Dear P2P friends,

It has been a long time that I needed to do such an appeal, but a combination of unforeseen circumstances means I need to ask for assistance.

Administrative changes in 2 of the foundations that used to support us, means that 2015 will be rather problematic. I have a good agenda of lectures, but these were never enough to pay the bills.

The problem is rather acute right now. I am leaving for a 4 day belgian trip with about 50 Euro on my picket,but more seriously , I am leaving to Wisconsin on February 8 for 3 weeks without any short-term prospect of getting paid and thus of taking any money with me there. The necessity to replace a pair of broken glasses also looms large <g>.

If you are on this mailing list, you know my work, you know that I have consistently worked on expanding and catalysing p2p and commons practices, as well as their understanding. If you find this work important and appreciate it, now is a good time to show solidarity and to assist me in continuing it. This gives you a good record of my activities in the context of the P2P Foundation, see part 1 of http://p2pfoundation.net/What_the_P2P_Foundation_Did_in_2014

There are two things you can do.

One is the emergency funding. There is no easy way to do this as my Paypal account has been blocked for a number of years, so I can only give my Belgian account at the Belfius bank, BE91 0682 2166 9376

Kevin in cc has the full details if you want to transfer money this way. I am looking for minimally EUR 2,000 but if possible, I am aiming for 6,000 so that I have a buffer. I am looking for gifts, but if you can give a loan, that is fine. I must be honest however, in that, always living with moderate and usually insufficient means, I have a bad record now of repaying loans on time.

I am also launching at the same time a longer term solution, i.e. through gratipay. The aim of gratipay is to create a minimum basic income that will allow me to brave the insecurity and irregularity of the income flow. Gratipay allows you to declare a regular support, per week or per month. My aim there is to achieve $300 per week, giving me a basic income of $1,200 per month

My gratipay URL is here: https://gratipay.com/mbauwens/

So if you are motivated to assist me with my work for the P2P Foundation, and in particular with the more short-term emergency, please do the following:

* send a preferable round sum of support to my belgian account, say EUR 100 or EUR 250

* declare any small regular sum that you willing to give, through my gratipay account,

I needed to launch this fast and without much preparation due to the emergency, thanks for your understanding.

Michel Bauwens

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