Parallel Structures
I’ve been chatting a bit with Austin Hill of late. I convinced him to join the advisory committee of the Atwater Digital Literacy Project, and we seem to be interested in many of the same things, mostly revolving around applying the power of online communities to idealistic goals. His Top Secret Project-Ojibwe (based on aboriginal gift-culture) is coming out sometime later this year, which if I understand is going to be one central project, with many little side projects, such as gifter.org.
Anyway, that project, plus the thinking I’ve been doing over the last few years, and my experience with librivox lead to this little epiphany the other day. Perhaps this is happening already somewhere (and I haven’t fully thought it through or fleshed it out, but there you go)… enough chatter, here’s the idea:
UPDATE: In comments below with Tracey, it appears that some ideas were misconstrued. The proposal is for a funding organization.
BACKGROUND
1. internet and distributed communities are very good at:
a) building software
b) sorting/managing/making info available (wikipedia/librivox)
c) massive peer-review, monitoring
d) democratic ranking (technorati by links, digg by diggs, wikipedia for info etc)
e) leveraging small-chunk work to make a big project cheap and easy
2. free softare, wikipedia, creative commons, librivox are all examples of PARALLEL structures, that do not concern themselves much with what is happening in the mainstream, instead focus on building something different, in PARALLEL.
3. government is increasingly (or always has been) removed from the actual desires of people - part of this is because the process is hidden from most people. it takes real dedication, time, effort to influence policy (hence pro lobbyists = money talks, not voices)
4. what does government do?
a) raises funds (tax)
b) plans policy
c) plans programs to implement policy
d) decides on budget allocation for different programs
e) (sometimes) implements programs
f) monitors progress of projects
5. this process is hidden, inefficient, and subject to influence peddling. But effectively it makes the rules, gets the money and spends the money.
6. while groups of individuals are not able to make the rules, they can raise money, and spend it.
7. charity UPDATE: AND FOUNDATIONS generally are subject to some of the same problems … and often only 30% (check #?) of money actually donated to charity goes to programmes - the 70% balance goes to administration, fund-raising. UPDATE: This is a systematic problem in how charities are funded.
8. much of the reason for 7 (above) is that getting funding is difficult, time consuming, inefficient, and requires massive efforts, publicity, management. loads of paper.
9. re: #4 … without replacing government, is there a parallel system that could be set up, that could do some of these tasks… with a model like #2.
10. YES! again, looking at the government’s role, the internet & open projects can be very good at:
a) raising funds
b) deciding on budget allocation
c) monitoring progress of projects.
11. Probably not so good at:
b) planning policy
c) planning programs to implement policy
e) implementing programs
(these all take more energy, time, on the ground effort … which is possible, but is not the real power of a distributed system).
PROPOSAL
An open-style charity “foundation,” that works as follows:
-Members pay $20/yr each ($50? $100?)
-This money goes into a fund
-You can donate more money, but no one is given more power because of how much money they have donated (but maybe some sort of moderation karma points, as with slashdot)
-projects “apply” for funding (eg atwater digital media), by posting project description, budget, plan
-Members can:
-ask questions
-make suggestions
-rank projects
-On an ongoing basis (maybe every 3 months?) the foundation does an open budgeting process, where members decide on allocating: short-term, and long-term funding to projects that have ranked well.
-Projects will be required to update progress and info on an ongoing basis, solicit input, etc, and further funding can be decided based on that. UPDATE: This process would be same as standard reporting process for most funding programmes, tho the idea would be to reduce burden on recipients, rather than increase.
-(an aside: When projects run into trouble, the Members that supported the project should be aware, and can possibly offer more concrete help UPDATE: idea here is just to give the individual “funders” a more direct connection with the recipients…but again should not result in more onerous requirements for recipients)
In this way a totally parallel system (to government & usual charity foundations) could be established to fund projects with a community of givers that:
a) funds itself, through membership
b) decides on where the money goes in an open process
c) monitors & provides feedback (and possibly more concrete support) on an ongoing basis (UPDATE: monitoring here refers mostly to standard financial oversight, that all funding agencies must do)
d) is transparent & efficient
NOTE: This principle should be applied also to an new open internet media production house too, to find a way to fund film-makers, musicians, etc, based on an open co-op system…film, music projects funded based on the interest of the Open Production House Co-Op members.
