[GiftEconomy] 'Emerges'? How about 're-emerges'?

[Tereza Coraggio]

Hi, Dante

I'll answer these one at a time, since there's so much here. The  
critic at allthatiswrong has his head in the sand (or someplace  
darker) when it comes to nonprofits. The goal of every 501c3 is to get  
other people to pay for its own operations. In order to be a legal  
nonprofit you have to show that you're getting the majority of your  
money donated by other people for your stated mission... period. Like  
Wikipedia, if running an advertising-free, no-fee website is couch  
surfing's mission, they should be paying for salaries and all the  
things they are.

On Charity Navigator's rating system, this is what I wrote in one of  
my shows:
Their first measures are the amounts spent on programs vs.  
administration and fundraising, based on the charity's own tax  
reporting. If they call 10% or less of their expenses administration,  
they get a 10, even if 100% of their overseas aid ends up in the  
pockets of US employees or corporations. Then, if their fundraising  
brings in 10 dollars for every dollar spent, they get another 10.  
Commissioned telemarketers are good for this, or the trick of putting  
a nickel, a packet of seeds, an angel medallion, or a stamped return  
envelope in direct mail solicitations. They know how hard it is for us  
to throw out something useful rather than sending it back with a  
donation. Thirdly, there's what they call "capacity" – if an  
organization keeps over $250 million or one year's operating expenses  
in the bank, they get another automatic 10. They write:

Givers should know that other independent evaluators of charities tend  
not to measure a charity's capacity. Indeed, charities that maintain  
large reserves of assets or working capital are occasionally penalized  
by other evaluators. In our view, a charity's capacity is just as  
important as its efficiency. By showing growth and stability,  
charities demonstrate greater fiscal responsibility, not less, for  
those are the charities that will continue pursuing change in the  
future and will generate both short- and long-term results for every  
dollar they receive from givers. source
Then, their final measure is growth. To quote:

For charities, growth means first, increasing their primary revenue,  
which includes contributions from corporations, foundations,  
individuals, and government grants; program service revenue, contracts  
and fees; and revenue from membership dues and fees. Second, growth  
means growing their programs and services. Organizations that  
demonstrate consistent annual growth in both primary revenue and  
program expenses are able to outpace inflation and thus sustain their  
programs year to year. source
So charities have to continually bring in more money year to year in  
order to get a good rating. No wonder the charities I support don't  
rank. They'd be mortified to have a year's operating expenses sitting  
idle when it could make the difference for people resisting a military  
coup. My advocacy groups live hand to mouth. But Charity Navigator  
doesn't rate salaries, perks, and bonuses. They don't look at how much  
overseas aid actually stays in the US. Transportation costs aren't  
factored in, or amounts that come from and end up in the hands of  
corporations. After looking at how they determine their rating system,  
I think I might take the inverse of it as a good sign.

It also seems that the critic is wrong about the $90K the founder is  
making. In the 2009 report he separates executive pay from the rest  
and it's about $30,000 - not much for running an over $1M nonprofit.

But you may be hinting at, Dante, the economic model that I'm trying  
to pioneer, which I call ChariTrade. In this model, services and goods  
are given freely and donations to global charities are given freely  
back. Usually these are in the form of checks written directly to the  
charity but given to the provider of the service to bundle and forward  
to the charity.

I run as a for-profit business so that I can deduct my expenses - so  
that I'm not paying taxes in addition to donating my time and my money  
for supplies and equipment. I pay income taxes on all the cash that  
comes in but I deduct the checks I write to the charities from my  
personal income. Since most of the donations come in as checks to the  
charities, I always operate at a loss. That way the giver can deduct  
their donation directly and I can deduct my expenses, diverting this  
money away from the corporate war fund and towards the causes we wish  
our tax dollars went to.

As step 2 of this plan I'd like to issue a ChariTrade Ten for every  
$50 donated, which would circulate in the local economy at a variable  
value depending on what it's used for. For locally-grown food,  
groceries, coffee shops or bookstores, it would be worth $10, locally- 
made goods would be $20, services would be $30, and education would be  
$40. So those who want to get a UniverseCity education would be  
motivated to offer services, goods, and food in order to get ChTr10's  
to pay for schooling.

So this would enable sharing at the local level while supporting the  
global community that's working with people and nature against the  
impacts of money and corporatization.

