Welcome to my World: Introduction

Welcome to my world, to my brainstorming sessions and my thoughts. These series are and attempt to give some structure to my ideas and to open to the public my thoughts about 'how' we can create the financial institutions of the future. I have been apprehensive to specifically address the 'how' for many reasons. The main one is, I don't want the community to think that I'm posing my ideas as 'the right ideas'. I don't want to give a formula or equation for the solutions I can think of. At the same time, followers have been asking for that 'how' and I feel like I am trying to avoid giving them an answer. With this conflict in my mind, I decided to give it a go. On the one hand, I am not sure if I am ready to write the entire idea but I need to start putting it together, so when you read, always remind yourself that you are more than welcome to disagree, give feedback, accept or reject all or part of the ideas proposed; that this is in no way a final document and almost everything is subject to change and I am more than happy if you influence those changes, in fact, you're encouraged to foster changes about this project. And on the other, I hope that this serves as inspiration, guidance or some sort of learning or analytic tool and resource to those who are starting to search and discover their own role as co-creators of this world.

So let me talk to you about my core believe. To me it is evident that an increasing number of people are becoming aware of the flaws of the current economic system. But more than that, people are not trusting those who manage their money, some of us do not believe in the banking system anymore. I do not know what they do with my money or where they invest it. I know now that they, knowingly or not, foster a world and a system of destruction. I do not blame them for doing this, I actually thank them for there was no other way for me to know that a better option is possible, if not because they have shown me how it shouldn't work. 

Thus, and after many years of personal conflict with the general accepted notions of economic growth, sustainability, consumption, climate change and so on, I came up with the idea that I need a bank or some sort of financial institution that actually projects who I am, an institution that I believe in, that is transparent, that makes sense...the current banking system just doesn't fit in my brain, neither my brain nor my heart understand it. It's been about 3 years of me completely rejecting the idea of rendering my, let's say, moral and professional values to the mainstream environmental job market, I absolutely refuse to accept a position where I need to invest 8 hours a day, 5 days a week for most of a year, in creating one-thousand-pages-reports about how not to trash the planet in one go but little by little and get paid for it. This rejection has its consequences: It can be said that I have no professional experience whatsoever. However, it has also given me opportunities that would have not appeared otherwise: It's been 3 years since I started to investigate about complementary currencies and I have now the opportunity to create the business I can be passionately invested with no regrets or moral/professional frustrations. At the moment, I can't see myself using my time in any other kind of permanent job. The course of this project is what ignites my brain, what lights my heart. It is some times overwhelming, but that is part of the process, it helps me to learn how to overcome the barriers that I put on my own path. 

So, that is the very brief personal background behind the project. I need a bank that I can trust and that helps me to build the world I want to see. The following series of posts will be about what I've been doing and what I think can be done to get there.


This graph should give you a brief idea of how things seem to be putting themselves in order. 

For the next 4 Mondays, you will be able to check a new post. Today, I'll start with what I've been asked for: My ideas of 'how' this institution may work, which corresponds to step 1 in the graph.


Always remember, if you want to make part of the project, send me an email to newecohumanity@gmail.com and I'll send you an invitation to our 'office' in BetterMeans. You can also be part of the conversation by leaving your comments or share links with us and other relevant thoughts and info in our facebook page. 

Clarifications and Process

I feel the need to write about the process I've been through with the Financial Institution of the Future Project. From the last post about the Possible Futures Film Contest, I got a couple of interesting emails mainly suggesting that the initiative was vague. It seems like people feel all this is all around the place and there is no concise actions or structure to follow. This is because there isn't. However, that doesn't mean that there is nothing to do, nor that there has not been any progress. So I thought it would be good thing to give you an idea of what has been happening and what I am building.

First of all, this project started with the idea that I want to create the financial institutions I believe in so that we can stop complaining about the ones we have. With that in mind I sent an open invitation  to join the project in the BetterMeans platform. I also wrote a post about the very basic ideas I have in mind. One of the things I want from a bank is that I should be able to make decisions, therefore, I need to allow democratic participation, not once the institution is up and running, but from its very beginning, from the conception of the ideas. So one thing to clarify here is that this project is not a call for help but and invitation to participate. 