(cross-posed at TextoSolvo).
sounds like some more of the same old selective social engineering by those who can afford to engineer! The united way already has its own version of this, a very conservative one. i like a foundation for new media idea and the proposed funding structure, but not the parallel structure one, because chances are the issues that will be funded will reflect issues of interest to those who send in money, and the non cool stuff like homelessness, sexual assault, spousal abuse, social housing, child poverty, aboriginal health, mental health, food insecurity etc, will take its usual wayside. By the number of street people in montreal and ottawa these days, looks like the gov has also given up on that topic! Also the parallel structure you are referring to already exists - it is called civil society, third sector or volunteer sector.
Comment by Tracey — January 12, 2007 @ 5:49 pm
1. what do you propose instead?
2. should those of us who can afford to engineer just not engineer? what should those of us who can afford do? ignore the world? have faith in our governments? do nothing? do something? if something, what?
3. how can i influence united way?
4. should the funding reflect issues that no one is interested in? if that’s the case, how do *you* propose to generate interest in funding such things? Should we keep the system as it is? or change it? If change, how should we change it?
5. why do you think the issues you mention (homelessness etc) will fall by the wayside? Do you think they are adequately funded now? If not, why not? And, if you are not happy with how they are funded now, what do you propose to remedy the situation? What alternate funding system do you envisage that would address those issues better? (For instance two of the charities that *I* gave to this “holiday” season were specifically related to homelessness … I would like that to be easier, and this would be a way for me to directly influence how a large pool of money was distributed)
6. so if the govt has given up on the topics of homelessness etc, what do we do? are you optimistic that the govt will reprise its role as defender of the homeless? if not the government, who? how?
7. the parallel structure to DO things already exists. However, I am proposing a parallel structure to FUND things (in addition to governments, corporate sponsors, foundations, and individual giving).
Maybe it won’t work, but what I can’t understand is why exactly you would oppose it — I mean would it be worse than status quo? And again, if you aren’t happy with how things stand, what do you propose instead?
Comment by hugh — January 12, 2007 @ 6:49 pm
It was a great dinner and always a great conversation Hugh. Another great Canadian, Tom Williams from GiveMeaning is doing some great work on creating charitable giving communities.
I’ve got an interview with him that I’m going to post shortly.
Tracey, regarding your comments re: Civil Sector, or Volunteer Sector I agree that these structures do exist. What I think is exciting about some of the potential of online communities is that they drive down the barriers (time, money, access to information, access to people) to getting involved with the citizen sector while increasing the value (More people, more communities, more information, easier time shifting, global communities) of getting involved.
There are a number of technological tools who’s use has become so easy that they are in the hands of everyone that when combined in these citizen sector communities that begin to emerge, they begin to have much more power and leverage.
Some would say this is new, much like Podcasting is new. But it is an improvement and extension of movements that already exist (like podcasting can been seen as modern day extension of the printing press in it’s ability to democratize the distribution of publishing power).
I’m finding a lot of great examples in the area of social entrepreneurs, since they often use leverage points of small local communities, intersecting with other civil society groups to create overlapping communities of common interest. These groups begin a local grass roots, bottom up approach to change.
We can now replicate those models online effectively and start to create similar (although I agree with Hugh, still parallel) structures that can exist outside of some of the political, or physical or financial constraints that have presented barriers to widespread involvement.
Comment by Austin Hill — January 12, 2007 @ 7:19 pm
Hugh, i think you missed my point, perhaps i misunderstood something in your post. Please note what i liked.
This is a discussion that is much better suited for a conversation as there are so many streams. Perhaps i should not have responded at all. Sorry.
