GivingMarket/PublicFoundation

The GivingMarket as a Public Foundation?

The /MembersWebsite solution went as far as it could go without technical expertise and funding to support it. Even if it could be built, it would need to bring so many people together and there would be ownership questions, governance questions, assets to manage and allocate. So the /PublicFoundation question came more into view -- even more daunting than the tech questions, really.

JulieEvansCaldwell doing some work on PublicNetworkingCenters and piloting/developing the principles and practices that might support the creation of 509 (US tax code section) organizations, public foundations that could be owned and operated by their members. The complexity of this question overwhelmed, chasing attention back to tech questions.

See /BigChange and /OpenQuestions for notes about the functions and reasons why the GivingMarket might work best, now or eventually, as a /PublicFoundation. In short, it would allow for a public fund to receive and distribute matching gifts to leverage the giving done in the open market. Some sort of transaction processing and matching funds function seems essential in order for this to effect /BigChange.

On the other hand, if there were no GivingMarket assets, or nearly none... there would be no need for governance and ownership structures. Funds pledged or bequeathed for Giving could stay fully distributed in Giving Accounts held by banks everywhere. It's just a question of how the matching process would be executed, as distributed system run by banks or as central clearing function. Or something in between the way credit cards transactions are cleared. Legions of individuals hold the cards, many banks sell the card accounts, fewer processors execute the transactions, and one org promotes the VISA name, for instance.

In the meantime, how would it be if the whole tech part was so dirt simple that there was almost nothing to own, to fund or to pay people to develop? It might look like the /WeblogDirectory solution. Could it start so simply? Might this sort of function be embraced and included in the offerings of something like [ManyOne Network]?