Bootstraps Returns — UBI in America in 2026
From Conrad Shaw and Deia Schlosberg of the Bootstraps Basic Income Project
We’ve been heads down, doggedly building up our projects to have some extra exciting and actionable stuff to share with you today. We’ve got a lot brewing at the moment, and now feels like a perfect time to fill you in on what’s in the works along with a few opportunities to plug in.
As a quick refresher, back in the fall of 2023, Deia and I let you know that our docuseries investigating universal basic income (UBI), called Bootstraps, was expanding to encompass an ecosystem of projects all contributing to an ambitious national initiative, called the Boots on the Ground Campaign that we’re gearing up to launch in 2026.
Key features of Boots on the Ground:
1. The Bootstraps docuseries (in post-production)
We followed 11 households receiving $1,000/adult + $333/child each month for 2.5 years, and the results were pretty astounding.
It’s a monster of a project that we started working on in 2016, and we’re now pushing to submit for our first film festivals (Sundance, SXSW, Series Fest, etc. for early 2026) and to start reaching out to streaming platforms to figure out where Bootstraps series is going to live.
2. The Comingle Web Platform (in beta testing)
At a high level, Comingle is a tool for us all to build and test out basic income together without waiting for government or philanthropy, using a voluntary mutual aid model and the power of the internet and financial technology to facilitate what would arguably be the world’s first, permanent, scalable, universal basic income, capable of serving millions.
To achieve this, Conrad has been working with a couple of co-founders and Twenty Ideas, the team of developers who built the UBIcalculator with him back in 2019. In our last message in 2023, we wrote to you about the crowdfund they were attempting in order to kick off Comingle’s development. That crowdfund succeeded marvelously, raising over $80,000, and helped spur an awful lot of momentum in our further fundraising and development endeavors.
We’ve since raised over $2M and hired over a dozen editors, producers, and software developers onto Bootstraps’ and Comingle’s teams. This month, we kicked off phase one of Comingle’s beta testing, using real bank connections, and will be slowly ramping up the platform with an eye to open it to the general public in 2026.
So, when will the world’s first UBI actually happen? Maybe next year, if we have anything to say about it.
3. The National Tour
Once the series is released and Comingle is up and running, we’ll bring this show on the road. We’re putting together a plan for 100+ nationwide screenings and events, a podcast, educational materials, social media campaigns, and a powerful call to action for those interested to join the Comingle web platform and see how big and fast we can build UBI from the ground up.
Thank you to our partner, the Income To Support All (ITSA) Foundation, a nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization that was launched in 2023 to help support increasingly ambitious UBI projects like Bootstraps and Comingle.
Without their support, these projects would not be on the verge of both being widely released soon. We are incredibly grateful for ITSA’s continuing support.
4. Boots on the Ground Campaign Goals
We’ve taken so long in getting here, almost a decade of our lives to set these projects up to really swing for the fences in terms of impact.
In 2026, we hope to:
Help millions of Americans become informed about and engaged with the idea of UBI.
Build a community of practice delivering the first permanent, scalable, real-world UBI (via Comingle) to at least 100,000 Americans, moving at least $100M in charitable impact per year (and growing from there).
So that’s what we’re working to make happen in 2026. Who knows how things will unfold, but that’s the timeline we’re shooting for, and whenever we show you enough vision, work, and/or traction to get you excited to join in, we’ll be excited to have you with us in this grassroots endeavor.
Ok, that’s it for this update! The next one won’t take two years or have so much to catch you back up on; it will be whenever we find out some more (exciting) specifics about when we’re rolling out these projects in the real world.
And to every one of you: stay strong, stay safe, stay alert, stay kind, stay interested and vocal about UBI and other human rights movements, and stay tuned!
In love and solidarity,
Conrad Shaw & Deia Schlosberg