The Gift Economy Network
Communities Convergence, ecobasa.org and the Community-Tours joined forces for a common vision of a global Gift Economy Network for communities, organizations and people interested in the topic of eco-social sustainability.
Vision – Why we exist
We are striving for a healthy and sustainble society that can be a realistic alternative to the mainstream.
We think that open communities that are interconnected in a larger network, can be this alternative.
These communities form an ecosystem that provides plenty of solutions and resources. In this way the network serves a broad spectrum of human, social and environmental needs.
We believe in the sustainability of gift-economy, because it creates supportive relationships, responsability, and a culture of trust and support. This culture alone would make the world a better place.
Mission – How we are achieving our vision
We pioneer cultural transformation towards a healthy and sustainable human society by providing open-source blueprints for:
- An online platform for collaboration and gift-economy exchange aroun sustainable ways of living (ecobasa.org)
- Community-Tours (Community gift-exchange routes)
- Communities Convergences (Regional networking meetings)
- Community Design Blueprints, so they can become open network hubs that benefit from the network as much as possible
By doing this we are creating a global gift economy network that is decentralized, grass-roots, sharing openly and transparently solutions and resources, and is based on supportive relationships between people and projects locally. We develop scripts for interaction that enable gift-economy relationships to emerge. We wish to be both stewards and beneficiaries of this network and to empower people and projects to reach their full potential by co-creating it together.
We do this on the following levels:
- Empower Event participants and members of our platform and network to develope themselves further. We wish to cultivate personal autonomy and self-reliance as well as collaboration and community spirit.
- We cultivate collaboration between working groups and teams through tools of social interaction, organization, online collaboration and team building. In this way people can realize more than they could do on their own – effectively, healthy and easily.
- We support communities with holistic worldviews to be more sustainable and to be integrated into our network, to be supported.
- Provide the innitial dynamics, infrastructure and tools for Bio-regional networks to be self-organized by local communities and organizations.
- Embedding them in an international network and online community, so they can exchange and support each other on regional and global levels. With online tools we want to empower them to make collective decision making, collaboration and organization on more complex issues that also affect people that can not talk to each other directly.
- We not only want to create this on our own within our growing network, but we are also looking for potential partners and partner organizations that follow the same aims, to collaborate and join forces.
We are are achieving our aims by growing structures and tools in feedback loops.
Aims - What we are doing
We build up an umbrella organization based on a sociocracy and fractal organizational design. This empowers local initiative for:
- Support the creation of open collaboration hubs for a network of networks.
These intentional communities are more than closed ecovillages – they are confederations or community clusters supporting a central space, or ‘hub’, that offers travellers, active groups, forming groups, networks and professionals a space to live, work, research, host events, heal, interconnect and co-create. For that we are creating open-source blueprints and guidelines that help them to hold this role. - Empowering and establishing ‘gift economy ambassadors’ as a role within communities and organizations to handle the communication, update the informations and manage the exchanges with a gift-economy network.
- Supporting the emergence of a network of travelling groups and caravans that enable the real inteconnectedness of the movement through mobility, cross-pollination, resource exchange, knowledge transfer and building of personal relationships.
- Communities Convergences for bioregional and thematic network building. They are collectively designed to promote collaboration and mutual support. They match needs with available offers.
- Collecting and integrating knowledge, experience and tools for internal and external collaboration for communities, organizations and networks based on the values of eco-sustainability. Such as:
Community building, communication, collective design, sociocracy and organizational design, project design and management, personal development - To co-create a network with potential partner projects, organizations and networks that are collaborating for common goals and values.
Values
Responsability
Every person agrees to be solely responsable for defining the amount of energy and time he or she brings in as well as deciding on the roles and tasks he or she undertakes. He or she is responsable for his or her own personal development, energy level and for fulfilling whatever commitments were given.
Any commitment to take a task or role should be communicated transparently to those whose tasks and roles are significantly connected. If a commitment can not be carried out in the form or at the time agreed with others this should also be communicated in good time.
If there are obstacles the responsable person will tell others about it and ask for help.
Furthermore everyone is responsable for the people around them and the place where they are.
Each person shall be supportive of others on personal and work issues to the extent of self responsible capacity. Feedback should be constructive and supportive and objections reasonable. Non-violence in communication and action as well as respect and empathy for self and others are an agreed collective practice.
We all are also responsable for the environment and Nature
Transparency
Any co-creator should have access to all information about the project and how to use the organizational structure and archive about the activity of any circle and about activity that afects his own. Co-werkers Co-workers are responsable for making this possible and effective. Transparency can be of needs, budget, feelings, information etc.
Openness
A willingness to be approachable and to listen objectively: To consider alternatives and to try to include all healthy interests involved. It also refers to receiving and giving feedback: Open for change, for new people, spontaneous impulses and critique.
Awareness of power
We practice awareness and fair use of different types of power such as levels of skills, abilities, influence, status, roles, as well as sex, age, personal experience, tolerance to stress, energy levels and others.
Collaboration
Collaboration is the art of many working together as One.
It differs from cooperation. Cooperation is a voluntary arrangement in which you engage with others in a mutually beneficial exchange. Collaboration entails removing the personal self from the equation and allowing the Spirit to flow through you so that the Spirit guides the group’s activities.
The Network
The Gift-Economy-Network is a fractal organization.
This means that semi-autonomous groups/circles are collaborating by creating additional circles for types of work that they all need in order to save resources and energy and to get better results by exchanging experience and combining capacity. Every circle can freely form sub-circles.
The ‘operating system’ used to animate the fractal organizational structure is Sociocracy 3.0/Dynamic Governance.
The project groups are: ecobasa, Community-Tours, Communities-Convergence, (Tour Groups + Convergence Groups)
General Work-groups: Fundraising, Outreach, Membership and Hearts and Souls
Overall Coordination is possible through the Strategy and Operation circle which is formed by Operations coordinators and preferably also elected representatives from all circles.
Other communities and organizations can plug into the Gift Economy Network by designated Gift Economy Ambassadors that may join circles of the fractal organization and represent their home-group in the Convergences, Community-Tours and the online platform ecobasa.
Contact us to find out more.
Networking the network
We never wanted to reinvent the wheel and reached out to similar networks and platforms from the start. We ended up developing our own open-source framework, but we are networking every year with our partner networks. We are an aspiring thematic network member of GEN-Europe and in exchange with NuMundo. We want do foster a collaborative culture of mutual support, so for us there is no competition. We are happy to discuss a co-development of our open-source code, sharing the costs and mutually benefitting from the new developments.
