---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Dante-Gabryell Monson <dante.monson@gmail.com>
Date: Mon, Apr 25, 2011 at 10:26 AM
Subject: Fwd: [GiftEconomy] 'Emerges'? How about 're-emerges'?
To: econowmix@googlegroups.com

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Tereza
Date: Sun, Apr 24, 2011 at 5:54 PM
Subject: Re: [GiftEconomy] 'Emerges'? How about 're-emerges'?
To: dante.monson@gmail.com
Cc: Duane

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 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 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
To: <gifteconomy@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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