GIFTegrity: How does it work?

Timothy Wilken, MD

I am a synergic scientist. The word synergy derives from two Greek roots: erg meaning “to work,” and syn meaning “together;” hence, the term synergy simply means "working together." Synergic science is the study of working together. It is a relatively new science, but it has produced a powerful new understanding of human behavior and of human organization. Synergic science reveals a relatively simple solution to our present human difficulties. That solution requires that we work together and act responsibly.

One of the discoveries of synergic science is that the best organizations – the most efficient, the most productive and those wherein the members are the most happy – are those organizations where the participants have win-win relationships with each other.

From synergic science, a tensegrity is the pattern that results when push and pull have a win-win relationship with each other. The pull is continuous and the push is discontinuous. The continuous pull is balanced by the discontinuous push producing an integrity of tension and compression. This creates a powerful self-stabilizing system.

We humans have needs that are continuously pulling on us to be met. To meet these needs we or an other, working on our behalf, must take actions to meet these needs. While our needs continuously pull on us, actions are the discontinuous pushes to meet those needs.

Humans as the INTERdependent class of life can have positive relationships with each other. We can form a gifting tensegrity, where we are continuously being helped, and where we are discontinuously helping others. Needs are continuously pulling on us. Gifts are the actions of others which are offered as the discontinuous pushes to meet our needs.

For convenience, we can combine the two terms ‘gifting’ and ‘tensegrity’ into a shorter term GIFTegrity. The GIFTegrity is a newly invented mechanism for the gifting and sharing of human help.

The Gifting Earth is an early and unique example of a gifting and sharing community based on GIFTegrity. In the future, different gifting and sharing communities can be created, but I predict they will also be based on the mechanism of GIFTegrity. Just as today's retail giants Whole Foods and Safeway certainly have their differences, they are both based on Market.

So let's begin by describing how a GIFTegrity is structured and how it works. Every member of a GIFTegrity community would participate in two roles – as a GIFTor and as a GIFTee. Every member participates by both gifting help to others and by receiving help from others. The continuous pull of the GIFTees’ needs are balanced by the discontinuous push from the GIFTors’ offers of help. Again we see as an INTERdependent life form, there will be times when we will help others and times when others will help us.

You help. Others help. You help others. Others help you. You help others help you. Others help you help others. You help others help you help others. Others help you help others help you.

A GIFTegrity works on trust, generosity and gratitude. I give help to those in need and trust that when I am in need there will be those who will give me help.

Can I trust you? When we use the word trust, it usually means can I rely on you not to hurt me.

Synergic Trust is a larger term. It includes ordinary trust, so I can rely on you not to hurt me, but it also means that I can rely on you to help me.

Synergic Trust was discovered long ago, and was once known as: The Spiritual Principle Of Giving And Receiving

“When we give to one another, freely and without conditions, sharing our blessings with others and bearing each other’s burdens, the giving multiplies and we receive far more than what was given. Even when there is no immediate prospect of return, Heaven keeps accounts of giving, and in the end blessing will return to the giver, multiplied manyfold. We must give first; to expect to receive without having given is to violate the universal law. On the other hand, giving in order to receive — with strings attached, with the intention of currying favor, or in order to make a name for oneself — is condemned.”         Source: World Scripture on Giving and Receiving

And while, The Spiritual Principle of Giving and Receiving relies on “Heaven to keep account of giving,” a GIFTegrity relies on a public database to keep account of giving and receiving. This database of the history of gifting is a public space where the gifting events are made visible to all members who are participants in good standing.

Imagine a world where Co-Operation has replaced Market — a world where GIFTors and GIFTees have replaced sellers and buyers. We are all familiar with Market and our dual role in Market as Sellers and Buyers.

Market requires money. To get money, most of us sell the hours of our lives to employers. Our employers then make some product with our help, which they then sell to buyers for money. So in the world of Market, the participants are both sellers and buyers. You have to sell something first to get money; if you don't have money, you can't buy anything.

When you become a member of The Gifting Earth (TGE), you enter into the world of co-Operation. Here you also have a dual role. You will be both a GIFTor and a GIFTee. You will post the Gifts you would like to give or share with other members of the community in your role as a GIFTor. You will also post the Needs you would like to receive or borrow from other members of the community in your role as a GIFTee.

What you might gift or share

Almost any good or service can be gifted or shared on TGE. Our database is organized into four general classes of Gifts and Needs.

1) Goods – THINGS: Any material object that has value. This would include: tools, appliances, electronics, computers, telephones, equipment of any kind, lawnmowers, house furniture, household goods, furnishings, materials, supplies, foods and even large things like automobiles, or houses. Any material object that is of value can provide some good to the user, hence the term goods.