Yes, it is true that since I am not an economist or related to this area, nor a software developer, I have no experience with what is necessary to create it, so at some point I need this input. But this was not intended to say "I have a great idea, you should all help'. And consequently, an open invitation implies that you take responsibility for whatever you want to. If you do not participate at all, or you join us in BetterMeans but do not generate ideas or join workstreams, that only means that you are not participating...until you do, until you find something and recognize a spot where you feel your ideas can contribute. Not that it is your fault if things go wrong. That is what BetterMeans also attempts to achieve according to my own interpretation: There are no culprits for failure, there are only those who participate at the level they want and can. That is part of self-organized communities.

"Failure does not exist unless I am captive of what the world has to say about me."  - Me

Additionally, I was worried because I was struggling trying to keep permanent communication with my team so that I could engage with them and get to know more about each other. But I am wondering now if I really need to worry about pushing them to participate, or if they will come back once they see that I care about them and I deeply care about this project coming to fruition. So far, with those who have participated and let me know, we decided to run a group in Skype just in case. You are more than welcome to join us there too.

So, the first stage was to generate the business model for this financial institution. But the more I was thinking about it, reading and making notes, the more I thought I had to go backwards to get it 'right' from the beginning. I have my own ideas of what I want this institution to do and how, but this is not just about me and I wanted to offer the space for people who believe they too can say what they want from a bank. So I thought that before generating the business model, I needed to create a presentation with those who have already joined BetterMeans, where we would use this presentation to say why we think this is a good idea, what we are offering and where you can join us. Ideally, this presentation would be created for us, and anyone would use it anywhere in the world. 

And then I went backwards again, I need to tell people very simply that there are options and alternatives to banking business-as-usual and that, if they want, they can participate in creating these institutions. Then, I got an email from Pachamama Alliance anouncing the film contest. A team mate from BetterMeans had previously offered his experience making videos so I thought that would be a good opportunity. 

Now, so far I haven't said how I am going to do what I am planning to do. Well, so far I do not have all the answers and as I posted once, I believe that when people say and ask "Yes, but how??", what they are really asking is "can you do it...I mean seriously??", and I reply with a book title: The Answer to How Is Yes: Acting on What Matters. I know that I'll do what I love. I would like to ask you, my readers, that without going too deep, tell me what questions you would like the video and a presentation to answer if you were completely new to this topic, other than 'how'?? or even if you are no so new and rather very experienced. I also have against the question 'how', that it seems to me that people want a formula, the solution that would solve all their problems and by doing so, they avoid responsibility because 'it was their idea'. I would love people to have some sense of belonging, but I can't push that. So the 'how' will come...when we work it out. 'How?' is a good question but I don't think it should be the first one to ask. Maybe I should include this in the script of the video: "The answer to how is within you: Just ask yourself, why do you do what you do in life? (animation of a 'normal' family week) and, more importantly, what are you willing to do to bring about the world you want to see?. Let's build the answer to 'how?' together."

Up to now, I know that after getting the video and presentation ready, I will work on creating the new definitions of money, profits and value. As well as determine what they are for and what they do for the society we are building. I believe this is essential before I start generating the business model because those definitions will be the platform on which the financial institution will build all what it needs. I strongly believe that as long as we 'fail' to give money a personal and completely different meaning to the one we have today, any financial institution will only replace the faulty pieces of a structure that doesn't work rather than changing the structure.

I am already using Resonate: Present Visual Stories that Transform Audiences for the presentation and I reached a point where I realized that I had to go backwards a bit and thought about the video for the film contest. I would love to read more about the draft script for this video. Then, I'll proceed to generate these definitions I was talking about, and finally will hopefully use Business Model Generation: A Handbook for Visionaries, Game Changers, and Challengers for what  I thought it was going to be the first stage...but wasn't. This project will keep progressing, if you want to see what  is happening, if you want to lurk around, or if you want to actively participate you are invited and more than welcome to do so. With your input, your help and your participation, we can do this a lot quicker than what it'll take me to do all by myself.


Below you'll be able to read 'The answer to How is Yes: Acting on what Matters". It is a challenging reading I think, but it strongly resonates with my perspective and it also gives you a different perspective on what questions to ask before throwing the big 'How?'. The introduction may be enough for some. It is only 13 pages long. To have a bit more information about what is going on in my brain, I would suggest to read pages 8 and 9. From the list that you'll find there, my strongest desire supports items 8, 7, 5 and 3 in that order. It is not about order of importance, it is just what my logic tells me to be a good order. 


Last but not least, thanks for your comments, feedback, appeals, opinions...you are already part of this and I am immensely grateful to all of you and the world for giving me this opportunity.

Throw me an email or leave me a comment anytime you want ;-)

Tatiana Maya

Possible Futures

WHERE ARE WE?

