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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.
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...
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...
AFTERTHOUGHTS
We are trying to bring Love and Money together. This is not a direct or simple transaction. Personal passion (love) must be brought forward as story, as so many offerings in the mountains of daily news, our collective consciousness and culture. The aggregation and digesting of these stories must inform the construction of social infrastructure and movement in community-based marketplaces. Only then, supported by these community structures and riding on these social movements, can individuals take action.
individual dimensions (leadership)
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LOVE, PASSION, PURPOSE | MONEY, POWER, RESPONSIBILITY, ACTION
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--- inner, discernable, subjective dimensions ------------------ outer, measurable, objective dimensions ---
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STORY, CULTURE, DREAM, INVITATION | STRUCTURE, LEARNING, MOVEMENT, MARKETPLACE
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collective dimensions (communities and orgs)
If we want to Fund a World that really is Better, we must actively invite Love into the news of the day in a structure that supports individuals taking right and good action. Only individuals can take this action. And only individuals can know what of all the possibiities are truly love and good. In other words, we as so many individual co-conveners have the Love and we have the Money. What we need is the News and Exchange organizations that will allow us to connect them to everyone, everywhere, all at once. That's where Google and eBay come in.
What does this really mean? ...reflections added Sunday morn by MichaelHerman
Consider that commerce on eBay currently is limited to physical stuff, in the same way that the money supply was once tethered to the stock of gold in vaults. Philanthropy is similarly limited to what is given from stocks of old stuff in basements and wealth accumulated in various kinds of stocks and vaults over lifetimes. What GivingMarket represents is a shift to a monetizing system that transcends our stock of available physical stuff and begins to monetize invitations, ideas, projects and dreams -- of anyone and everyone. It opens a space for a fiat-based system where the requests and the decrees that create real value come not only from central banks and rulers, but from everyone who is willing to give their time, talent and treasure to the making of a better world.
There have been a number of experiments in recent years with developing complimentary currencies... this idea represents the ultimate in that. In the system proposed, anyone with a history of doing good could monetize their own stories and experience and visions. Imagine "Michael Herman Dollars" and "Julie Evans Rupees" ...all fully convertible into the dollars, yen, yuan rupees, euros currently issued by the world's Central Bankers, based on the strength of the attention economy at any one moment and the market-determined value of tthe contributions that could be brought to market for consideration and contribution.
In the last century, our Central Banks left the gold standard and money became disconnected from the limits of Life on Earth. Governments inflated and often crashed their currencies. Many economists and others continue to champion a return to the gold standard. While there can be no going back, the GivingMarket represents a giant step forward. By opening a space for individuals to bring forth these stories and realize their value, GivingMarket offers the flexibility of fiat money and the grounding of the gold standard. Anyone can create their own currency, based on the strength of their own ability to support Better World Projects, and the entire system is bounded and grounded by the natural limits that exist on people's ability to give time, talent and treasure to their causes. A new standard where the people who would do good ARE the new gold and can print the money they need to do more good.
In this way, GivingMarket transcends even the strongest national currencies. If the richest countries in the world were to become the poorest, active citizens there could continue to bring their stories, dreams, passions and plans for a Better World and ask for support from whatever places and in whatever currencies are currently strong enough to help them. The potential here is absolutely staggering. This is the kind of global social economic safety net that no one central bank can ever be. And it is surfacing, not creating, as this net of asking and giving is the only thing that has ever insured our survival as individuals, communities on up to species. And, at the same time, it isn't anything new. It's merely a more inclusive, visible and efficient way of moving attention, energy and funding to where it can do the most good... just like Google and eBay.
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