You can give Goods away fully or only gift the use of them for a specified time. Location is very important for the gift of using a tool or appliance, perhaps less important if the item is given away fully.

Things that are gifted can be new or used. Working or not working. The important thing is to describe the offered gift accurately. A television repairman might like the gift of an old TV, that he will repair and use or gift to someone else. So your description of an offered gift needs to be very accurate. No one will be criticized for gifting junk as long as they describe it accurately as junk. Those seeking junk will be happy. Remember one person’s junk is another person’s treasure.

2) Services – ACTIONS: Projects, Labor (skilled and unskilled), Jobs and Tasks. This could be as simple as baby sitting, or giving someone a ride to as complex as building a room on someone’s house or writing a custom software program, etc., etc., etc.. It could be a million and one different forms of helping provided by humans in action. Location is very important. Many services would only available locally.

3) Knowledge – KNOWING: Expertise, Consultations, Counseling, and Advise. Those humans with expertise in almost any field can make that expertise available to others as a gift. Physicians, Attorneys, Accountants, Engineers, Scientists, Teachers, etc., etc., etc.. Location may be less important with telephone and internet communication. Knowing can also be available in the form or books, art, courses, online files, etc., etc., etc.. Location may be less important with telephone and internet communication.

4) Compassion – KINDNESS: Empathy, Sympathy, Love, and Support. Compassion is a very personal form of gift. It is the most human of gifts. Compassion can come in many forms. It may just be lending an ear, holding space with another, or holding someone's hand. Those humans with experience of the difficult challenges encountered in life can share the lessons they have learned from those challenges with others as a gift. Those that have lost the most, have often learned the greatest lessons. Those that have faced Death in the form of Cancer, Major Injury or Illness, and those that have lost loved ones -- children, spouses, or parents, may be best prepared to help their fellow humans who face similar challenges. Because the personal touch is so powerful with Compassion, this gift is often best given locally, but location may be less important with the growing power of internet communication -- such as Skype and FaceTime.

Gifting – Local, Regional & Global

Also considerations of location are important in a GIFTegrity. Gifts and Needs may be Local, Regional or Global.

Goods and especially the use of tools will mostly be local. However, it may make sense to gift a major appliance or automobile regionally. And rarely, smaller lighter items might be shipped globally especially if they are unusual one of a kind.

Services will usually need to be local, occasionally regional, and rarely global.

Knowledge is usually available as a global, regional or local gift.

Compassion is often best gifted locally, but with the internet and modern communication devices, I can help people all over the world.

Conditional Gifting

You can gift anything with conditions. A gift is an offer of help. The GIFTee is under no obligation to accept the offer. GIFTing is fully voluntary. The GIFTor makes offers of help when and to whom he chooses. The GIFTee accepts offers of help when and from whom they choose. Conditions of gifting is both intelligent and synergic. A common example for non-local Goods might be to Gift an item with the provision that the Giftee pay the cost of shipping. Many of us have tools that we only use occasionally. If I gift the use of a tool for a weekend, I may do so with the condition that it be returned in clean and in good condition.

However some conditions are prohibited. I can't offer a gift with the condition that you pay me. That is Market, not co-Operation. I can't request a gift for purposes of resale. Again, that is Market, not co-Operation.

Do No Harm

Co-Operation is about working together to help ourselves and each other. Members of TGE are committed to a world where I win, you win, others win and the Earth wins. Win-Win-Win-Win.

I am prohibited from offering a gift that is harmful to others, illegal to possess, or known to be dangerous.

Read more on the Terms and Conditions page.

History of Gifting Events

As members use a GIFTegrity, their history of giving, sharing, receiving and borrowing is documented and recorded in the community space. Gifting, sharing, receiving and borrowing is transparent. It can be seen by all members of the gifting community. Your member profle shows all the gifts you have given, all the gifts you have shared, all the gifts you have received, and and all the gifts you have borrowed as well as any comments made by you and your partner's in the gifting events. Since your Gifting event rating and comment profile is based not on the number of gifts offered, but rather on the number of gift offers accepted, it is of great importance to have a good relationship between GIFTor and GIFTee. Remember, every gifting event generates a GIFTor’s rating and comments on the GIFTee, and a GIFTee’s rating and comments on the GIFTor.