Comment by Tracey — January 12, 2007 @ 10:43 pm
ha, tracey, I was thinking i sounded more … miffed than i actually was. you certainly should have responded, and I am glad you did. i did not mean to sound agressive in my response, I meant all those questions as genuine questions, to better understand where you are coming from. (i am interested in your answers!)….
i see a system that does not do what i think it should do. I am skeptical of the political system as a means to solving problems i would like to be solved (for instance, there is not one federal poltical party that I am at all happy about supporting).
on the other hand, I see open communities (facilitated by online communication) building exciting parallel structures to the main, things that 10 years ago would only be dreamed of with some kind of funding. eg wikipedia, librivox & countless other project. yet they did not need funding because they attracted the interest, time and effort of people who believed in the projects, for various reasons.
But those online communities have limitations. Loosely, online communities are good at organizing and transforming chunks ofinformation, which sometimes translates into physical space (say, couchsurfing.com), but because of their nature, they tend not to be good at long-term non-modular projects that require more detailed and sustained attention. that is, wikipedia works because the information in there is modular, it does not matter if one or another piece is missing. wikibooks, however, is much less successful, because a math text that tells you how to add but not how to subtract is not useful.
the kinds of projects that require sustained attention of one particular person (or small group) are not so good as an open, online project. Those kinds of projects are much better suited to groups of people who can keep their attention on a certain thing for a long time. in order to do that, generally, there must be funding.
so shaking all that up, it seems to me one area where online communities could be effective is funding of such groups, that is, civil society. i think this would likely result in more engagement with civil society too.
i *think* your concern is that such a programme would just mean that the most “popular” causes get funded (say some poverty project of bono’s or something) … as they float to the top in my scheme … but I think you would find a smallish online group participating in something like this, and the challenge would be to set up the system in such a way that the “right” kinds of projecrts would get funded. (eg only small grassroots, or something).
The point though was to get busy people more engaged in this stuff, and to put money into things they really believe in … provide a new way to fund important projects in our communities.
Comment by hugh — January 13, 2007 @ 12:37 am
1. Have you seen http://www.kiva.org/ ?
2. How would you make sure that only the ‘right’ kind of project was funded? If the system was democratic, it would be hard to prevent the ‘wrong’ kind of project being funded. As you probably guessed, I use the quote marks with emphasis. Rather like trying make sure the ‘right’ kind of books are recorded for Librivox - as long as they are public domain, all are welcome, as far as I can tell.
In the UK, as far as I know, some of the most popular charities are the Royal National Lifeboat Association, and donkey sanctuaries. In my opinion, the ‘wrong’ sort of thing - My family contributes to the starving children sort of charities.
Perhaps the answer lies in having a dialogue between the needy and the worthy engineers, as Tracey might put it. What the engineers need is to be educated by the needy as to what is most effective and urgent. Linus Torvalds might have headed in the wrong direction without users - release early, release often.
The members of your engineer community would have to become experts, and be led by some agreed overarching principles, perhaps. The most good from the least expenditure to the most trusted, or something.
Hmm. Interesting idea Hugh.
Comment by Chris Hughes — January 13, 2007 @ 8:48 am
chris, I mostly agree with you re: right/wrong … however librivox was started (and evolved) with a number of very specific objectives and guidelines that directs where the project goes. I think that is important. ie must establish the laws of physics, then watch the universe unfold.
I could forsee something like that in a funding project, for instance, funding given to groups with a budget under X or something (??) … maybe not.
re: kiva, have seen, will look again.
Comment by hugh — January 13, 2007 @ 8:57 am
I met some of the Kiva people in India recently. A wonderful initiative that is very much grounded in the grassroots reality of microfinance in the ngo/community sector in India.
