How do I fund them?
Directly on the fundraising platform of our choice. For me, that's on my personal website. For the others I've listed, I've set up GoFundMe pages that link directly to their bank accounts. To access these funding pages, click the buttons below our names.
Why should I fund them?
Often we have little financial power because we turn it into love and give it to others. And if we run nonprofits, we often don't draw salaries and if we do, we don't draw large ones because we may not want to take financial power away from our projects.
Funding us directly places the trust in us to use the financial power however we would like. Many still might donate it all to our nonprofits. Others will pay bills we've avoided. Others might actually go see a doctor. Others might create new projects or give financial power directly to other people we think need it.
The idea is to give us more financial power and see how we use it. Many people who have accumulated financial resources do so through profitable exchange, which is likely to make us more transactional and less communal. I believe the more financial power we unconditionally give to people, the more love people can give to others.
Why should I NOT fund them?
If you need certainty over how the person will use the financial power.
If you want a business plan on how they'll use the financial power.
If you don't trust the individual person's intentions.
If you don't trust the individual person's abilities.
If you think these people should just go get a job somewhere.
If you think they should sell products and services.
If you feel confident that more established organizations will use your money better.
If you want the person to do what you tell them to do.
If you need them to have immediate impacts on society.
If you want them to have some financial power but not more than the average person.
If you want less love in the world.
What are the risks in giving financial power to individuals?
There are risks in giving financial power to individuals. There are also risks in not giving financial power to individuals.
In giving financial power to individuals, we don't know how they will use that power. They may use it to buy things we find offensive or maybe even illegal, or at the least not directly related to their mission. They may lose the power. They may give it carelessly. They may stop working on their mission, retreating from society. They may go in a direction opposite to which we want them to go.
But if we don't give financial power to individuals, the individuals may stop working on what they're doing. They may become more jaded and cynical and give up on life. They may get a side-job doing something highly profitable and/or illegal just to fund their work. They may spend hours and hours filling out proposals and reports to tell donors they're doing what the donors want. They may stop leading and start following more. They may come up with solutions that are incremental instead of breakthrough. They may lose hope and spread that hopelessness to the rest of us.
But how will I know how they will use the financial power?
In giving to an individual leader it may be a lot simpler to see how someone uses the financial power than if you were to give to an organization. Why? Because there's only one main product: the individual as a leader. If you give to an organization like the American Red Cross or American Cancer Society, they have so many projects that it may take a lot of time and energy to find out if the financial power is helping to deliver the service about which you care the most. But if the only service is the individual as a leader, it should be a lot simpler to see: is the individual leading?
And even if you can't see easily, it's a lot simpler to find out: just see what the person is doing or ask them. No need to dive into annual reports, search websites, try to find out what's happening in a remote region, or contacting someone in a large organization. It's just one person. Engage with them directly.
Do you charge any fees?
Nope, the funding goes directly to the people through the external fundraising platforms. This site is just a directory to showcase a few people to test a new way for us to continue to enable leaders to give love because the current models don't seem to be working so well. The external payment platforms, however, may charge fees.
Can I give them financial power in a one-off or recurring manner?
On my fundraising page, you can give one-off, recurring per month/quarter/year until cancellation, or recurring for X number of months/quarters/years.
For the others I've listed, using their GoFundMe links you can give either one-off from anywhere in the world (I think) or recurring per month until cancellation if you are based in the US.
I think someone should be on this list but they're not there.
Excellent! Fund them directly! No need to use this platform.
A major part of this experiment is to inspire people to give financial power to those they trust to lead us towards more love.
However, if you think they should really be on this page, please let me know on one of my social links above. The people I'll add to the site are the ones whom I trust to lead us in a direction towards more love and yet I know there are plenty of people out there whom I would trust but don't know, so I feel quite excited to meet the people whom you think are and see what happens.
This seems like the MacArthur Fellows program.
Yes and no :-) For those of you who don't know, the MacArthur Fellows program ("Genius Grant") selects 20-30 individuals per year and gives them no-strings-attached grants of $800,000 across 5 years. The selection process is highly secretive and the public can't nominate people.
On the receiving side, it annoyed me that people could 1) only get it through a secretive selection process and 2) only get it one-off, not recurring.
On the giving side, it annoyed me that I wasn't able to find loving talent and contribute to collectively funding them.
However, the program has deeply inspired me for its no-strings-attached grants to individuals whom they view as leaders, which very very few people seem to do and if they do it, don't do it at the monetary level with which they do.
