My Proposal: The Indian Taxi Fund.

Sorry for the delayed proposal. I’ve been beyond swamped and can barely find time to blog drivel lately. Let alone something substantial that requires some thought and imagination. For those of you aren’t familiar with what I mean when I say scale-free networks . . . the two pictures below should serve as a bit of visual reinforcement. It’s basically the natural way our relationships are structured, the way our brains work, and in many ways how nature and the environment evolve around us.

Most of us probably grew up with a linear understanding of the world. That we transferred information from particular points on a map. Point A to Point B. When you learned how to tie your shoes for example, most of us probably couldn’t tell us “who” taught us how to tie our shoes. In fact, they’re probably wasn’t even a singular “who” but a collected “they”. Our mom may have shown us how at times. Our dad may have shown us at times. Our grandparents may have shown us at times. We may have watched an older kid at times. And we may have just tried ourselves a couple of times. We can’t point to a singular time or event where we “got it”. It just one day all of a sudden happened. And it happened not because of one person but because of what we learned through a series of experiences and personalities.

This is obviously an extremely small example. And one that you could probably overturn if you wanted to prove me wrong. But you get the basic point. That for the most part learning and relationships consist in a communal, web-like network. And not in a linear way.

This is the same way with information. If you wanted to send information in the past, you had to put a manual letter in the hands of a courier who would ride in a straight line via a horse or train. Or if you were lucky, you sent the information out via telegram, which still went in a straight line along the linear cable.

Today’s information doesn’t work that way. You can send multiple letters to multiple people in multiple locations in a matter of seconds. There is no line. Instead the information spreads out like a fan from hubs or nodes on a grid. This network can expand and evolve after the information is received because the recipient can then in turn send it out to their own web of relationships, their own network. And the information expands dynamically and chaotically. Nowhere near an organized, straight line.

Blah blah blah . . . right? What does this have to do with micro-lending or making the world a better place or giving, to name but a few of the things that I’m proposing we tackle?

Well if this theory of how the world works is true and practical . . . then why is that most of the world’s problems continued to get addressed in a linear way?

Country X is poor. Let’s move money from the bank account of Country A to Country X and the problem gets solved.

We all know that this doesn’t work. But yet we continue to give “aid” like this. When you address problems like this you inevitably create a cycle where the only way to sustain itself is to repeat itself.

“If you give someone a fish, they’ll be hungry tomorrow. But if you empower them to fish, they’ll feed themselves for a lifetime.” And “It takes a village to raise a kid.”

As lame as those sayings are, combined, they gets at the idea of what I’m thinking of.

RelationalTithe is a group that gets this. They exist as a network of local hubs that pool their resources (tithe) together to funnel it directly to places that need it. Kiva is another group that gets it. Using the ability of a group to raise a figure collectively that might be impossible individually.

The problem with Kiva though is that in many ways it’s still a closed system. While it gets the crowdsourcing idea, it’s still laid out on a relatively flat grid. It still moves money from Point A to Point B in a linear line. The good news is that it’s not just one line. The bad news is that it’s still a line. Instead of relying on one “point”. They just rely on multiple “points”. So you have a system that functions like a pyramid. Multiple lines going to one source. It’s a step in the right direction . . . but one that might be lacking in a few areas. But what do I know? I’m still just dreaming . . .

So here’s my modest/ambitious proposal . . . create a scale-free network that doesn’t rely on multiple lines going to one source. To get rid of the lines altogether and create spiders. And to leverage the crowdsourcing of blogs and the benevolence of businesses and individuals.

So here’s how I’m thinking this works . . . there is a group or a collective. For the sake of an argument let’s say it’s me and 5 of my blog readers. Each of us would serve as “hubs” in the network. We would then go out and “recruit” or whatever word you want to call it from our main blogs and sites other people to join us in this particular “movement” or fundraising round. If each of us were able to sign up and sell the vision to 5 other people, that’s 25 people right there and that’s the start of a legitimate movement.

So for example, let’s say we take a guy like Amit. Who needs to raise $7,000 for a taxi. Well my friend Adam, all by himself on his blog raised almost $3000 for his friend Aaron’s cancer treatment. He then had two donors match those funds (more on this in a minute).

He was 1 person. In 1 network. Using the medium of blogging for a social good. Imagine what would happen if 5 bloggers linked up as a collective and network their resources and social communities for one common social goal . . . that would be great in and of itself. Maybe we’d raise $15,000 (5 x $3000). But what if 3 of the original 5 were able to inspire and launch 5 of the people in their network . . . it doesn’t take long to see how network theory could extrapolate and replicate itself countless times.

This obviously won’t be sustainable for a long time as we would exhaust our networks. But who said that these things had to have a shelf life or an organization. If it’s a true movement, then it can outlive and outlast a particular instance when it came to fruition.

Somebody started chain letters once upon a time (God smite them). The initial chain letter died off at some point. But the idea and movement of chain letters continue on (like the dumbasses who forward all of the negative Obama emails around).