Hugh what i am trying to get at are deep democracy and globalization from below (Appadurai). Hugh, that is what i think is missing in your analysis - groundedness and reflexivity. I like much of what you said, I agree with most of what you said, however there needs to be a much more grounded and learned approach about the issues faced by our current volunteer/social/civic sector. Claming to create a parallel structure, which i think is interesting, but in the way framed here, is somewhat paternalistic and disrespectfull of the innovation that currently exist in those sectors. These groups have a kind of ‘indigenous knowledge’ that one only comes by if one is willing to listen to the stories told in a way and in a language we are not always patient enough to entertain. The terrain is complex with tons of scarcity. Further, the overhead you mention normally goes to the salaries of people who are grossly underpaid and way overworked.
I think it is important to read Canadian Policy Research Institute reports, Caledon Institute, the Volunteer reports produced by Stats Can and Social Planning Councils, to look at that Canadian Council on Social Development, the newsletters (normally paper) from shelters and such, and it is really important to understand the history of social policy and this kind of work at all scales in this country. Also, there are some superb initiatives in these sectors that well, the tek sector could learn from. I think that is what i am getting at, it is almost like there is an absence of history, and assumption one group of people know best or is assumed to be better.
Further, many of these groups, but not all (environmental groups differ - but it is also a sexier topic!), are technologically fatiqued as they have experienced first hand the unrequented dreams of the first batches of technological enthusiast that were ‘going to improve how they do things’, provide them ‘evaluation tools’, ‘project management tools’, obscure data bases designed by an engineer thinking he was doing good and then disapears from the scene when help is required and there is no manual or documentation, and so on. Much time and effort has already been wasted by people who do not have much time. And much trust has been lost.
i would love to see coders, engineers, ui, hci etc. folks dedicate some time in understanding what is going on, on the front lines of some of these groups, and dedicate time to understand how they get through their days, and then to collaborate on even footing with these groups in a long term, meaningfull way, through the boring mundane technological stuff these groups need to deal with. I would also luv to see skills shared regarding how to view tools like kiva and others and how these groups can best mobilize them, how to undestand distributed collaboration. Also to understand that there is a cultural and demographic differences between the tec culture and the social sector culture, and the facilite in the world. Neither is better than the other, but let me tell you work in the social sector comes with few immediate rewards. There are very few Hugo Gervais’ who can get right in there and work with hard cases right on the front lines over a long period of time.
Further i would like to see some level of respect given to these groups who are incredible social entrepreneurs, who have managed to feed people, try to house them and keep them safe with very little. To honour them because they know they are only putting bandages and putting out fires and can’t get to the larger social, cultural, economic and political structures because we currently do not have a social or political structure that is willing to listen to them speak in their own grass roots languages as opposed to forging them to co-opt technocratic jargon. Our decision makers are unable to get off the podium and listen to the citizens who are doing this work, because it is hard to do so and because they think they know best - they must they have money, degrees and resources, and these people have none, so they assume they assume they have the solution.
Please forgive me, my shooting from the hip with my first comment, but i have heard this talk before, i have seen people impose all kinds of new structures in a sector that is often stuck with receiving whatever the giver gives, and is imposed upon by the business fad of the day, imposed on a hunch and an assumption by someone who thinks they know best but do not really know. But i rarely hear the talk of people willing to put money, but more importantly time and intelligent long term resources and commitment to help these groups technologically on their terms, at their pace and conducive to their context.
Hugh, i am an idealist, and a mutual friend of ours has even gone one step further and called me obstinately optimistic (i decided it was a compliment!), and i see that idealism in your post, and there is nothing more mundane than rain on a parade. Sorry. I am also not a traditionalists nor a technophobe. I would just like to see more reflexivity. Your work to date has been awesome, and you know that, but on this one, i hope you can think more and question your own assumptions. As that is what i believe we need as the work ahead is not going to be easy, and good intentions alone are not the solution. We need deep and serious change, and i do not think a money and technology alone will change that. We need to change minds, including our own, and we need 20-30 year and longer time lines to really get to being democratic and fully engaged and informed citizens.
Appadurai References:
-Deep Democracy: Urban Governmentality and the Horizon of Politics
-Globalization from below.
