GivingMarket/KeyWordsDefined

Market

The most central mechanism envisioned and proposed here. The purpose of any market is exchange. All markets and exchanges have two sides. Markets and exchange exist to reduce waste, meet needs, maximize and realize value -- to make value real. If I have more of anything than I need, be it physical goods like grains or cars, or something less tangible like project management or musical ability, then I can make myself and others better off by exchanging it with those who want it, in return for what I want. Markets occur naturally, automatically and quickly as soon as abundances and needs are identified. We talk often and easily about webs and networks; markets are simply networks in motion. Life isn't really a web or network, it's the energy that moves through those connections. To shift in thinking from networks to markets is to shift our focus from technical structure to living social exhange.

Transaction

When the value contained in physical goods or services changes hands. Actions crossing. I do this and you do that in return. The crossing is the agreement that creates the value. Markets facilitate agreements, actions, transactions, but not without cost. If I have a need and you have the thing to satisfy it, I might look long and hard to find you and you might pay something to deliver it to me. Distance, diffusion and disconnection raise transaction costs. Higher costs hinder trade, satisfaction, value, and good, common or otherwise. Efficient markets lower transaction costs. More exchange takes place with greater ease. Buyers and sellers, organizers and funders, volunteers and needs find each other with increasing speed and decreasing effort.

Gifts

Everybody has them, and almost nobody can use up all of their innate human giftedness. Many of us spend our whole lives looking for where we can use the abundance of who we are. Some people work secure jobs their whole lives and die with their music inside of them. Others starve for security in this world even as they share they share all of who they are. Some gifts are about art, others are about vision or management or healing. Gifts are deeper and older than skills, the things we knew before we started studying. Some gifts are denominated in dollars or other currencies.

Projects

Taken together, our gifts and skills, connections and experiences give us some sense of what could be done to make the world a better place, for ourselves and others. They are wishes, visions, dreams, and desires... until we firm them up into plans and projects, invite people to join us, start playing with the possibilities and commit to some process. Some projects and organizers are lucky enough to have all they need; others languish for need of but one small piece, one special person, or small payment.

Value

Good. A good deal. An improvement. A desire or need satisfied. The satisfaction that comes from helping or being helped, a project well done. The world made even just a little bit better for even a few people or other beings. Usually 'realized' or made real through the agreement of two or more people, an agreement that manifests in a market exchange between the two. If one says it's good, and the other agrees, then the deal is done, the sale made, the value held up as real. Value manifests in markets when buyer and seller, asker and offerer, agree to do the deal.

Philanthropy

The set of market transactions that match gifts and projects in order to create value for everyone.