Gift Circle

Description

Charles Eistenstein:

"Given the cir­cu­lar na­ture of gift flow, I was ex­cited to learn that one of the most promis­ing so­cial in­ven­tions that I've come across for build­ing com­mu­nity is called the Gift Cir­cle. De­vel­oped by Alpha Lo, co-au­thor of The Open Col­lab­o­ra­tion En­cy­clo­pe­dia, and his friends in Marin County, Cal­i­for­nia, it ex­em­pli­fies the dy­nam­ics of gift sys­tems and il­lu­mi­nates the broad ram­i­fi­ca­tions that gift economies por­tend for our econ­omy, psy­chol­ogy, and civ­i­liza­tion.

The ideal num­ber of par­tic­i­pants in a gift cir­cle is 10-20. Every­one sits in a cir­cle, and takes turns say­ing one or two needs they have. In the last cir­cle I fa­cil­i­tated, some of the needs shared were: "a ride to the air­port next week," "some­one to help re­move a fence," "used lum­ber to build a gar­den," "a lad­der to clean my gut­ter," "a bike," and "of­fice fur­ni­ture for a com­mu­nity cen­ter." As each per­son shares, oth­ers in the cir­cle can break in to offer to meet the stated need, or with sug­ges­tions of how to meet it.

When every­one has had their turn, we go around the cir­cle again, each per­son stat­ing some­thing he or she would like to give. Some ex­am­ples last week were "Graphic de­sign skills," "the use of my power tools," "con­tacts in local gov­ern­ment to get things done," and "a bike," but it could be any­thing: time, skills, ma­te­r­ial things; the gift of some­thing out­right, or the gift of the use of some­thing (bor­row­ing). Again, as each per­son shares, any­one can speak up and say, "I'd like that," or "I know some­one who could use one of those.

Dur­ing both these rounds, it is use­ful to have some­one write every­thing down and send the notes out the next day to every­one via email, or on a web page, blog, etc. Oth­er­wise it is quite easy to for­get who needs and of­fers what. Also, I sug­gest writ­ing down, on the spot, the name and phone num­ber of some­one who wants to give or re­ceive some­thing to/from you. It is es­sen­tial to fol­low up, or the gift cir­cle will end up feed­ing cyn­i­cism rather than com­mu­nity.

Fi­nally, the cir­cle can do a third round in which peo­ple ex­press grat­i­tude for the things they re­ceived since the last meet­ing. This round is ex­tremely im­por­tant be­cause in com­mu­nity, the wit­ness­ing of oth­ers' gen­eros­ity in­spires gen­eros­ity in those who wit­ness it. It con­firms that this group is giv­ing to each other, that gifts are rec­og­nized, and that my own gifts will be rec­og­nized, ap­pre­ci­ated, and rec­i­p­ro­cated as well.

It is just that sim­ple: needs, gifts, and grat­i­tude. But the ef­fects can be pro­found.

First, gift cir­cles (and any gift econ­omy, in fact) can re­duce our de­pen­dence on the tra­di­tional mar­ket. If peo­ple give us things we need, then we needn't buy them. I won't need to take a taxi to the air­port to­mor­row, and Rachel won't have to buy lum­ber for her gar­den. The less we use money, the less time we need to spend earn­ing it, and the more time we have to con­tribute to the gift econ­omy, and then re­ceive from it. It is a vir­tu­ous cir­cle.

Sec­ondly, a gift cir­cle re­duces our pro­duc­tion of waste. It is ridicu­lous to pump oil, mine metal, man­u­fac­ture a table and ship it across the ocean when half the peo­ple in town have old ta­bles in their base­ments. It is ridicu­lous as well for each house­hold on my block to own a lawn­mower, which they use two hours a month, a leaf blower they use twice a year, power tools they use for an oc­ca­sional pro­ject, and so on. If we shared these things, we would suf­fer no loss of qual­ity of life. Our ma­te­r­ial lives would be just as rich, yet would re­quire less money and less waste.

In eco­nomic terms, a gift cir­cle re­duces gross do­mes­tic prod­uct, de­fined as the sum total of all goods and ser­vices ex­changed for money. By get­ting a gift ride from some­one in­stead of pay­ing a taxi, I am re­duc­ing GDP by $20. When my friend drops off her son at my house in­stead of pay­ing for day care, GDP falls by an­other $30. The same is true when some­one bor­rows a bike from an­other per­son's base­ment in­stead of buy­ing a new one. (Of course, GDP won't fall if the money saved is then spent on some­thing else. Stan­dard eco­nom­ics, draw­ing on a deep as­sump­tion about the in­fi­nite up­ward elas­tic­ity of human wants, as­sumes this is nearly al­ways the case. A cri­tique of this deeply flawed as­sump­tion is be­yond the scope of the pre­sent essay.)" (http://www.nationofchange.org/build-community-economy-gifts-1325082127)

FAQ

"What is the purpose of a gift circle?

Its to allow for the people to help each other and to create a sense of community. And to further the gift economy.

What is a gift economy?

A gift economy as we define it is where people give something without the expectation of anything in return.

What are examples of gift economies?

Burning Man, Rainbow gatherings, Wikipedia, open source software

What is the format of a gift circle?

The format is still a work in progress. People are still experimenting with the best form." (http://opencollaboration.wordpress.com/2009/11/28/gift-circle-faq/)