I will send these to you by email.
Comment by Tracey — January 13, 2007 @ 7:38 pm
But I am sort of confused.
The proposal above is another way to FUND things. I have no comments at all on how the initiatives operate (well I do, but not here). I am not suggesting to impose any new tech structures or collaborative approaches or anything like that on groups that would be getting funding. Rather, I suggest a new way for an online community to get more funding to initiatives they believe in.
perhaps you are reacting to my claim that groups are inefficient in their fund-gathering. my point there was that the funding system is so demanding that it takes away from their time/resources to do the work they do, and I would prefer them to concentrate on. If you need to spend 30% of your budget on fundraising, then that’s 30% you cannot spend on your core programs. The problem, tho, is with the FUNDERS and the paprasse and inefficiency of getting money (esp from govt).
I am proposing a more direct way to get people like me to get involved in FUNDING projects … that is make a structure parallel to government/foundations/corporations to fund projects. An big online community that funds projects on a large scale.
I have no comment on the actual work being done on the streets. In fact my whole point about online communities & technologies is that they are good at doing small modular things; they are NOT good at doing the hard yards on the streets. So they would be good at evaluating and funding. They would NOT be good at getting their hands dirty.
And on the other side of the desk, the government/foundation funding process is deadly and inefficient.
I have worked a number of years in the environmental technology sector, trying to raise money from government/foundation and corporate sector. I also am on the board of a library that spends much time/effort trying to squeeze money out of governments, foundations, corporations & individuals. We get some 70k visits to our building a year, we serve a huge community in a place that has no other library or community centre, and despite meeting after meeting we get not more than 10% of our funding from govt. Trying to get more is a brutally time consuming enterprise with often little results. It gobbles enormous amounts of staff time, resources, that would much better be applied to doing the work such projects do, and not meeting government officials for the 6th time to try to get 10k out of them. My impression with much of these funding systems is that the total cost of getting & giving funding probably equals the amount given. That flaw is in the funding system, not in the the groups getting funded.
And so I am proposing an alternate FUNDING mechanism.
I would not presume to tell the people doing interesting things how they should do them.
So I really cannot see how that is paternalistic? or disrespectfull of the innovation happeing?
Unless you are saying that I am being disrespectful of the government as a funding agency, in which case I would say, sure. Reason: experience with government funders. And watching as government funding for initiatives I care about dries up.
(PS sorry if that is repetitious).
Comment by hugh — January 13, 2007 @ 8:51 pm
i need a phone! or a mic!
Comment by Tracey — January 13, 2007 @ 9:01 pm
and if it seems like the proposal is for a new onerous kind of reporting/monitoring scheme, that is … not really what I intended - which was a funding scheme.
Comment by hugh — January 13, 2007 @ 9:16 pm
After rereading my original post and your comments, I *think* your objection was to this (?):
“-Projects will be required to update progress and info on an ongoing basis, solicit input, etc, and further funding can be decided based on that.
-(an aside: When projects run into trouble, the Members that supported the project should be aware, and can possibly offer more concrete help ”
I have updated that text above, because I think it was unclear. The reporting criteria would simply be standard project/financial reporting that any project must produce for funding orgs.
But I have many questions/comments from your post (again these are not meant to be agressive, they are genuine questions or comments):
-what does this mean: “groundedness and reflexivity”?
-”there needs to be a much more grounded and learned approach about the issues faced by our current volunteer/social/civic sector.”
*I speak from my own experience in the sector. one central problem is getting funding (this, by the way, is compounded by government’s continued cuts to social services). I propose a new funding scheme. I don’t propose to address any other particular problems in the sector. so: which issues do you mean?
-”Claming to create a parallel structure … is somewhat paternalistic and disrespectfull of the innovation that currently exist in those sectors.”
*Why?
-”These groups have a kind of ‘indigenous knowledge’ that one only comes by if one is willing to listen to the stories told in a way and in a language we are not always patient enough to entertain.”