To be successful in The Gifting Earth community you need to give and interact in a positive way with other members. This means you want to accurately describe your offered gifts and make sure those accepting your gifts get what they expect from your descriptions. You also want to be courteous and friendly in your encounters. If you have an encounter that earns you a low comment from an gifting partner, you will want to repair that encounter as quickly as possible so that that gifting partner will modify or withdraw their low comment. For instance, if I gift a used computer to someone and it doesn’t work as described, I need to be willing to take it back at my expense if the GIFTee paid for shipping. Or pay for disposal and give up my credit for the gift. Remember, every gifting event effects the ratio of giving-receiving for both the GIFTor and GIFTee.

Ranking the Gifting Event

This the score awarded at the end of a gifting event by your gifting partner.

GIFTors are ranked on Communication, Generosity and Co-Operation.

COMMUNICATION: How accurate, complete and clear was the description of the offered GIFT? How timely, complete and clear were messages related to the offered Gift?

GENEROSITY: How did the GIFTor relate to the GIFTee?

CO-OPERATION: How well did the GIFTor embrace the spirit of working together? What is your overall rating for the gifting event?

5 Stars -- Amazing Event
4 Stars -- Great Event
3 Stars -- Good Event
2 Stars -- OK Event
1 Star -- Neutral or Negative Event

GIFTees are ranked on Communication, Gratitude, and Co-Operation.

COMMUNICATION: How timely, complete and clear were messages related to the requested NEED?

GRATITUDE: How did the GIFTee relate to the GIFTor?

CO-OPERATION: How well did the GIFTee embrace the spirit of working together? What is your overall rating for the gifting event?

5 Stars -- Amazing Event
4 Stars -- Great Event
3 Stars -- Good Event
2 Stars -- OK Event
1 Star -- Neutral or Negative Event

Getting Started

Now once a new member has completed their registration as a GIFTor-GIFTee, they will need to offer a gift or request a need. You are unrestricted in your ability to post both Gifts and Needs into the data base, the TGE software program is designed to help members sort and match Gifts of help with Needs for help.

Within a GIFTegrity, the role of GIFTor is active. The role of GIFTee is passive. The Browse page contains all active Gifts and Needs currently available. Here you can search and sort to find Gifts that might help you or Needs that you might be able to meet for others. The list of Gifts and Needs can be sorted alphabetcially, by rating scores and by distance from the users location.

Freedom of Choice in the Synergic Gifting and Sharing Community

GIFTors are free to offer their gifts to any member who requests their gift. GIFTors may also offer a gift in response to a posted Need. The GIFTors are in control of their giving. Once a GIFTor selects a GIFTee to receive their offer of help, then the GIFTee is notified that an offer of help has been made to them. The GIFTee can then access the profile and gifting history of the offering GIFTor. Using this information, the GIFTee can decide whether to accept the offer of help or not.

Freedom of choice is an absolute tenant of GIFTegrity. The GIFTor decides when and to whom to offer a gift of help. The GIFTee decides when and from whom to accept a gift offer of help.

GIFTors and GIFTees get to know to each other initially by reading each other's member profiles and Gifting event histories. The GIFTee is under no obligation to accept an offered gift. At this point the GIFTee may contact the GIFTor with questions or clarifications about the offer. If the GIFTee accepts the offer, than that action is recorded as a finalized gifting and both profiles are updated. Both GIFTor and GIFTee can make comments about the interaction then or at a later time if more appropriate. If the GIFTee declines the offer of help, the GIFTor is notified so they can offer their help to some other member of the GIFTegrity.

Gifting Event Overview for GIFTS

The chart below describes the gifting event process for Gifts. If you are giving away the gift, you are the GIFTor. If you are receiving someone else's gift, you are the GIFTee.

1. GIFTor logs into The Gifting Earth and posts a Gift offer
2. GIFTee browses or searches the website, finds the gift and clicks "Request Gift". (Note that more than one member may request the same gift.)
3. GIFTor selects one GIFTee (or more if there are more items available) to whom to Offer the gift.
4. GIFTee receives a notification that they have been offered the gift, and elects to accept it.
5. GIFTor receives notification that GIFTee has accepted the gift, and activates the gifting event.
6. At this point both parties receive contact info, and, if and as necessary, meet in the real world to transfer the gift to GIFTee
7. After the gifting event has occurred, both parties return to The Gifting Earth to complete and rate the gifting event
8. Once both parties have completed and rated the other's participation, the gifting event is complete.

Gifting Event Overview for NEEDS

The chart below describes the gifting event process for Needs. If you are receiving the gift, you are the GIFTee. If you are meeting someone's need, you are the GIFTor.

