I’m already involved in such a project which uses Mastodon as a base. A Canadian federal member owned co-op called CoSocial. More info here: https://CoSocial.info We’re bootstrapping with volunteers, but every member pays to join & use services. We’ll pay mods & sysadmins.

Welcome! - Cosocial.ca Canadian Mastodon Cooperative

The crisis at Twitter has led to explosive growth and interest in Mastodon, a community-run and organized alternative to Twitter. And this sudden growth has

Lots of work to do, including grants and outreach and education to make it work for all Canadians. As well as participating in the commons network that is the Fediverse, from open source code to standards and interop.