Proposal Outline v.02

Abstract
The Trust/Risk Project is an art-service opportunity that will create an invitation-only Web site where people can request, and grant, financial help to one another anonymously.

Why
The Trust/Risk Project draws from two streams of thought:

I. That the Internet creates an opportunity to offer direct financial help on a massive scale, with low overhead and no management of funds and their distribution, a factor that in many charities constitutes a major siphon of donated funds.
II. That these costs are directly related to regulation of the risk involved in giving away money to a stranger.

The Trust/Risk Project is based on the thesis that, as some people take on greater risk in their investments in order to reap a larger reward, the same may be true for charitable funds and donations.

The Trust/Risk Project allows donated funds to go directly to an individual who requests it, but the donor has no guarantee of the authenticity of the request or assurances of how it will be used. This requires an inherent balance of trust and risk.

The project understands that this trust can be abused. The thesis is that some may make the mental calculation to trust it anyway, in hopes of their donations having a greater, direct impact on the receiver.

Where
I have done research primarily on charitable loans to developing nations. However, the overhead and the management functions of a charitable site remove a vast amount of financial resources. By allowing an open, peer-to-peer network regulated and managed on the simple notion of Trust, we elevate the fundamental risk, but also reduce the overhead cost.

What
The site will have limited safeguards: An invitation-only interface, in which individuals are asked only to forward invitations to people whom they personally trust. Anyone interested in requesting funds must donate to another project first; this project can also include a list of charitable organizations. The hope is that this ‘pay it forward’ concept will pose a high enough barrier to entry that it will keep out blatant scammers; the invitation-only concept also forces individuals to evaluate their own sense of trust and trustworthiness.

Requests will be arranged through Paypal, or even just through cash in envelopes. It’s up to the requestor to determine their level of trust, as well. I assume that the more transparent a requestor is, the more trust they’ll receive.

As an art project, it is, to reiterate, understood that such a community involves tremendous risks and a tremendous leap of faith on behalf of donors. If the project merely causes invited individuals to contemplate and question ideas about trust and how trust works; how to weigh the risk of being taken advantage of against the benefit of directly helping others, etc., then it is a success.

For this reason, I have adopted the “Trust Fall” as a metaphor for the project: A game in which an individual stands on a ledge, and then falls backwards onto a friend or group of friends, trusting not only that these friends will catch him, but also that they know how to support the weight. The act of donating on this site will carry similar connotations.

The result is not only to help people who may need help get it; but to create something so brazenly idealistic that it serves as a commentary on the nature of trust in and of itself. In this sense, the piece exists as an artwork in which people are asked the question: Who do you trust? Why? And what are you willing to do to possibly help someone?

I'm curious to see what people do with a space that encourages their most idealistic behavior. If it deteriorates into chaos, then we've learned a bleak lesson.

When
I am still struggling to determine a collaborative process for this project. A Gantt chart highlighting a preliminary role for a coder is here.

Budget
Will be devised after conversations with collaborators.