1. GIFTee logs into The Gifting Earth posting area and adds their need to the system.
2. GIFTor browses or searches the website, finds the need and clicks "Offer Gift". (Note that more than one member may offer a gift to meet the same need.)
3. GIFTee selects one GIFTor from whom to accept the gift.
4. GIFTor receives a notification that their offer to provide a gift has been accepted, and activates the gifting event
5. At this point both parties receive contact info, and, as and if necessary, meet in the real world to complete the gifting event.
6. After the gifting event has occurred, both parties return to The Gifting Earth and complete and rate the gifting event.
7. Once both parties have completed and rated each other, the gifting event is complete.

Transparency in the GIFTegrity

To help the GIFTors decide to whom to gift to and the GIFTees decide from whom to receive a gift, The Gifting Earth documents and preserves a history of all gifting events. As both GIFTor and GIFTee, I can make my decision to select a gifting partner with benefit of the following knowledge:

1) My potential Gifting partner's real name, hometown and home state and zip code.

2) How long they have been a member of The Gifting Earth.

3) The number of Gifts they have Given. The number of Needs they have had met.

4) Their cumulative rating for all gifting events (1 to 5 stars) awarded by their previous gifting partners.

5) Their individual ratings for each gifting event (1 to 5 stars) and the written comments by previous gifting partners related to those particular Gifting events.

6) The user profile information that potential Gifting partners have chosen to share with the gifting community.

This makes the processes within a GIFTegrity transparent and helps members make choices that result in win-win relationships.

Read the Privacy Policy

Ratio for Gifting and Receiving

Within The Gifting Earth, the total number of Gifts offered by all members should equal the total number of Needs requested by all members. If there are more Gifts offered then Needs being requested, then the excess Gifts are being wasted. If there are more Needs being requested than Gifts being offered, then some Needs are going unmet.

Ideally, within The Gifting Earth, every member will find themselves both helping others and being helped by others. Over the life of one's membership, each member could expect to be helped by others as often as they helped others. The number of their needs being met by others would roughly equal the number of gifts that they give to others. So as a guideline, we recommend that you try to post equal numbers of gifts and needs. This is made easier by our recognition of the four classes of gifts and needs: Goods, Services, Knowledge and Compassion.

However within any real community, not all of us are equally blessed. Some of us have more and some of us have less. Jesus of Nazareth said, "That to those who much is given, much will be expected." Those that are giving more will gain the respect and gratitude of their community. Those that are given more will be helped by the caring and generosity of their community. That which makes any part of community better makes the whole community better. When we realize that we are INTERdependent, we need each other. If I need you, whatever I do that makes you stronger is of benefit to me.

Also there will be times when I have more to give to others than I need to get from others. And, there will be times when I need to get more from others than I have to give to others. These variations within the individual patterns of giving and receiving are also normal. We each need to strive to do the best that we can.

To improve your Gifts to Needs ratio, you will need to gift more. Also, you will want to accept others gifts carefully, and only when you truly value and need them. In co-Operation, we are working together to make all of our lives better. The accumulation of things, you really don't need or want, is best left in the world of Market.

Bringing Dead Wealth to Life

One major advantage of the GIFTegrity is that it resurrects Dead Wealth. Dead Wealth is that wealth within the human community that is not being used to help self or others. Dead Wealth is found in all four forms – Compassion, Knowing, Action and Goods.

Goods – We all have lots of perfectly good things we have in boxes in our garages, attics, and closets. Used tools, appliances, furniture, clothing, furnishings– things we never use but are too good to throw away. Now they can be easily liberated by simply describing them accurately and gifting them away. Or how about just gifting away the use of some those great tools you only use one day a week or one day a month.

Service – We all have some hours in our lives that could be available to help others. The Gift Tensegrity gives me an outlet for all of those other skills and abilities that I am not currently trading to some employer for money. Some of us can do home and automobile repair, handyman work, cleaning, cooking, sewing, child and elder care, teaching, etc., etc., etc.. Or, it might be that if we knew what help others needed, we could combine their errands with our own when we are out running around anyway. The Gift Tensegrity allows you to quickly find out how you can turn those wasted hours into help for others.

Knowledge – Almost all of us have significant expertise in some areas. Some knowledge of how to solve problems that we have encountered in our lives. However, in our present world we trade the hours of our lives to others for just enough money to earn our livings. Our employers don’t want our expertise and knowledge unless it applies to the limited task they hired us to perform. Yet in the larger context of community our unwanted expertise and knowledge could help others. The GIFTegrity gives us an outlet for sharing that expertise and knowledge. Again, this might be in the form of knowing and action joined together such as consultations, couseling, analysis and real time problem solving, or it may be available in the form of knowing and levers such as reports, books, video or audio tapes, artwork, photos, computer files, etc., etc., etc..

