Open Invitation to Create the Financial Institutions of the Future.

IDEAS SUMMARY

The New Economics for Humanity (NEH) would like to collaboratively create a financial institution which principal aims are a) to support recirculation and redistribution of official currency that has already being created through the banking system, by providing investment options in and capital to innovative, progressive, systemic, holistic, environmentally sustainable, socially just and spiritually fulfilling  entrepreneurial ventures, and b) develop mutual credit clearing systems that would work in parallel to official currencies to stabilize the current economic environment and bring forth the transition of regions to sound and vibrant localization.

To achieve these goals, The NEH will use BetterMeans and its Open Enterprise Business Model and online platform in all the stages of this project. It is essential for participants to understand some key points of what our relationship with BetterMeans implies to this project:

• Collaboration: Decision-making is crowd-sourced. The goals of an Open Enterprise organization are suggested, voted on, and carried out by all members of the organization using a highly efficient pipeline voting system. In this way the line between managers, workers, owners and even customers is blurred or even completely erased. Instead, there are contributors, members and core team members. These titles are not roles. These titles are indicators of the level of contribution an individual has made within the organization. There are no roles, only contributions, meaning each contributor can bring with them the full breadth and depth of their skills.

• Freedom: A structure to allow contributors (traditionally thought of as ‘employees’) to work when they want, how they want, where they want, and doing what they want. Action is educed, not coerced. Contributors show up based purely on their interest in achieving the organization’s goals and sharing in the rewards of its success.

• Meritocratic Reward: Contributors earn credit for their work, which translates into money and equity in the organization. More credits, in some situations, means more voice and control of the organization’s budget. One earns exactly what one puts in. Credits (sweat equity) accumulate interest until paid, at which time they begin to depreciate over the same duration those credits were invested for. Unpaid credit (sweat equity) earns its weight in profit sharing as a portion of all unpaid credits.

• Accountability: Credits are only earned for work that actually adds value to the aims of the organization. Peer-based review of work, a reputation matrix, and a checks-and-balances system keeps spending in check while rewarding those who contribute the most to the mutual aims of contributors. Work done must be accepted by peers. Poor quality workers will remove themselves organically, since they will earn nothing for work that isn’t valued by the organization.

• Transparency: Knowledge is shared throughout the membership to allow for informed decision-making by all members. The organization’s values, goals and decision-making processes including financial information and spending is completely transparent to the public—and, in fact, invites public feedback knowing some of those individuals will eventually become newly interested collaborators and members who improve the organization.

• Values-Driven: An organization whose activity is transparent is profoundly accountable to the values it purports to extol. As mentioned, work done that doesn’t achieve peer standards isn’t paid, but it is not grounds for dismissal from the organization. Such a participant is always welcome to try as long as they want. Work that achieves acceptable results via unscrupulous means that violate the organization’s values, however, is grounds for removal from the right to participate. The reputation matrix system helps lesser offenders receive values-alignment feedback before such drastic measures, but if no adjustments are made, peers may request a removal by a member-wide vote and review.

• Self-Investing: The Open Enterprise Model sees work and financial investment as two vectors of the same line. Therefore, BetterMeans also seeks to incorporate methods that allow for micro-investment from contributors and members into their organizations, in exchange for credit.

We also suggest that potential contributors get familiar with the platform and the model, by reading the BetterMeans White Paper and watching all their videos (All available via The NEH or their website). These guides, although they are true to the vision of BetterMeans and its members, are still subject to change and feedback from the users of the platform. BetterMeans wishes that all the projects using their model and platform, will help to bring the system to peak performance through permanent feedback and collaboration. Work still needs to be done and the NEH is willing to be part of building this new system for business process management.

The very first stage of this project is the collaborative creation of the Financial Institution (FI) business plan, including its name and logo, and the formulation of a pilot project. The specific objective of this stage is to provide complementary currency designers and currency innovators with the space to put, map and match their ideas that suit this project with the experience available. The NEH’s expects to achieve this by November 21st, 2011 and make a public presentation of the results of this stage by November the 26th, 2011.

The Business Plan Generation (BPG) is a task that we, at the NEH, believe should be funded, allowing contributors to earn money according to the meritocratic built-in system of BetterMeans. How it will be funded is a search and a decision to be made by the contributors of the project as an item of the BPG process. A great deal of feedback is needed here to also provide budgeting ideas for different items related to this and any other tasks.

There is a lot of space for self-education, sharing of wisdom, experience and knowledge, development of progressive thinking and for all of us to explore the possibilities of how banks and financial institutions may  need work and operate in order to satisfy the needs and wants of those who do not trust the current institutions anymore. The call is for those who want to create the banks of the new economy, the banks of abundance and support to life, communities and unity, to substitute the old institutions that seem to support   separation, destruction and alienation.


If you are interested in being part of this process, please send us an email to newecohumanity@gmail.com, and we will send you an invitation to join our organization in the BetterMeans platform. Or you can also try this link.

To know more about us (me) and to get more details and videos about BetterMeans, please visit www.newecohumanity.blogspot.com

Kindest Regards

Tatiana Maya