More on Finance Councils

December 12, 2008

Yesterday Chris Corrigan and I, and previously with Teresa Posakony, were working through a proposal for what to do with the net income remaining from a project. This builds on another conversation on finances, here, held several months ago with other colleagues.

The question that Chris, Teresa, and I were asking was something like: "What is the most inspired way we can think about gifting some of our resources?"

Most of the context of this questions is from open-enrollment Art of Hosting conferences, at which most typically, income is created from participant registration fees only. Typically, there is no backing to assure hosts are paid a set fee. Our gifting has been of four forms:

- ear-marking it for a future event or Art of Hosting, particularly in the same region
- giving it to a particular community, again, particularly in the same region
- scholarship support for people who are in diverse and interesting work that otherwise would not be able to participate
- scholarship for people who are ready to seed / co-create the work in to their local community or region

I like these little insights, each of which can be held as practices / commitments:

- money is for moving energy (Thus, a good question for working with it could be, "Where do we want to move energy too? What might we want to animate? Support? Nurture? Or what energy do we sense needs to be moved?")
- make decisions of sharing from the same field in which the work was offered. Make it from the same spirit in which we just collaborated / created / worked together. (Thus, a good reminder check, "Is this decision of the same resonance as the field that we just worked in?")
- let's talk about it. Just commit to listening together for the wisdom of the group.

All of this said, I love the way that many of us are deliberate in this gifting culture. It's just a lovely way of working with one another. And it seems to energetically seed wherever it lands with a warm sense of community right from the start.