Compassion – And finally, all of us have benefited at some time in our lives from the gift of compassion. We know that it is often the best gift to receive and give. The GIFTegrity expands our ability to gift and receive this most special gift.

Need Help – Look First to the GIFTegrity

The GIFTegrity is a distributor of synergic help. And as INTERdependent form or life, we all need help. In a GIFTegrity, all participants win. Synergic relationships are those that make me more productive, more effective, and more happy. When I need help, this is where I will look first. In the beginning the gifting tensegrities will not instantly replace the fair market. It will begin as simple an alternative to the fair market. I will begin to meet some of my needs at the GIFTegrities. As I begin gifting and finding that some of my needs are met this way. I will have less need to sell the hours of my life for money to use in the fair market. Once I am gifting 10 hours a week.I will then be able to reduce my working week from 40 to 30 hours. This is how the transition will occur.

Out of Work – Look to the the GIFTegrity

The gifting tensegrities can be enormously important to those individuals finding themselves out of work. When there is no market for the hours of your life. There is still no shortage of people who need your help. The gifting tensegrities acts as an immediate outlet for those with help to Gift, but no market for their help to Sell. In fact the GIFTensegrity becomes a new type of insurance for all humans who are at risk for losing their jobs. In this society, that is all of us.

GIFTegrity – Not Just for Individuals

Synergic TeamNets are groups of individual humans that form themselves into Synergic Teams for the purpose of performing a larger and more complex task than they can perform as individuals. These individuals co-Operate through a network based on synergic relationships and synergic compensation mechanisms to accomplish those larger and more complex tasks. Barry Carter has written extensively about this concept in his book Infinite Wealth. And, I have developed a mechanism for organizing Synergic Production Teams called the Ortegrity which is available elsewhere. TeamNets can register with a gifting tensegrity and list the Needs of their TeamNet Project. They may be able to attract the help they need though the free synergic GIFTegrity, or they can attract help, by inviting others to join their team for Synergic Revenue Shares if the project produces revenue.

Economist Wayne F. Perg, Ph. D writes:

“My ... understanding of the GIFTegrity is one of a radical move away from trade-oriented or materialistic sort of exchange.

“In the GIFTegrity there is no accounting, there are no prices, there is no barter (no tit for tat), and there is no medium of exchange! For me, it is the road to a post-monetary, post-barter economy.

“Barter and monetary economies both tie together giving and receiving. One cannot be done in the absence of the other. It is this “tying together” that is the ultimate source of “dead resources” and unemployment.

“The GIFTegrity frees giving from receiving and receiving from giving and will, as it is implemented, bring all resources to life and eliminate unemployment.

“The GIFTegrity does this by creating transparency, i.e., by creating good information on the SEPARATE giving and receiving actions of all members of the gifting tensegrity. Because there is no trading, only gifts given with no requirement of payment, there are no market prices and no accounting of trades. What there is is an open exchange of information on needs and resources available to fill those needs and ongoing individual negotiations around actions that will meet those needs.

“I see the GIFTegrity bringing the exchange relationships of a living organism to human society. As Elizabet Sahtouris has pointed out, the heart does not hold an auction for the supply of oxygenated blood and it does not withhold blood from those organs who are currently unable to pay.

“I see the GIFTegrity as a powerful new vehicle for first supplementing and then eventually replacing our present exchange economy that relies on money and barter to facilitate exchange.

“I see the GIFTegrity as a powerful step forward from money systems and barter because it separates the acts of giving and receiving whereas both money systems and barter tie giving and receiving together into formal exchange transactions. It is this tying together of giving and receiving that creates “landlocked” resources and unemployment.

“I do not see the GIFTegrity replacing informal, undocumented and recorded giving and receiving within families, groups and communities within which all participants are known to each other and within which trust is well established. In fact, I see the operation of the Gift Tensegrity increasing the number and size of the groups within which informal, undocumented giving and receiving is the norm.

“It is my understanding that, in the GIFTegrity, I do not make any commitment to giving in advance. As a giver, I have access to information on the needs of those who are seeking what I have to give, but potential receivers of my gifts have no access to me as a giver until I offer my gift to that person, organization, or community to which I decide that I would like to give.

“Also, given my big picture vision for the GIFTegrity, I see givers and receivers including organizations (including for-profit businesses) and communities as well as individuals.”

Read the original 2001 paper describing GIFTegrity