I know you are not new nor blind to these scenes, nor deaf to these news even when you seem to be, or publicly say so. (Scenes of social injustice, environmental degradation). I know in everything you do, you think you are doing the right thing and it is not your purpose to hurt others, but things do not seem to be working the way we were expecting them to work. (scenes of social injustice, environmental degradation).

This is not about what we are doing wrong. This is about what we can do right, this is the time to make it work and avoid the mistakes of the past, which thanks to us, we already know what the mistakes are.

What if I tell you that most of our current social, environmental and spiritual gaps are deeply related to how we relate to money, finance and our current economic theories?(consumption related scenes) And what if I offer you an option to structurally change and re-create these theories?? Are you ready to change??

CHANGE

We like change as long as it happens under our control. If it is external change and our influence over the consequences is limited, if not null, we seem to panic. In Al Gore's movie, An Inconvinient Truth, he speaks of the migration of monarch butterflies and how it has been affected by climate change. We didn't tell the butterflies to change their migration patterns, they adapted to the circumstances in order to widen their chances of survival. If conditions of our surroundings change and we don't adapt, our chances of survival decrease. Paradoxically, we appear to believe that the world needs to be static, and every time that significant changes happen around us, we jump to control the situation and replace what we believe to be the faulty piece of our world. (animation of platforms). By doing this, we have been weakening our structures even more.

For many years now, several events and circumstances around the world are telling us that replacing the faulty piece not only does not prevent the event from happening again, but it makes the structure even more vulnerable to collapse. It is not about changing a piece in the structure to keep what does not work and avoid adaptation to external change, it is about adapting to the circumstances by changing the structure if that is what the situation requires.

NEW STRUCTURES

Our current structures are complex, deteriorated and increasingly weak. At the core of these structures there is the platform that sustains them. But the complexity and vulnerability of what we have now, has placed the platform out of our sight. We no longer recognize all the social interactions that must have taken place for the goods and services to be provided in our society. In what we buy, we only seem to acknowledge the the thing, the object, not the human relationships anymore and even less the ecological relationships with other living entities of the earth. [Human] social relationships are the platform that sustain the structures. 

Designing new financial, economic and monetary structures that promote social cohesion and cooperation, will set up the environment to transcend to a sufficient, resource based, non monetary economy. It requires exceptional efforts to completely change the most basic definitions of our current systems. Not only it is possible, it is necessary. But can we do it?? can we undo the nods? 

We created what we have, we can create the next generation of finance too. We have an extraordinary opportunity to create the future right now. A future that redefines the meanings of money, profits and value based on trust, reputation, community building and public engagement. To re create economic systems that mimic nature. That is, that are diverse enough to be resilient but also efficient enough to avoid stagnation. 

Can you imagine being able to use local currencies that support your local economy and your relationships with family, neighbors, customers and suppliers, and also a global currency that connects efforts and strengthen business and live across the planet? 

We'd like to explain the call with an example from the book 'Butterfly': 

"The caterpillars new cells are called 'imaginal cell.' They resonate at a different frequency. They are so totally different from the caterpillar cells that his immune system thinks they are enemies...and gobbles them up--Chomp! Gulp! But these new imaginal cells continue to appear. More and more of them! Pretty soon, the caterpillar's immune system cannot destroy them fast enough. More and more of the imaginal cells survive. And then an amazing thing happens! The little tiny lonely imaginal cells start to clump together, into friendly little groups. They all resonate together at the same frequency, passing information from one to another. Then, after awhile, another amazing thing happens! The clumps of imaginal cells start to cluster together!.., A long string of clumping and clustering imaginal cell, all resonating at the same frequency, all passing information from one to another there inside the chrysalis.

A wave of Good News travels throughout the system-- Lurches and heaves...but not yet a butterfly. 

Then at some point, the entire long string of imaginal cells suddenly realizes all together that it is Something Different from the caterpillar. Something New! Something Wonderfull!....and in that realization is the shout of the birth of the butterfly! 

Since the butterfly now "knows" that it is a butterfly, the little tiny imaginal cells no longer have to do all those things individual cells must do. Now they are part of a mult-celled organism-- A FAMILY who can share the work. 

Each new butterfly cell can take on a different job.----There is something for everyone to do. And everyone is important. And each cell begins to do just that very thing it is most drawn to do. And every other cell encourages it to do just that."

We are calling cells to resonate together!

The New Economics for Humanity would like to collaboratively create a financial institution which principal aims are 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 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.