Now what about the business side of things . . . well businesses (or people) who are in a position to do so could donate 5% of their income for a set amount of time to the initiative. For example, if we were trying to raise money to micro-loan to Amit (and I’m not saying we are) . . . I could not only use my blog to help launch a network . . . I could use the proceeds from my business to help fund the loan. Or I could use my personal account to help fund the loan. Or I could roll my change to help fund the loan. Or I could host a bake sale to help fund the loan for crying out loud.

Or I could donate my next 3 projects to help fund the loan. So if you were going to pay me to do a logo, you wouldn’t even pay me directly . . . I would just donate the time, project, and design to the funding of the loan and you would send that money for your design project directly to the loan fund.

Or my friend Daley (I hope he doesn’t think I’m putting him on the spot) could do the same with his business. Or my friend Nick could do it with his regular paycheck. Or my friend Julie could do it with stuff from her Etsy Store. Again, not putting these people on the spot . . . just saying that we all have something that we can offer. And we all exist in a very intertwined social network where we read each other’s blogs and connect with each other’s Twitter. And I think the possibilities are ripe for imagining this collectively.

I’ve just thrown out my thoughts. And an idea for a potential loan with Amit. But I am in no way limited to any of this. We could just as easily go with a connection of Blake’s or anybody else who is interested. I’ll be up front . . . if I can find some people to join me in this . . . I’m up for giving 5% of Red Cowboy’s income to helping fund the micro-loan we choose. I’m up for recruiting some people to join in the network. And I’m up for initially donating at least 3 design projects with all of the proceeds going to the loan fund.

If you’re interested . . . or any of this sounds like something you’d like to help give a voice and shape to . . . then lets connect and get the ball rolling. Because I’d rather loan money with my friends in my network who I know and with their connections that they know, than I would go through Kiva to a stranger. Definitely not saying there isn’t a place for that. But I would love to at least give this a try without the help of Kiva. Directly with my friends and directly to a person we know.

Any takers?

I’m serious. This isn’t my deal. Amit isn’t my guy. I’d be fine taking the next step with him. But I really just want to do just do this with some friends. And I want us to own this project together. Does anybody else get the vision? Anybody else see any weaknesses or things that could be tweaked or changed structurally?

Anybody else got any imagination?

This will be different because it’ll be embedded in friendship. And it will not be a linear transaction between my bank account and theirs. It will be a symbiotic exchange of mutual friendship. It’s RelationalTithe mashed up with bloggers in our circle. A good old fashion Web 1.0 Blog Ring! Whoo Hoo!

P.S. – I know a lot of you talked about not being “hub-worthy” but you don’t have to be a big blog or have a big readership to count as a hub. Maybe you can raise money in the real world, at work or at church for example. Or maybe you can get your business behind it or just put a small percentage of your income to the launch of the loan. It’s not the size that matters (no pun intended). But that we all have something to bring to the table. Whether it’s a percentage of our business income. Or a bake sale. Or the proceeds from our crafts. Or something from our church. That’s the idea. That a rag-tag group that is not orderly and chaotically networked at best can come together for a large social undertaking.

What If?: The Indian Taxi Fund.

Sorry it’s taken so long. I’m busy as usual. So I guess a background story first . . .

The guy to the left of the really cool soldier guy is Amit. We were joined in this picture by his good friend Vashal while visiting the Pakistan and India border. Amit is my age and lives in Delhi, although he is originally from Amritsar in the Punjab province. Amit just got married a little over a year ago and he also just recently found out that his wife is pregnant (about the same time Anna and I did). Amit is a church planter. If you know anything about India’s history, you know that it was a colony of Great Britian for a very long time. As it relates to churches, this means that almost all of the churches in India are “state-run” remnants from the colonial period. This is my really nice way of saying that they do things the way the white people did them. You could walk in one of these churches and you wouldn’t know that you were half way across the world. You would think you were in First Baptist enter name of city here. The architecture, the clothing, the music, the message, the structure of the service, the language . . . it is all essentially a parallel copy of what the white man used to do. The way the people of India were taught to do church.

Naturally Amit (and Veshal for that matter) don’t buy into that model. Amit is an indigenous church planter. Meaning that he believes that the church in India should look like and represent the people of India. Not some colonial empire from year’s past. So Amit plants churches amongst the local people of India. We would call these house churches in America. He helped start a community in one of the biggest slums of Dehli, where they had nothing more than a concrete building the size of my living room with a roof over it’s head and some color on the walls, in the middle of make shift tents as far as the eye could see. Amit gets it. He doesn’t want to plant big churches with big buildings and big budgets. He wants to gather people together in homes and houses and teach them the way of Jesus. At any given time he is biking or taxing all over Dehli “leading” one of many of these “plants”. He helps get them to the point of “sustainability” and then hands over leadership and moves off to kick-start another community. Below are a couple of pictures from one of these communities . . .

In order to “pay the bills” Amit was working at a local college as a professor teaching other pastors about church planting and the bible. Recently, the college temporarily closed but at this point the time table for it’s re-opening is unknown. So Amit, expecting a baby and recently married, did what any self-respecting man would do . . . he went out and got a job driving a 3-wheeler. Which is basically one of these puppies. A glorified rickshaw. The only problem with this is that Amit has to rent the 3-wheeler from a big thug-like owner who demands over 25% of his income for rent of the 3-wheeler.

