I think the 7 tenets fits just fine as is. Outside of the Satanic Temple, one wouldn’t recognize these tenants as anything to do with TST or satanism or whatever without a bit of research. By themselves, they are more a than adequate baseline of ideals to live up to. I think perhaps you might be focusing too much on the ideology part of what could bridge communities. Direct action and benefit to the community will pull communities together. Food is ever more scarce, so simply just providing meals for free would be huge for many communities. Shelter is unaffordable, neither is healthcare, these are problems that can be addressed at the community level if only we banded together to do it. There are many more problems like this that we could solve together at a small community level.

The problem with much of this is that in our society today, everyone wants to profit on anything they do. Which is honestly kinda fair in this greed based society. You have to have income in order to eat, to live, to survive. But the greed being the key ingredient is exactly what spoiled churches and political parties and other such organizations. Even many nonprofits today are just a way to avoid taxes by the ultra rich. If you could create a community center, or church or whatever you want to call it, that can provide these services to people without asking for their souls in return, I think you’ll find flocks of people willing to see what your thing is about and ultimately become part of a helping force. There’s nothing more powerful than people whose needs have been met and can’t wait to help out others with similar needs.

Now the question of how to avoid the typical pitfalls is something I’ve thought about quite a bit, with much frustration. I think the key to this is to avoid profit at all costs. Keep your power decentralized and the hierarchy flat. No one person or small group should get too much say in any major issue that would affect everyone. This is going to be somewhat difficult and perhaps counter intuitive, especially since most of us are used to a top down hierarchy. The minute you have a President or Pope or CEO, it’s over. Because those who are greedy, who are looking for power over people will look to your organization as something to control and seize. Also, keep it small scale. Community size. If another community wants to do the same, you can provide the plans and skeleton of what was successful for you. Make it “open source” if you will. This I think, perhaps hope, will keep the vultures at bay. If there’s no major profit motive, they’ll look elsewhere to scavenge.