Howdy All, Was just doing some research on social capital and I stumbled upon Pledgebank.com. Excitement ensues...
It occurs to me that while it could be used as an even more open alternative to HaveMoneyWillVlog it could also be used quite effectively in tandem with havemoneywillvlog. I'm extremely interested in the relationship of social capital and economic capital. Which is to say the intangible combined assets of a community such as trust, connectivity, etc, etc... and the relationship between actual monetary capital. HaveMoneyWillVlog has been a great experiment. I wonder however if it can't be replicated in a more distributed manner, and encourage more creative, more fun... even a game like atmosphere. My thoughts are as follows... skip down further for a fun example of how pledgebank and havemoneywillvlog might combine to create more creative fundraising. 1) Pledgebank is extremely interesting because unlike HaveMoneyWillVlog ANY enterprising person can take the initiative and start a pledge of their choice. For example... "I'll pledge $1000 to X project if 50 other people pledge $10 or more." In this means a whole organic model for fund raising may be created. All a project needs is a great sponsor or patron to take the initiative. Eventually expertise and best practices will evolve. In other words pledgebank is *flexible* enough and *open* enough to handle wide experimentation necessary for innovation in this new field of P2P funding. 2) Pledging to raise not just money but alternative "social capital" for a project in the form of visibility, advertising, promotion, or anything you can dream up. Projects can be promoted through distributed means... blogging, shared banners, email... each one of these channels can signify the trust of the person promting it truely reflecting the communities social capital/trust/karma and buy in. Think of promoting a pledge as karma points (aka. whuffie, a Corey Doctorow term, see wikipedia)... these links being a symbolic currency of social capital, while that actual money is a the tangible monetization of that capital.... In that way the correlation between the two can be endlessly explored and capitalized on... explored to the point of gaming. For example, "I'll pledge $1 to X project for everyone who blogs about the project." This creative exploration between social capital and economic capital could compound the effectiveness of campaigns to fund projects. :) Again... this is not something that can currently be done with the rigid havemoneywillvlog alone... all one can do is donate... or blog about donating... and that's no fun. :) 3) ownership... pledgebank, because anyone can get creative with pledging, allows more sense of ownership and involvement, more buy in from the community since members know they to can start pledges and not just buy in or agreeing to the intial contract... but BUILD on it. In essence getting creative with pledges can be a spirited part of the game of fund raising itself keeping people involved in the process until funding goals are met. 4) Transparency = following through. I've heard many say that people often welch on their pledges... this is the reason why havemoneywillvlog processes money up front. While to some degree I do agree with this premise I also would like to note that Pledgebank is transparent... it shows who pledges what. This transparency (and a little public scrutiny) should ensure follow through. 5) Pledgebank can have pledges on pledges... you could create another pledge on someone elses pledge to encourage the main pledge... For example the main pledge might be... "I will pledge $1000 if 100 others pledge at least $10"... and another person may pledge, "I will pledge $100 if four other people will plege $100". This also illustrates how Pledgebank can be used in tandem with HaveMoneyWillVlog... which is maybe the best thing about it of all. 6) Pledgebank and HaveMoneyWillVlog in tandem! As the above point illustrates anyone could create a pledge on a HaveMoneyWillVlog campaign to add an additional incentive to the pot, Pledgebank need not be just an alternative to HaveMoneyWillVlog. 7) Non-monetary pledges - In fact a pledge may not have anthing to dow with money at all. Someone might pledge a peace of equipment to the project, or some other promotional resource... I.E. "I'll pledge the use of my camera, if someone else pledges the use the use of their car." Or "I'll pledge to work on this project on Saturday and Sunday, if someone can help on Monday." Or "I'll pledge to cover the plane ticket if someone else pledges to cover the hotel room." 8) Reputation & Reciprocity.... it would be interesting if someone could create a "flickr of pledging" where members could build reputations for pledging, promoting, and creating successful pledges building more transparency and value into the system and encouraging reciprocation of good deeds. I picture some day a site like blip or mefeedia having such a system built in. So called "projects" sort of like flickr groups, but not aimed at simply curating, but collaboratively creating. These projects might not only have collaborative tools like rough cut editing and a library of media... maybe wiki space... but also other tools like fundraising & pledging... maybe one day like a project management site time lines, goals, milestones and other goodies as well. SO, how would this work... a little scenario... Coming back down to earth here's how I envision Pledgebank working with HaveMoneyWillVlog. 1) a standard project is promoted for funding on havemoneywill vlog, like the current project. :) 2) a big fan / patron of that project pledges on Pledgebank.com some seeder capital like $500 if 100 other people will pledge $10 or more... they tell HaveMoneyWillVlog people about it. 3) The HaveMoneyWillVlog people blog about it on their homepage promoting the person that promotes them. 4) Another project fan comes along and starts a Pledgebank.com pledge that they'll give $5 (max $100) to the HaveMoneyWillVlog project for each person who blogs 500 words or more about the project, bonus points for adding video and images. They tell HaveMoneyWillVlog about their pledge. 5) HaveMoneyWillVlog blogs about the pledge to promote the project making their first buck of the pledge, and ten other people immediately follow suit. :) 6) Another person pledges $5 to the project (max $20) for everyone who makes a banner and and blogs about it.... Each one of those people who make banners and blog them thus make $6 a piece by blogging about it because of the combination of pledges they're fulfilling. Pledges are now compounding. 7) HaveMoneyWillVlog continues to blog about the ensuing fun and chaos as do others... furthering the publicity for the project and attracting more attention.... the fundraising has become a game unto itself. 8) Meanwhile emails and IM begin to flow back and forth between people reminding each other to sign the pledges as post proof of their accomplishments as they complete them. 9) Another user comes along and creates a pledge for anyone willing to post the newly made banners to their side bar to encourage that the banners get seen. The banners eventually end up on thousands of sites. 10) As pledges get fulfilled the actual funding on HaveMoneyWillVlog becomes a record of who's pledgine what and why documenting the various pledges and their success. 11) Another user creates a pledge for anyone on Youtube who will create a videos about the project or post the project videos to their youtube account. Chaos begins to spill into myspace.... later flickr... and soon people are using PledgeBank to put "bounties" on other social networks. 11) Pledges get more creative... the process of pledging and raising money has become a game into itself, simultaneously creating awareness, visibility, building trust and social capital while raising money... many are contributing more time than money... some are contributing more money then time... all are having fun. People are encouraged to not only open their pocketbooks but also to use their creativity and bring other assets and skills they may have into the game. So... the concept is... to have a flexible enough funding system to encourage games that build visibility, enjoyment, alternative and creative resourcing, while all the time building trust. Why... because simply donating to havemoneywillvlog is BORING... and if you don't have money or have already donated money there's little to no encouragement for you to contribute in other more creative ways. I just wonder if a "donation fatigue" will set in like some said after 9/11 and new orleans and the tsunami... or wether this could be a new and sustainable new form of funding. I personally have a favorite podcast called WholeWheatRadio that I absolutely love and miss and want to encourage to podcast again... and while I was wondering what $50 bucks would get me... I'm thinking maybe with PledgeBank my $50 can find 100 more people who will pledge $10 or more. BTW, I have added Pledgebank.com to the article sull started on crowdfunding, aka. p2p funding on wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P2P_Funding BTW, I don't know how it became named P2P funding but it's a most unforetunate name. PeerFunding might be better. The reason is that P2P networks have no social capital... they're black markets. They exist in the cloak of obscurity and therefore gain none of the advantages of an open, lightnet, social network. Peace, -Mike mmeiser.com/blog mefeedia.com