Let's get together and redefine our concepts, challenge our assumptions and generate a  progressive business model for the financial institutions of the future.

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's platform. We have no hierarchy and rely on the power of nature's self-organizing mechanisms to do this, which are amazingly contextualized in our online working platform.

______________________________________________

The previous text is what I thought as a first draft of the script to participate in the 'Possible Futures Film Contest' that will start in March. I would love to have inputs about the script and ideas of animation and imagery. Ray Barnes, who is a contributor on the NEH workstream in BetterMeans, kindly offered to put things together in the video. It would be awesome to see your comments and inputs on this stage of the project!!

Unmarketing. Stop Marketing, Start Engaging.

AWESOME BOOK!!! I seriously loved it. Scott speaks as if his way is the way, but I don't mind it, that's what works for him and it resonates with me. I too recommend what works for me.

One of the topics that have come to my mind when I think of the Financial Institution of the Future project is, what are economic transactions for?? Why do we want to measure them?? and, what is it about value that makes it so important. Recently, I have repeatedly heard phrases that have led me to conclude that economic transactions are all about social relationships.

Paolo Ricciardelli, from a Skype group that discusses complementary currencies, said that "The core idea is that relations of exchange between individuals are more valuable than the goods or services exchanged." 

In another conversation with Helen Dew from Living Economies, she told me that "we know that good relationships mean good trade". A relevant for my local exchange group which is wondering about why we are becoming stagnant. 

Well, the author of this book takes this conversation about good relationships to the world of business in a way that no mainstream businessman could do. Although he apparently also works as a consultant for old-age type of business, I see great potential for using his wisdom in evolutionary businesses. "Marketing happens every time you engage (or not) with your past, present and potential customers" he says. It is not about a department of your business that will put an expensive ad and hope that someone will call, which the author calls the 'push and pray' method. It is about engaging with your customers, it is about establishing human conversations. Furthermore, he doesn't get tired of saying that honesty, authenticity and transparency are key to success. 

So, in a mainstream/old-age company, the employees normally do not care about their job, they do what they do 'to survive', 'to pay the bills'. The employer cares about his employees as long as they bring sales. There is no engagement between them, therefore, employees will never be part of the positive marketing process for that business. They will never tell their friends to visit the factory where they work because it is awesome and have great products for them, for example.  What Scott seems to be telling me is that your employees need to be as passionate about their job, as you are about your company. You need to be passionate about what you do so that you can go out and talk to people about it. 

How does passion comes about?? or how do you motivate your employees?? Engage with them, be honest, authentic and transparent so that they trust you. When they trust you, they will be honest, authentic and transparent to you, so you'll trust them. Then, every one will play a key role in the Unmarketing process. 

I concluded that marketing is about imposing, unmarketing is about creating trust. Scott even talks about a social currency!! something like, every time you build and strengthen your relationships with potential costumers, that is to say, with anyone, you are crediting your social account with a social currency. Eventually, the time will come for you to use it! 

With the Financial Institution of the Future project, I am struggling a bit because I have got people joining the team on the BetterMeans Platform, however, I haven't been able to engage with them in a conversation that would motivate us to actively participate. That is because the platform does not allow us to keep contact with each other through email. If I want to email them, I need to go to my personal email account and select the recipients one by one.  Same would be for them, which is an issue since not everyone has everyone else's addresses. So before we can go out to talk about this project, we need to develop passion for it, we all have to own it, to feel we belong to it and it belongs to us. We need to love the project...but we need the tool to engage and have conversations. I'd like to ask to current and future contributors, how do you think we can overcome this if BetterMeans cannot solve this issue for our project, which they are aware of??

My abstraction of the book can be summarized in  the next sentence: Conversations start the process of building trust, which creates and strengthens good relationships. These are essential in building community, which process engages the public and promotes good trade. Social cohesion is key to healthy and sustainable economic activity. I chose the fractal spiral to indicate that, to me, this is a never ending process, it is an iteration, it feeds itself and when you look at it closer, you find more of the same stuff..."to infinity and beyond"!!

From http://fractal.portwallpaper.com/

Here it is part of the book. Would love to read your comments about it. 

