Minimum Support Schedule¶

Support policy — instantiates Source–Sink Viability Management

Sets the smallest reliable support a sink needs to stay just above its viability threshold, delivered on a fixed cadence and adjusted by rule as conditions change — sparing the source without letting the sink slip under.

A Minimum Support Schedule answers a narrow operational question the rest of the archetype leaves open: given that this sink will be supported, what is the least we can send, how often, and by what rule do we adjust it? Its defining move is aiming for the floor, not the comfortable middle — the smallest reliable flow that keeps the sink above its viability threshold — and encoding how that floor changes as conditions move, rather than fixing one number forever. It is deliberately a thin instrument: it does not decide whether to support (that is upstream) or how much the source can afford (that is the Cross-Subsidy Budget); it converts a support decision into a paced, rule-governed delivery that neither overspends the source nor starves the sink.

Example¶

A regional food bank supports a dozen partner pantries, one of which cannot source enough on its own to stay open. Early on the food bank simply sent whatever it had spare, which swung between a glut and a shortfall. A minimum support schedule replaces that with a rule: deliver the smallest weekly volume that keeps the pantry's stock above the point where it would have to turn people away, indexed to the pantry's recent demand.

The schedule carries two moving parts. An adaptive rule — "if measured demand rises two weeks running, step the delivery up one tier; if the pantry's own local donations recover, step it down" — so support tracks need instead of habit. And a review cadence — a standing quarterly check of whether the floor is still the right floor. The result is a pantry that no longer oscillates between waste and empty shelves, drawing a steady minimum from the food bank that leaves more surplus for the other eleven, with an explicit rhythm for revisiting the number rather than letting it calcify.^[1]

How it works¶

Target the threshold, not abundance. Set the delivery at the smallest reliable amount that clears the sink's viability threshold with a thin safety margin, so surplus is not parked in a sink that does not need it.
Fix a dependable cadence. Deliver on a predictable schedule, because for a sink near threshold reliability often matters more than size — an erratic larger flow can fail it where a steady smaller one holds.
Encode an adjustment rule. Specify in advance how the amount steps up or down with measured conditions, so support adapts without a fresh negotiation each cycle.
Schedule the review of the floor itself. Put a standing cadence on re-asking whether the minimum is still right, so a number set for one situation does not silently outlive it.

Tuning parameters¶

Safety margin — how far above the bare threshold the floor is set. A thin margin spares the source but risks a stockout on a bad week; a fat one wastes surplus.
Adjustment sensitivity — how sharply the rule responds to changing conditions. Twitchy rules chase noise and destabilize the sink; sluggish ones let it drift under before reacting.
Cadence tightness — how frequently support arrives and how frequently the floor is reviewed. Tighter cadence tracks reality better but costs coordination overhead.
Floor rigidity — whether the minimum is a hard commitment or a soft target. Hard floors give the sink certainty to plan on; soft ones give the source flexibility under stress.

When it helps, and when it misleads¶

Its strength is efficiency with reliability: it keeps a sink alive on the least surplus that will do the job, and its steadiness lets the sink plan rather than lurch — while its built-in adjustment rule and review cadence stop the number from either strangling the sink or bleeding the source as conditions drift.

Its failure modes cluster around the word minimum. A floor set for survival can quietly become a ceiling that entrenches permanent dependence — the sink stabilizes at bare viability with no path off support, and the "temporary" schedule runs for years. It can also breed moral hazard: a guaranteed minimum can dull the sink's own effort to recover. And a schedule with no review cadence calcifies, delivering a number long after the situation that justified it changed. The discipline is to pair the floor with an explicit rationale and horizon held elsewhere, keep the review cadence live, and treat a schedule that never steps down as a signal to ask whether this should be recovery or exit rather than indefinite maintenance.

How it implements the components¶

Minimum Support Schedule realizes the operational-delivery slice of the archetype — the components that turn a support decision into a paced, self-adjusting flow:

adaptive_support_rule — the pre-specified rule by which the delivered minimum steps up or down as measured conditions change, so support tracks need without renegotiation.
feedback_review_cadence — the standing rhythm for re-checking whether the floor, and the support itself, are still right.

It delivers support but does not decide the reason or the end date for it — that is the support rationale and horizon carried by the Support Flow Agreement; it does not compute how much the source can afford — that is the Cross-Subsidy Budget; and it does not plan a phased exit from support — that is the Support Taper Plan.

Instantiates: Source–Sink Viability Management — the schedule is the operational floor that keeps a supported sink viable on the least surplus.
Consumes: Cross-Subsidy Budget sets the affordable ceiling the schedule must fit under; the sink's viability threshold sets the floor it must clear.
Sibling mechanisms: Cross-Subsidy Budget · Support Flow Agreement · Support Taper Plan · Rescue-Effect Audit · Restoration Priority Matrix · Metapopulation Model

Notes¶

A minimum support schedule is agnostic about the purpose of support, which is its convenience and its danger: it will keep a sink at bare viability just as faithfully whether that sink is a temporary rescue case, a permanent public-service commitment, or a chronic failure no one has admitted to. Because it cannot tell these apart, it should never run unattached to a rationale-and-horizon held by another mechanism — a schedule with no stated end is how indefinite dependence gets built by default.

References¶

[1] Moral hazard — a party bearing less of the consequence of its own shortfall has weaker incentive to prevent it — is the standard caution attached to any guaranteed support floor. It does not argue against a minimum schedule; it argues for pairing one with a horizon and a review, which is why both appear above. ↩