Tereza


  Apr 24, 2011, at 1:33 AM, Dante-Gabryell Monson wrote:

> Since couchsurfing is mentioned,
> and also ( capitalist ) enclosure related to sharing,
>
> it may be of interest to have a look at
>
> http://www.opencouchsurfing.org/
>
> "Couchsurfing could go commercial"
> http://www.opencouchsurfing.org/2011/04/20/couchsurfing-com-could-go-commercial/
>
> http://allthatiswrong.wordpress.com/2010/01/24/a-criticism-of-couchsurfing-and-review-of-alternatives/#fraud
>
> see the evolution of how "donation/verification" money is being  
> spent within the not for profit to support the causes it supports,
>
> and the amount of money that may be set aside :
>
> 2009 ( over a million dollars )
> http://www.couchsurfing.org/organization_finances_2009.html
>
> 2008 ( nearly eight hundred thousand dollars )
> http://www.couchsurfing.org/organization_finances_2008.html
>
> 2007 ( three hundred thousand dollars )
> http://www.couchsurfing.org/organization_finances_2007.html
>
> 2006 ( hundred thousand dollars )
> http://www.couchsurfing.org/organization_finances_2006.html
>
> ...
>
> On Sun, Apr 24, 2011 at 5:16 AM, Tereza Coraggio <tereza at retrometro.com 
> > wrote:
> Sorry, I didn't read the article before I passed it on - I just read  
> the beginning about craigslist and couch surfing. Charity Focus, who  
> publishes The Daily Good, walks their talk, and everything they do  
> is volunteer-based. But sometimes the articles they publish are a  
> bit too corporate for my taste.
>
> That said, I like the sites that enable people to rent their own  
> houses. I'll never stay in a commercial property again for a  
> vacation. I was happy to hear that someone was developing a way for  
> cars to be shared without risk. I hope that P2P taxi services will  
> be soon to follow, so I can pay someone in the neighborhood next  
> time I need a ride to the airport. Lots of people are piecing  
> together a living from a little bit of money here and there and I'd  
> rather support that than incur a favor I don't have time to repay.  
> Most people either have time or they have money, but it's rare to  
> have both. So hooking the people with time up with the people with  
> money is okay in my book. I'm not a purist.
>
> I like what you're doing, Robin, with the helping on the street. I'm  
> sure that's making an impact.
>
> Tereza
>
>
>
> On Apr 23, 2011, at 9:10 AM, Duane Eareckson wrote:
>
> But the capitalist drive will not be extinguished. They will to  
> "optimize" the culture of sharing for their profit, whether by  
> persuasion, threat, or force, and they will find ways. Their  
> hypocrisy, that they will not <i>share</i> their optimizations, is  
> the glint which betrays the machinations to inject extraction in the  
> network of cooperation.
>
> The "central authority" will be the architects of the means of  
> sharing. The means of sharing cannot be totally autonomous and will  
> be organized, to some extent. Whereas a rising tide would lift all  
> boats, in an ebb tide, someone will have to pay for the tugboat.
>
> The most revolutionary force in the world will not go down easy.
>
> Duane
>
> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Robin Upton" <robin2008 at altruists.org 
> >
> To: <gifteconomy at lists.gifteconomy.org>
> Sent: Saturday, April 23, 2011 2:29 AM
> Subject: [GiftEconomy] 'Emerges'? How about 're-emerges'?
>
>
> Thanks for this, Tereza.
> The Sharing Economy Emerges
> Peer to peer exchange of goods and services has skyrocketed way
> beyond craigslist.org and Couch Surfing. Now, access to goods and
> skills is becoming more important than ownership of them. And that
> has sparked a "Sharing Economy". Gartner Group researchers estimate
> that the peer-to-peer financial-lending market will reach $5 billion
> by 2013. Botsman says the consumer peer-to-peer rental market will
> become a $26 billion sector, and believes the sharing economy, in
> total, is a $110 billion-plus market. "Is this purely a
> warm-and-fuzzy kind of thing?" says Ann Miura-Ko, a venture
> capitalist at Floodgate Fund. "It's not. It's underutilized asset
> utilization." That is to say, sharing is becoming common place.
> The rise of digitally mediated sharing is indeed promising, but only a
> capitalist could see this as a fundamentally new thing. I mean life is
> full of sharing. To say nothing of shared genes, shared understandings
> or shared streets, people in most parts of the world still share all
> sorts of stuff daily, just as they used to in the past in USA.
> Barnraising? Potlatch?
>
> So whilst in one sense it's a welcome step away from what Eisenstein
> calls "the discrete and separate self", sharing does not cease to  
> count
> just because it goes unaccounted in ledgers. Arguably, unmetered  
> sharing
> is more important. I haven't investigated the 'Floodgate Fund', so I  
> may
> be doing her an injustice, but Ann Miura-Ko's designation as 'venture
> capitalist' suggests to me that she's expecting to get out more money
> than she puts in.
>
> Anyway, it's food for thought for my work on the Internet Gift  
> Economy,
> which has been going slow lately - distracted by working on the
> roofgarden. The current model as regards metering is to leave it up to
> those involved whether they want to record things. Eitherway, a big
> difference is that there won't be any central authority in charge,  
> so no
> point for revenue extraction. No business model.
>
> Robin
>
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