Zeitgeist III: Review and Feedback

Let's start with the not so good stuff. The Zeitgeist film series have been an awesome part of my journey. In fact, the first one was the first breakpoint in my life that I was conscious and fully aware of. However, with the first two films, I always finished with some sort of sadness and a feeling of guilt. I knew humanity has issues with money and the whole systemic errors it has are upsetting, but, am I then a bad person because I have money in my bank account?? Should I aim at not having money at all??  what can I do to get to where the film is talking to me about?? With Zeitgeist 3 I still didn't find the answer to that question...what can I do to get there?? what is in the middle?? what is the process?? The movie goes from the problem to the solution in an almost quantum  leap (they go from a world addict to money to a world of no money at all, no transitional process is proposed or talked about). And the solution they propose is such that people really seem to be lost...they struggle to connect the points.

Another set of interrelated issues has to do with the way they present their criticism and solutions. It seems to me that they may have some sort of obsession against religious practices but mostly, against Christianity. If I don't think that religions institutions provide the best path to sane society, that is fine. But that I express that with sarcastic humor, and choose a particular practice as a target, is somehow counterproductive to what I am trying to project with my film, which is a world of love and positive environment. I would think that most people in this world have a religious believe, what is the Zeitgeist project going to do with them?? Convince them that they're wrong by making fun of them?? I think this approach mostly generates a defensive reaction. It is a similar situation with the way they referred to politicians and governments in general. Yes, the institutions  do not serve the purpose I agree, but many of those who work there, do not know what they are working for. Are we going to leave them behind?? 

And at the same time, I feel that the film ignores that the shift in consciousness is happening in human beings regardless of their profession, likes and dislikes. I think that there is an amazing display of personal change within governments and few politicians, but also within religious institutions. As a civilization, I don't think we can just dismiss them and say that their role is obsolete in the building of the future world. By attacking the religious practices, the film ignores the role of Spirituality in our societies. Osho, a spiritual teacher, led me to think that in the real sense of the word, religion and spirituality are exactly the same thing. The Bible was written for the Spirit, but we read it with the body and thus, we haven't understood much of what it says (personal view, of course). At the same time, yes, it was written by men, who are filters and interpret what they understand. I don't think humans are just bodies that you study in a lab, therefore, human creations are not just things that you can manipulate with scientific approach and technology. The film advocates that all our problems can be solved by creating positive environments through technology and science. I believe that is part of the solution, but not the whole picture. Technology was also believed to be the solution to our problems at the time of the industrial revolution, and here we are....struggling with it. In the end, who invents all this technologies and scientific methods?? humans!!

Having said all that, the movie is a must see and has a lot of positive things. I loved the first half where it talks about leading neuroscience and genetics, more specifically, epigenetics! It brought me tears of joy when I heard one of their interviewees from Harvard Medicine School (or something like that), saying that prison and punishment have not reduced crime rates or social disruptive behaviors. The film really explores this, and my words cannot  match the amount of wisdom and knowledge gathered in there!!

Also, the fact that the movie has a big gap between the problems and the solution is a good thing to me, because people are asking, 'what can we do', they want someone to tell them the direction, but the gap is an opportunity for you and me to create that direction, to take responsibility for it, to make the decision and be co-creators of the world we want to see. Whether the word will be as the one Zeitgeist pictures, I don't know, but we have been left with the opportunity to create it. You can go asking others what you can do, but if you do not find the answer, keep looking for it, maybe you will find that you know what to do, and you'll do it!!

The movie is a must see, regardless of my few comments, the amount of information can be overwhelming but it is self-instructive, it somehow encourages you to go and find out by yourself should you not believe what it says. As I said, it was a break point for me, and my journey would not have been what it is, if not partly because of what Zeitgeist has encouraged me to do.

So there you go...I really recommend it and give it 4 out of 5 stars. 

Slowly but surely..??...

Yesterday I went to watch the premier of Zeitgeist III - Moving Forward. There was going to be a session of Q&A at the end of the movie with people who are involved with the Australian charter of the Zeitgeist Movement, so I made sure that I had my attention on what the movie was telling me. 

In the end, I felt that I had to talk about the Social Financial Institution project in one way or another, but I wasn't sure how or where to start from. I don't particularly enjoy public speaking in my foreign language, so I was struggling to put my ideas together before the Q&A session. I finally concluded that it is necessary to create a presentation with the general ideas of the project. What we want, why we want [you] to participate and how you may decide to do so. 

Few days ago I ordered the books Business Model Generation: A Handbook for Visionaries, Game Changers, and Challengers and Resonate: Present Visual Stories that Transform Audiences. I wasn't convinced that I was going to use 'Resonate' in the near future, but I think I'll make use of that one before thinking about the Business Model Process.