*Of course they do… never would I argue otherwise.
-”The terrain is complex with tons of scarcity.”
*I presume you mean scarcity of resources… so this is a proposal to give more resources (tho maybe there is an argument this would just move existing resources from one place to another. Perhaps … though the point is to try to get an online community more directly involved in decisions about where large chunks of funding goes. If you mean scarcity of interest, understanding etc… sure. I don’t have any idea if something like this would have any impact on that, but to extent that it did, I think it would be positive, but getting individual funders more involved in the process, rather than just sending a feel-good check.
-”Further, the overhead you mention normally goes to the salaries of people who are grossly underpaid and way overworked.”
*Of course it does. And there’s the problem. So much energy and resources go to getting funding. That energy would be better spent elsewhere. I don’t like the way government, in particular, allocates its funding. So I propose an experimental alternative. (Whether something like this could work or not, I have no idea).
-”I think it is important to read Canadian Policy Research Institute reports, Caledon Institute, the Volunteer reports produced by Stats Can and Social Planning Councils, to look at that Canadian Council on Social Development, the newsletters (normally paper) from shelters and such.”
*It’s possible that I would do such a thing. Tho unlikely. But most people will not. But in the online world there is a community who, given the right tools, might be convinced to be more engaged in funding initiatives they believe in … that is what I am interested in: finding ways to use tools to get communities more involved. But I don’t think it’s likely that you or I will convince a large number of people to read those docs.
-”it is really important to understand the history of social policy and this kind of work at all scales in this country.”
Again, I agree in principle (tho most people have not bothered, and will not ever bother). So: what can we, you, me, others do to help get people engaged? I know a bit about online communities: they can do amazing things given a clear path and the right tools. Here is a project that might work, that in a way has nothing to do with civil society expect in the sense that it gets geeks more engaged in civil society. Tho possibly not.
-”Also, there are some superb initiatives in these sectors that well, the tek sector could learn from.”
*Yes. The motivations of online communities are not new. People shared things long before computers. People share things without computers. And all sorts of non-tech people do great things without computers. But online tools make large-scale, non-commercial collaboration possible in ways they never were before. I am very interested in what online communities can do in the social sector, not because I think online communities or computers are interesting, but because I think the social sector is important. That is, my motivation is a social pull, not a tech push.
-”I think that is what i am getting at, it is almost like there is an absence of history, and assumption one group of people know best or is assumed to be better.”
*Again, I find this a very odd interpretation (at least related to this project). This idea comes from a very specific attempt to carve off an area where online communities could help civil societies effectively (funding). There are many areas where they cannot, ie where they get their hands dirty. This comes from my experience in online, and real-life volunteer initiatives. It’s exactly a reaction against the idealistic techie who thinks that open source and wiki will solve all. they will not, but applied in the right ways they could be very effective at doing certain things (perhpas funding).
-”Further, many of these groups, but not all (environmental groups differ - but it is also a sexier topic!), are technologically fatiqued as they have experienced first hand the unrequented dreams of the first batches of technological enthusiast that were ‘going to improve how they do things’, provide them ‘evaluation tools’, ‘project management tools’, obscure data bases designed by an engineer thinking he was doing good and then disapears from the scene when help is required and there is no manual or documentation, and so on.”
*Amen. Non-profit groups have enough trouble doing what they already do with their slim resources without asking them to be drupal experts as well.
-”Much time and effort has already been wasted by people who do not have much time. And much trust has been lost.”
*Amen.
“i would love to see coders, engineers, ui, hci etc. folks dedicate some time in understanding what is going on, on the front lines of some of these groups, and dedicate time to understand how they get through their days, and then to collaborate on even footing with these groups in a long term, meaningfull way, through the boring mundane technological stuff these groups need to deal with.”
