the association's. Second, your Issuer Agreement with SADUNA allocates responsibility in plain terms: if a credential is issued to an unverified member due to your organization's failure to verify, that liability sits with your organization; if platform infrastructure fails, that sits with Service Alliance LLC; if the credential standard itself is found inadequate, that is a governance matter for SADUNA.

As an Issuer Member, your organization signs an Issuer Agreement defining your responsibilities — verifying members according to the agreed standard, not issuing credentials to unverified members, and adhering to the closed-economy rules. Counsel review of the Issuer Agreement before signing is strongly recommended. We will make the draft agreement available to organizations that have submitted a letter of intent.

This is a conversation we want to have with you directly. POST commissions are among the most important potential Issuer Members in the system, and the integration pathway looks different for each state.

The short answer: yes, integration is possible. The PSP-SBT and LE-SBT credential types are designed to accept state certification data as the source of truth for verification. An officer with a current POST certification could have that certification co-signed by the commission as a SADUNA credential — permanent, portable, and readable by any employer or background-check system that integrates with the Recognition Market.

What does not exist yet is a production integration with any specific state's POST system. Building that requires a formal partnership agreement and a technical data-sharing arrangement. Founding Member POST commissions would be the first to build those integrations — which means they would also be the first to shape what those integrations look like. If you are with a POST commission and reading this page, use the form above or contact Matt Simon directly.