This was originally an email sent to about a dozen or my core patrons. It has got me thinking tons and thus I am experimenting by reviving my Patreon account and putting this rather long reflection/essay under Patron access only.
So, this email is going out to about a dozen of you who have been supporting me and the ecobricks movement over the last year with Paypal and bank transfers large and small. I am super grateful for your support thus far, and want to share our progress this past year with you as well as some philosophical reflections on the different motivations that can fuel financial help.
Spearheading a global movement ain’t easy financially! I could not have got this far without your help. And we have gotten FAR.
Remember when I was stranded in a small mountain village packing plastics from the ditch into a bottle?
I have given up trying to share and keep track of all the amazing stories about ecobrick adoption from around the world. It’s really overwhelmingly wonderful. Ecobricks, our trainers, me, our ideas, our innovations are featured in newspapers, TV and videos, and on social media far and wide. Hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people are now diligently packing their plastic as a direct result of our efforts and your support. Where before they felt powerless, ecobricking is giving them meaning and purpose, while raising the collective ecological consciousness around them. Hundreds of tons of plastic have been diverted from the biosphere. And even more importantly, all those people making the ecobricks are waking up to their moral and ecological agency. And we’ve managed this with about 20,000$
Because of the mandalic model we’re using, and the careful design of the concept, it is mind-blowing how far and wide each drop of energy into the matrix goes.
Just as one example, check out this video from an NGO in Ireland. We have no direct connection with them…. I think they got started as a consequence of one of trainers in the UK. If you listen carefully, and look carefully, they totally have grasped all the core principles we’ve worked so hard to craft and disseminate. Note also the Milstein hexagon module they are sitting on! What really gets me though is how empowered they are to be able to do something. The UK Facebook group is insanely vibrant and viral right now. It gives me much hope!
Now, all that said, I have felt for over a year that receiving need based donations from you is not the most effective means of manifesting the movement. On one hand, it has been essential, I can’t see any other way to have seeded the movement, and gotten this far. However, need, as an existential state, is self-perpetuating.
That said, there seems to me to be three ways to raise energy for manifesting intentions collaboratively.
1. Need/charity based energy raising: i.e. requests for donations and help
2. Gratitude based energy acceptance: i.e. excepting thanks
3. Enthusiasm based energy concentration: i.e. kick-starting with the community, and selling individually
Each has its place and role. However, my observation is that the most potent are the latter two. We have thus been working hard, really hard, to transition from needs based fundraising to gratitude and enthusiasm based fundraising. In addition, as I am well aware now how things can go from small to massive in a short time (!) whatever we deploy needs to be a system based fully and completely on the right foundational principle from our Earth Enterprise intention map:
- Minimum Wage Plus & Defined Maximum Wage: We don’t currently have any employees. However, in the future a wage bracket will be established to maintain a defined ratio from the highest to the lowest paid person in the organization.
- Transparency & Open Books: All our financials, in particular the process and transactions surrounding BrikCoins will be 100% transparent. A live feed of our full chain of transactions (where money comes from and where it is going), that is human searchable and readable
- Not for Profit: No individuals or shareholders will profit from the operation of the enterprise. At the end of the year, any profits or unspent funds will be reinvested back into the fulfilment of our mission and vision.
But implementing these principles ain’t easy! It has meant working all year to build up a system from the ground up with these fundamental principles. We also must be wary! There is a direct connection between capital and plastic, and thus we have also built our own currency based on the sequestration of plastic. Brikcoins. But we still need regular money! Thus our ‘open books’ system has to be a deft blend of fiat currency and our own crypto-currency.
And now… it’s ready to go!!
The Brikcoin currency is up and running. It has been slow and steady gathering momentum over the last four months. Our users have been working to generate the coins, i.e. money supply. If you haven’t yet you can read about that here.
And since last week, we have the back-end and front end system up now for regular currency!
The first, rather basic instantiation of the system– enabling gratitude donations is now up.
The idea here is, moving from needs based donations, to allow folks to contribute financially in appreciation for the services, resources, materials, etc. of the GEA that they have already benefited from. “Thanking” of course is much more potent than “Needing”. Indeed, this is why your financial help to me/us has been so tremendously potent.
I would thus like to invite you guys to be the first to use the system– should you feel like expressing gratitude, to help get the ball rolling, and to see our amazing new system!
Admittedly, what you will see is pretty basic. It is just the tip of the iceberg in possibilities that we can now create on our platform. With all the back-end database, APIs, scripts, and logic in place for our currency and our open books, we can then shift to ‘Enthusiasm’ based funding. Tapping the enthusiasm of our users, trainers, and ecobrickers, will enable us to fund resonant visions: like projects, products and intentions.
We can then use the open book platform to launch our own products, and shortly, allow our ecobrickers to launch their own also! Pretty @$!#$ exciting! This will include stuff like:
- Selling our own GEA products for $ or ß (Brikcoins)
- Offering GEA courses for sale for $ or ß
- Offering Catalyst Business accounts for sale for $ or ß
And even more exciting is the level after that…
- Enabling our users to sell their own products for $ or ß
- Enabling our users to sell their ecobricks for $ or ß
- Selling Brikcoins as a way to offset one’s plastic (think carbon credits for plastic)
You will notice that in the Encouragement process you are invited to sign your transaction and leave a note. You guys are the first to see this form, and your gratitude, as it has before, will then inspire more. We will create a flow of these gratitude notes that will help define the good we are providing. Please take a moment to carefully write your note.
Ok… there you go. This email has turned into a bit of an essay — which has actually been quite helpful to clarify my thinking. Your thoughts are most appreciated!
I feel the need based fundraising still has its place and I thank you again for your support that has got us so far!
Stay posted as we take ecobricks and the planetary plastic transition movement to a whole new level!
Russell
