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GivingMarket/ConferenceNotesCONVENER(S): JulieEvansCaldwell, MichaelHerman, GerryGleason (TomMunnecke by proxy)
PARTICIPANTS: CharlesMaclean, SallyProuty, DrakeZimmerman, CliffAdams
SUMMARY OF DISCUSSION, KEY POINTS, CONCLUSIONS, ACTIONS:
Introduction
A few days before the conference, MichaelHerman and TomMunnecke hatched the idea of "G-Bay" - a marriage of the Story power of [Google] and [eBay]. The Google and eBay structures can serve as easy shorthand for understanding this idea. We want to invite both companies to play. And... this idea is potentially bigger than either one of them. For now, let's think of it as the GivingMarket.
This week, Tom came to town a few days before the Giving Conference and met with Michael, JulieEvansCaldwell, GerryGleason and a number of others. The GivingMarket idea moved forward and Tom asked that we keep going and bring something out of the conference that we could all move forward with together. In this session, we outlined a proposal that we to deliver to major corporate players like Google and eBay, as an invitation to help us convene an Open Space conference that could begin to work out the social, business and technical logistics of creating a vibrant marketplace to realize the value and spread the news of good apples (individuals) and what's working (communities) around the world.
Beginning initially from the shorthand afforded by referencing Google and eBay... eBay is the premiere online marketplace for individuals offering products for sale to individuals. Google is the premiere search engine and news aggregator, offering instant online access to our most important stories globally. Both organizations are committed to principles and practices aligned with the HighestGood? for all people. GivingMarket is envisioned as the premiere online marketplace for individual activists, organizers, and leaders to offer stories of how they are willing to work to make the world a better place to individual donors, referrers and supporters who share their passion and dreams for a better world.
A Very Big Party
GivingMarket will invite stories from all kinds of people, networks and communities, with all kinds of purposes and passions generally aligned with simple principles capturing the essence of "highest good" and enable them to offer their visions in an efficient marketplace where they can get the funding and other kinds of support they need to realize their dreams (large and small) of a better world. The number and diversity of the invitees is staggering. The Google and eBay structures may be the only structures currently in existence that could hold a large enough space for all of this potential, which is seems so tremendous that there is no way that it can NOT be realized and activated. The question is not If?, but Who? and How Fast?
We are committed to bringing together all of our own people, networks, organizations and communities to make this so. We hope that Google and eBay will join this party sooner rather than later.
A Marketplace for People Helping People
We envision a primary market analogous to the eBay market for "stuff" offered by individuals. The "products" offered in this new GivingMarket market would be "projects" that active individual citizens brought forward. They would be "stories" of their experiences, insights, workplans and needs for support. They would be requests for funding that could be processed in ways similar to the way eBay processes sales transactions now.
The individual projects would be proposed and documented via weblogs, and independently reviewed and rated in the same way eBay sellers are currently scored. Google would support the emergence of this new "attention economy" with a Better World or Good Apples section on the Google News page, in addition to its current offering of Blogger.com and Ad Words for non-profits.
A secondary market in which non-profit organizations and foundations would emerge to provide tax deductibility for donations in the form of fiscal agency. This is analogous to the brick-and-mortar eBay-support businesses that provide photography and other seller-support. In short, we want to make a market for dreams. If you can dream and propose it, GivingMarket will help you sell it.
Invitation / Business Case Outlined
We understand the GivingMarket concept to be a powerful convergence of issues and opportunities, languages and practices, some of which might fit together in a paper/invitation like this...
Immediate Next Step: A New Conference?
Coming back to practical questions and decisions on the ground... our invitation is not a request for a YES or NO on the concept... it is an invitation to a conference, a 3-day Open Space process where some 100-200 passion, connected, responsible, active individual and corporate citizens can come together and work out all of the issues and opportunities that this concept represent. We are inviting best possible consideration of the concept in Open Space so that we can then make a YES or NO on best possible view of the entire economic community that GivingMarket represents.
Please join us...
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