*So, on a reasonable scale, how to do this? or start this? the only way for this to happen in any real sense, I think, is to provide spaces of intersection between a geek’s life and a civil society denizen’s life…you should not expect a geek to become a soup kitchen manager (or an expert on the history of feminist social engagement in rural canada), any more than you should expect a soup kitchen manager to become an ubuntu expert. nor should they (tho of course they might). But if you can find better ways to let those two spaces interact (this proposal is one way), you might see important changes, first in how funding happens, and second in the communication between geeks & civil society.
-”I would also luv to see skills shared regarding how to view tools like kiva and others and how these groups can best mobilize them, how to undestand distributed collaboration.”
*but distributed collaboration is not going to be good at most of what civil society does. It might be good at doing some things. what? which things? to hit the drum again: I think funding is a good start.
-”Also to understand that there is a cultural and demographic differences between the tec culture and the social sector culture, and the facilite in the world. Neither is better than the other, but let me tell you work in the social sector comes with few immediate rewards.”
*the question is not who is better/worse. the question is what can we do to get one to help the other. that could be a two-way street, tho I am much less worried about the health of geeks in our current world than I am about the health of civil society, which seems of less and less interest to our governments, and people in general. that is, the social sector is under assault. geeks have wealth and a certain amount of engagement, but mostly online. so lets try to move some of the wealth of geeks towards civil society. certainly money is not the only problem in the social sector, but that’s kind of irrelevant to this idea.
-”There are very few Hugo Gervais’ who can get right in there and work with hard cases right on the front lines over a long period of time.”
*yes. there always will be few. sorry. that’s the challenge. how do you get those with a little bit of interest to at least engage that small interest, rather than ignoring it. answer: make it easy for them.
-”Further i would like to see some level of respect given to these groups who are incredible social entrepreneurs, who have managed to feed people, try to house them and keep them safe with very little. To honour them because they know they are only putting bandages and putting out fires and can’t get to the larger social, cultural, economic and political structures because we currently do not have a social or political structure that is willing to listen to them speak in their own grass roots languages.
*yes.
-”as opposed to forging them to co-opt technocratic jargon.”
*tech is only good if it helps you do your thing. if it does not, then it is no good. so i think we are in agreement here.
-”Our decision makers are unable to get off the podium and listen to the citizens who are doing this work, because it is hard to do so and because they think they know best”
*the main reason is that polticians do not answer to civil society. that is not where they get their power or their money. if they did, they would listen. but they do not care in any large sence, because their priorities are elsewhere. because civil society and grassroots movements and social services and the people they represent will always be marginal. By definition. politicians don’t care because they have little motivation to care. this will not change. so given that we have a political system that doesn’t really care about issues I care about what do we do?
-”they have money, degrees and resources, and these people have none, so they assume they assume they have the solution.”
*The problem is that a politician’s votes and funding do not come from the sectors you defend. So they have no particular motivation to support them (except to the extent that those causes are important to their more wealthy mainstream voters, which in general they are not in any significant sense). re: solutions … I am agnostic about that. If solutions work, then they are good, no matter where they come from.
-Please forgive me, my shooting from the hip with my first comment,
*I am mostly interested in understanding what exactly your criticims are. they are still not at all clear to me. this is just an idea, one that isn’t likely to go much farther than dose, unless I can convince someone to provide some funding to get it started.
-”but i have heard this talk before, i have seen people impose all kinds of new structures in a sector”
*agreed, tho I am not suggesting any new structures here, at least not to civil society. I am suggesting a different funding structure.
-”that is often stuck with receiving whatever the giver gives,”
*this, I am afraid, is a fundamental law of the universe, and is not likely to change now, or ever.
-”and is imposed upon by the business fad of the day, imposed on a hunch and an assumption by someone who thinks they know best but do not really know.”
*right … so funding orgs identify “funding priorities” and then NGOs spend hours shaping their programmes to chase funding that’s available. so they drift around, forced to change what they are doing becasue that is what is gettin funded this year. Which is stupid (not stupid that they do it, stupid that the funding system works like this). I am not sure, however that this proposal could change this at all.
