Gift Economics Inspired Practice

daniel jacob self
Jun 3
7 min read

Updated: Jun 16

In addition to the typical fee-for-service, pay-per-session way of doing things...

I offer an alternative, more values-aligned way of working with money.

It's inspired by Gift Economics, a way of tending to collective wellbeing that emphasizes mutual support and sustainability rather than traditional capitalist exchange.

Rather than charging per session, I request clients to offer a regular, recurring contribution that is sustainable for them throughout the duration of our work together: like a subscription or a donation to public radio.

They are then able to view my schedule and find time with me whenever they like.

I wanted to take a moment to share some of my evolving thinking around this way of work, as well as offering some of the details of how I'm engaging with this ever-evolving experiment

I hope this is of service to your own journey and ‒ if we end up working together ‒ that it offers greater context to the philosophy and values underpinning this way of engaging with money.

The Why 🤔

I take inspiration from Gift Economics ‒ a form of sustainability-based, mutual interdependence that has been practiced in different cultures for thousands of years.

Rather than perpetuating the capitalist paradigm of trying to get as much as we can for as little as we can, or attempting to measure value by asking ourselves, "Is what I'm getting from you equal to or greater than what you're getting from me?"

I’m striving to navigate the capitalist systems that rely on extraction and competition through a far more values-aligned lens of mutual support, and genuine sustainability.

Key to this experiment is expanding our understanding of giving and receiving beyond the direct exchange. In other words, rather than me determining whether I will work with someone based on how much they are individually able to pay me, I'm widening my focus outward to the question of sustainability as a whole: am I receiving what I need in order to take care of myself and be able to offer my work to those who are seeking it out?

I offer what I have to offer to those who are served by it, and I ask that each person who resonates with the meaningfulness of my work offers the most they are sustainably able to offer ‒ trusting that in this way... all needs can be met.

To me, at its core, practicing in this gift economics-inspired way is really about living into the radical reality that there is enough.

This sense of scarcity that lives in our nervous systems and is perpetuated throughout our current systemic structures ‒ always trying to get as much as we can for as little as we can, feeling (whether consciously or unconsciously) that you getting enough means there won't be enough for me... or, reciprocally, having had the pervasive experience of being taken from: of always giving far more than we have to offer and never receiving enough for ourselves ‒ it comes from a long history which has a lot to do with greed ‒ which has a lot to do with fear ‒ with patriarchy and colonialism and even addiction all mixed up in there!

Fair to say that I could talk about this for a long time, and hope to write more on it anon.

The What 🤷

In my practice, I invite folks to look at meeting needs as a collective intention. Meaning that:

When we each contribute the most we sustainably can, all of us are able to get what we need. And without each one of us doing what we truly can, the system fails.

We'll talk more specifics in a moment, but just as a general illustration: if I take as much money from a client as I can but I don't offer as much of my care and support as I'm sustainably able to, that client isn't likely to feel adequately met in their needs and they may decide to reallocate that money elsewhere ‒ which means I won't be able to sustain myself financially and my needs won't be met.

Likewise, If clients take as much of my time and care as they can and don't offer as much financial support as they're sustainably able to, I won't be able to sustain myself and will have to offer less of my work to them, or else revert to only offering a more traditional fee-for-service model which will take more from certain people while prohibiting or restricting many others from accessing my work at all.

Furthermore, this isn't just a dyadic exchange:

The money a client is able and willing to contribute might not only support me, but by supporting me may allow me to offer my work to someone who otherwise might not be able to access it. Or reciprocally, perhaps, I'm able to work with a client who doesn't have as much to offer because of the willingness of another client to offer more. Though those clients may never meet each other, they are interdependently contributing to each other's healing: both by being willing to give ‒ to gift ‒ and by being willing to receive.

Moreover, perhaps at some point the tables turn! Perhaps at some point in the course of our work, the first client finds themselves in a worse financial position than when we began and the second client finds themselves in a better position. The work we're doing doesn't have to change: my needs are taken care of and the work for both clients can sustainably continue.

That's what I mean when I say that meeting needs becomes a collective intention: the goal is sustaining the work and increasing wellbeing ‒ not getting more or giving less.

In essence, the questions shift:

Instead of me asking, “How much can I charge?”

And you asking, “How little can I pay”

😖 | ⇐ ⇒ | 😖

I get to ask "What can I offer"

And you get to ask "What can I give"

😀 ⇒ | ⇐ 😀

One of my favorite phrases that sums up this way of working is:

We give more if we have more, but we don't receive less simply because we have less

The How 🛠️

So how does all this look in practice?

😃 Check out my 'Gift Economics' page for a simple breakdown

I have a suggested recurring amount I ask for if it's sustainable ‒ and if it's not I ask for folks to let me know what is.

Clients can sign up to contribute on either a biweekly or a monthly basis.

Once they sign up, they'll have access to a client portal where they're able to find time to book a session with me whenever they would like and whenever I have availability.

Many folks have found that 50 minutes once a week feels like a good cadence, but for others, meeting twice a week for 20 minutes feels better. Or once every other week for 80 minutes. And then there are those times when folks could use a little extra support and want to book a little extra time with me ‒ or would like some extra time to integrate and practice some of what we've been working on together and would like to space out our time together a bit more.

We get to experiment, discover and flow with what feels best at any given time in a collaborative, emergent way.

Regardless of how often we meet, whatever the client has decided they're able to contribute on a biweekly or monthly basis will remain the same unless they need to shift it based on their sustainability circumstances changing (more on that below).

Clients can schedule, cancel, and reschedule whenever they need to without being charged anything outside of their ongoing contribution.

Meanwhile, I will be tending to my own capacity by ensuring that the time I have available online for booking is aligned with what I have to healthfully and wholly offer. This might include some times when I have less availability so that I can tend to my own needs and ensure I can show up fully for my client's needs when we do connect.

So throughout each season of our work, clients are offering (gifting) the monetary contribution that they have to sustainably offer ‒ on either a biweekly or monthly basis ‒ and I'm offering (gifting) the time, skillfulness, presence, and care that I have to sustainably offer.

As each season changes (so once about every three months, depending on when we begin working together), we take some time to check in. I ask clients:

How is the work feeling?

Does it still feel aligned and supportive?

What have we learned in the past season that can help us better align our work to your needs and hopes?

Is there anything we'd like to change about our work?

This can include us talking about shifting their contribution if their financial circumstances have changed (I often say that if a client loses their job or wins the lottery I expect them to let me know, because their contribution will likely need to shift!) and me sharing updates on how the whole ecosystem of mutual support is going as a whole.

Communication 🗣️

In the work I do, I invite folks to explore so many different elements of our shared human experience ‒ including the messages our bodies and nervous systems have taken in about survival and worth and value and safety.

Money is certainly no exception to this! It can bring up a lot.

So I would really love to hear what comes up for you around this, how it resonates, how it doesn't, how it feels exciting, how it feels impossible, how it feels scary or weird, or anything else you notice as you take all of this in.

Open and ongoing communication is key to the responsive, connected, life-forward way of working that I hope to be continuing to grow more and more skillful in practicing.

Thanks for taking the time to practice with me.

Questions? 🤔

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Further Gift Economics Information & Inspiration