Thomas Greco suggested to me that I should gather a core team for this project. I agree that if I want the whole process to be truly democratic, I need to 'seduce' as much people as possible so that it is a big group who makes decisions, not only the few of us. Thinking about it during the movie, I thought that with the ones that are already part of the team in the project platform plus those who will be slowly coming, we should agree on what the project actually is about and create a presentation. Once the presentation is ready, each of us would be able to use it in their own space and time to invite more people to work in the Business Plan Generation. The presentation would be like the official open and viral invitation. I see myself using it to give speeches about the project to invite and inspire people to create a new structure. And I see our initial group completely engaged and committed to use the presentation to invite others because it says what we want it to say, it reflects us and we all feel comfortable with using it and its content. This may mean that the 27th of November dateline may not be to present the Business Plan and project pilot but something else...whatever we achieve in this time. Maybe the presentation!!

Currently, everyone involved in the project workstream is named a contributor, except me, who just because I created it and have been updating it, am a Core Team member and administrator, which may change in the future if people so decide. So according to how much someone participates and so on, the team would decide by itself who becomes part of core team, which is a built-in feature of BetterMeans and I love it.

Hope to see you around and remember, if you want to be involved, even if you just want to be an spectator in the platform, please send me an email to newecohumanity@gmail.com and I'll send you an invitation.

Developing the Basic Ideas

What one sentence best describes your idea?

Create a globally known social financial institution for local economic renewal, which promotes environmental sustainability, spiritual fulfillment and social justice.

Describe your idea in more depth. 

A completely new financial banking structure is needed. New motives and aims for banking and financing need to sustain an institution that a) would support recirculation and redistribution of official currency that has already being created through the banking system, by allowing its customers to provide investment options in and capital to innovative, progressive, systemic, holistic, environmentally sustainable, socially just and spiritually fulfilling entrepreneurial ventures through their savings, and b) Specialize in local economic renewal plans, local import substitution and, design of 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. 

General ideas: 

Owned by its workers 

Local democratic decision making 

Meritocratic payment 

Allows and encourages self-organizing processes 

Builds local trust and global reputation 

Welcomes competition 

Business replication by franchises 

Savings in official currency used as finance credits. 

Local currency used as spending credits until local economy evolves enough to provide finance credits with local currency. 

Investment marketplace (you decide where your money goes) 

What problem or issue does your idea address? 

In the current global economic environment, citizens from around the world are either in doubt of the ethical procedures of the banking system, or have been directly affected by their decisions on interest rates on loans, to name the least. What used to be considered part of conspiracy theory against governments and bank about how money is issued into circulation, is now an fact that grows the evidence by itself and is acknowledge by many within and without the banking system. The economic theories of perpetual growth are being debated and increasingly rejected, their effect on environmental degradation are being progressively recognized, and the social alienation produced by the permanent, artificially created, scarcity of money, is also evident [to many of us]. 

A completely new financial banking structure is needed!! 

If your idea were to become a reality, who would benefit the most and how? 

Social entrepreneurs: Business plan mentoring and advice, easier access to funds. ‘We can’t succeed until you do…this bank started as a crazy idea’ 

Local citizens and industries: Employment through economic renewal plans and import substitution. You know and usually decide where your money is going and what it is supporting. Community building and resiliency. ‘We help creating the place you want to live in’. 

Global Citizens: Reduce consumption miles, reduce environmental degradation, create the earth you want to live in. 

What are the initial steps required to get this idea off the ground? 

(not in the linear connection):

* Creating a business plan. 

* Networking, involve as many people worldwide as possible. 

* Developing software system that allows official and local currency activity and trading. 

* Creating an evolving timeline to see/show progress of the project and add items as required. 

* Researching legal options and restrictions

Thomas Greco said to me that we should be careful with the name of the project. Using 'financial institution' may create problems too early in the process. 

He also suggested that we look for banking legislation because they will be the first trying to stop this project. However, I have comments about this. Yes, I agree that we must be aware of the legislation, but I believe that we must create the institution as it should work, and in the end, the legislation somehow needs to change to allow this institution to happen. 

Imagine that we get thousands, or even better millions, of people supporting the final result of the business plan and that we cannot go ahead because the banking regulation does not allow us to do so?? There is potential for this project to help uncover the meaning of the regulations to the public. If the regulation does not allow good banking practices, what can we say about it??

I can almost ensure that the final product of this project will not fit with the current legislations, but I am convinced that they are out of date. We cannot limit ourselves by using tools that do not serve the purpose. Fearless love.

I think I read once that when the people lead, the leaders follow.