-”But i rarely hear the talk of people willing to put money, but more importantly time and intelligent long term resources and commitment to help these groups technologically on their terms, at their pace and conducive to their context.”
*the idea here is to get people to put money. the rest is a whole different kettle of fish.
-”i am an idealist, and a mutual friend of ours has even gone one step further and called me obstinately optimistic (i decided it was a compliment!), and i see that idealism in your post, and there is nothing more mundane than rain on a parade.”
*raining on parades is fine if they deserved to be rained on. but I *think* you are criticizing something I am not proposing, tho I may be wrong.
-”I am also not a traditionalists nor a technophobe.”
*technology is only interesting in what it enables you to do in the real world. the rest is, in my opinion, semantics.
-”I would just like to see more reflexivity.”
*i do not know what this means.
-”Your work to date has been awesome, and you know that, but on this one, i hope you can think more and question your own assumptions.”
*if you could list the assumption needing questioning, I will be happy to do so. (and again, I am genuine in saying that, not facetious…as you can see, I enjoy answering questions).
-”As that is what i believe we need as the work ahead is not going to be easy, and good intentions alone are not the solution.”
*what is needed is projects & initiatives that actually work. could this be one? who knows? is it worth trying? I think so.
-”We need deep and serious change, and i do not think a money and technology alone will change that.”
*deep and serious change is a fine objective, but it can only happen in increments when certain approaches/projects etc are proven to make life better for people. I feel about theory and intentions the same as I feel about technology: they are only good to the extent that they can help do something interesting and useful. i am, mostly, a philosophical pragmatist. so in approaching problems, identify an outcome you desire and find ways that might happen. see if it works. if it does not, junk it and try something else. (luckily, the online world makes that quite easy).
-”We need to change minds, including our own, and we need 20-30 year and longer time lines to really get to being democratic and fully engaged and informed citizens.”
*you are obstinately optimistic. the only way i can see any of that happening is to demonstrate new and better ways to do things. convincing people to do things they don’t care about is a quioxic task, and other than writing long missives on dose, I don;t have much interest. However: Providing tools to help people do things you believe in is an excellent way to go about changing the world, or at least that is my philosophy.
Comment by hugh — January 14, 2007 @ 1:22 pm
ha ha ha! after all that writing, it seems as if austin’s link above http://www.givemeaning.com/ is actually doing this more or less already.
just checking now.
Comment by hugh — January 14, 2007 @ 3:44 pm
Pretty much this EXACT concept is going to be introduced by GiveMeaning in the next few months. GiveMeaning is a charitable foundation that remits 100% of everything it collects to charity (charges no fees to donors nor charities).
Great minds obviously think alike.
Comment by Tom Williams — January 14, 2007 @ 7:48 pm
i need to get my nose out of the books a bit! Thanks for your patience hugh!
Comment by Tracey — January 17, 2007 @ 11:45 am
Tom: I am checking out your project. I think there are some differences, but I think you are doing wonderful work. I am going to test it out with a project of mine in need of funding. and I’d like to learn more about givemeaning.
tracey: well, thank you for making me think more about this. i always find that when someone criticizes an idea it makes for the most productive thinking about it. every big controversy at LibriVox, for instance, is an opportunity to better articulate the ideas behind that project. That sounds a bit new-agey and self-helpy, but I just mean that being forced to defend an idea makes you consider it more deeply. so your comments were valuable. I now have a very clear understanding of what I was proposing and why, and I think your points about the tech sector (open source etc) imagining it will solve everyone’s problems with some tech or methodolgy is stupid. If that were the case, things woould be solved already.
anyway, you book-types do good things, because you have the job, essentially, of critically evaluating the world and projects. I have a certain skepticism about academia, but I also appreicate the need for time and remove to examine and consider things. In large part, and in best case, you can act as translators between the world, and the decision-makers.
Comment by hugh — January 17, 2007 @ 12:27 pm
:)
Comment by Tracey — January 17, 2007 @ 10:24 pm