Amit and I have emailed back and forth since I visited 3 years ago. But about a month ago we started talking about his latest financial troubles. He reluctantly and shyly asked if there was any way that I could help him cover the cost of rent for a few months until the college opened back up. He wanted me to try and raise the money via “my church”. We began a whole conversation, via a series of emails, where I explained that I don’t like just giving money away. Especially for something that may very well be a reoccurring thing if the college doesn’t open back up. I said I was especially nervous considering the colonial history and relationship between the “church” and India over the past 200 years. I told him I didn’t want him to be in a position under me or dependent on me. I asked him was there some business or something that he wanted to do that I could help loan him money for, at which point he would be self-sustaining and able to do for the long-haul.

He told me all he wanted to do was plant churches (I almost cried at this point) but he would like to be in the taxi business (a step up from the 3-wheeled rickshaw business) because he would then have enough money to fund his church planting habit. Plus he’d have transportation that would allow him to go further and cover more ground in starting these communities.

So long story short . . . his emails came to life . . . he started sending me all kinds of ideas . . . asked a thousand questions . . . and his creativity and ingenuity that was probably laying dormant, sprung to life.

Amit is just one person. One story. There are countless others like him all over the world. In our backyard.

I want to help these people. And I want them to help me.

I’m going to break here . . . because I didn’t intend to write this much of his story. I’ll come back this afternoon and write my proposal/idea. I swear it this time. I won’t put it off another day.

A Small/Big Favor & A Small/Big Experiment: The Indian Taxi Fund.

I’ve been thinking more and more about scale-free networks and the possibility of leveraging social groups for bigger things. If you’ve been around Facebook for a while, you’ve probably seen the CAUSES application which is great but often times is void of the relational aspect that you would think would be apparent. They also lack any real value in connecting the real problems with real solutions, outside of “joining a cause” on Facebook. The other side of that coin are groups like Kiva, which don’t really rely on any social or relational aspects in their micro-financing, but are able to leverage small loans of $25 from individuals in a collective with other individuals. Once formed into a collective, the loan usually amounts to a $1000 or more.

The only group who is really doing this well right now, that I know of is, RelationalTithe.com. And people like Adam Walker Cleaveland have experimented with this on their site for other causes to some surprising success.

I’ve been reading Muhammad Yunus’ book Creating A World Without Poverty. Yunus was the founder of Grameen Bank in Bangladesh over 30 years ago. Grameen was the first of it’s kind that gave micro-loans to the world’s poor. Anyway . . . Yunus talks about social businesses, which are businesses that operate and exist for the sole purpose of alleving problems in the world. Essentially, businesses that exist for the good of the world. This is what we’ve tried to do through my business, Red Cowboy Designs. Since the Fall of last year, we have been loaning 5% of all income that comes into Red Cowboy to small businesses in the third world. While it’s still an incredibly small step, we have been able to partner with 42 small business in a really short amount of time, equipping them with the resources to go alongside their already robust confidence and creativity that has been laying dormant for so many years. Standing alongside them and beside them instead of “over them” as they launch out and begin to work for themselves and empower themselves with their ingenuity and business savy.

So I’ve been thinking about these two things alongside each other over the past couple of weeks . . . businesses that exist for the good of the world . . . and scale-free social networks. And how they might interplay and cross-pollinate each other.

And as much as I don’t believe in “providence” like this . . . I got an email from a friend of mine in India last week that led me to really ramp up towards some action. Whether it’s God pulling strings like a puppet-master or just convenient timing . . . it is weird how this opportunity for me to begin to act just happened to fall into my lap at the same time I was sketching out drawings and ideas in my moleskin.

I’m going to share all of the details tomorrow, the story of my friend Amit, and my devious master plan . . . but basically instead of going through Kiva like I have been, I’m thinking I’d like to try and be the guy that does the networking and facilitating of the fund raising and dispersement of the loan.

And here’s a quick sketch of my thinking . . .

In scale-free networks . . . you basically have “nodes” or “hubs”. You have 5 or 6 main nodes that serve as the hubs of the network. And then you have a bunch of smaller nodes underneath that. I’m also thinking that there are lot of us who aren’t comfortable giving money to the church anymore . . . or who don’t even go to church regularly anymore . . . but who would still like to give and share. I’m also thinking that there are a lot of bloggers out there who are innovative enough to see the big picture of social networks and how they have been playing themselves out on their sites over the last few years.

So what I’m thinking is a mash-up of the ideas from Relational Tithe, Kiva, blogging networks, and small businesses as social businesses.

So what I’m thinking is something along the lines of Relational Tithe and what Adam did on his blog, but scaled towards global small businesses. This may totally tank and I may be way more ambitious than I need to be . . . but I’ve been sitting and sketching and mocking-up some ideas and I’d be remiss if I didn’t test them out on you guys first.

More tomorrow . . . in the meantime . . . I’m looking for 5-6 bloggers to serve as hubs or nodes. Email me for more info or to just give me your feedback and tell me that it’s a dumb idea.