Give-It-Forward-Tracking System

(GIFT System)

Presented by

Kokena, Inc.
A 501(c)(3) Charitable Organization

Ranel Erickson, Ph.D., Director (ranelerickson@[Link]) Kathleen Erickson, B.A., Director (bethelight2@[Link])

Draft Revision

February 27, 2012

Table of Contents
Article I. Introduction.....................................................................3 Section I.1 Summary...................................................................3 Section I.2 Benefits.....................................................................4
(a) Joy of caring................................................................................4 (b) Investing in other members...............................................................4 (c) Social networks based on love...........................................................4 (d) Employment opportunities................................................................4 (e) Ability to give back........................................................................4 (a) Opportunity to receive....................................................................5 (b) Increase personal worth...................................................................5 (c) Charitable donations.......................................................................5 (d) Expanded Customer Base.................................................................5 (e) Accurate Reporting........................................................................5 (a) Motto.........................................................................................3 (b) Mission Statement..........................................................................3

Article II. How It Works...................................................................6 Section II.1 Perpetual Giving..........................................................7 Section II.2 Giving Chains..............................................................7 Section II.3 Reducing Gift Balances...................................................8 Section II.4 Mobile Web Application..................................................9 Section II.5 Application Programming Interface (API)..............................9 Article III. Accountability...............................................................10 Section III.1 Paradigm Shift..........................................................10 Section III.2 Reporting Gifts and Donations........................................10

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Article I.

Introduction

Section I.1

Summary

The Give-It-Forward Tracking (GIFT) System empowers non-profit organizations to multiply their goodwill by encouraging recipients of their beneficial influence to join and actively participate in a give-it-forward network. Members of these social giving networks are encouraged to give forward gifts (cash, products, services, etc.) to others in an amount equal to or more than the value of the gifts they received and to donate an amount of up to ten percent (a tithe) of the received value to the sponsoring nonprofit organizations. What is the impact of one act of charitable giving? How does that impact multiply if the receiver of a gift shows their gratitude by giving it forward? In the movie entitled Pay It Forward an investigator tracks a path of giving back to a young man whose initial acts of kindness benefited so many people. We have a natural desire to thank and even reward those who have been kind and generous to us. The GIFT System provides a way for a member to track the influence of giving in both directions. The ancestral gifting tree contains persons whose acts of giving currently impact the member, and the descendant gifting tree contains persons to whom the members acts of giving currently benefit. When a member gives back to another member in their ancestral gift tree, they are essentially rewarding that person for their acts of giving. It is totally voluntary; there exists no obligation to do so, but it is natural for us to enjoy circles of giving among friends. The GIFT Systems patentpending methods automatically adjust the gift amounts around such circles to reflect current gift balances in these gifting trees.

A secondary act of thankfulness espoused by the GIFT System is for members to support
the sponsoring charities by donating a portion of the gifts received. Although the traditional amount is a tithe (10%), members are welcome to donate any amount they feel expresses their gratitude. (a) Motto Love One Another. (b) Mission Statement We radiate joy helping people and businesses build relationships founded on goodwill and connecting members together in family, social, and business groups that foster giving and receiving of cash, products and services in a charitable and accountable manner while nurturing love, integrity and high self-esteem.

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Section I.2

Benefits

(a) Joy of caring Members should select recipients of their gifts because they care about them and want them to succeed. Great joy can come to both the giver and the receiver when people truly care about one another.

(b) Investing in other members

When members give to other members in a caring manner, they are investing in their future. Everyone works together to build a network of people who appreciate what those members have done and will have a desire to help those members who have given to them directly or indirectly. This type of investing can bind together groups of people willing to give to one another. It leads to miraculous results.

(c) Social networks based on love

The GIFT System naturally creates a social-networking infrastructure of philanthropicminded people dynamically motivated to give to one another based on love and concern for each other. (d) Employment opportunities Members seeking monetary employment can use the GIFT System to initiate a type of internship relationship with a potential employer. They can offer their services initially as a gift in the GIFT System rather than for monetary compensation. If the employer receives monetary value from such services and the member proves successful in doing the job, standard employment may occur.

(e) Ability to give back

The GIFT System introduces a patent-pending method of giving back to others. Instead of having a person give back to the person who gave directly to them, the give-itforward strategy opens up opportunities for groups of people to give to each other. Once the system recognizes that a circle (loop) has been formed in the giving chains, it automatically gives back along the chain reducing the balance of at least one gift back to 0. So it is possible that act of giving between two other members will automatically help all the members in the chain give back to those who have given to them.

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(a) Opportunity to receive

Some people are reluctant to receive gifts. Maybe they feel embarrassed or feel their self-esteem is threatened. But the GIFT System introduces accountability into charitable giving. Remember that in the classic parable of charity, the good Samaritan asks the inn keeper to keep a record of future charitable giving so that he could settle such accounts when he returned. Imagine a society based on charitable accountability which create opportunities to receive as well as to give. (b) Increase personal worth The GIFT System increases the personal worth of both the giver and the receiver. Members who give more during a given month will have positive net gift balances. Members who receive more will be able to retain integrity and self-esteem by knowing how to focus their giving back to those members in their ancestral giving network to help return the good will for themselves as well as others in their giving groups.

(c) Charitable donations

The GIFT System has the capability of generating significant donations for a 501(c)(3) charitable organizations, because as members continually give to each other this multiplies the amount of tithing that those members will desire to give to the charitable organizations. (d) Expanded Customer Base The customer base of each member increases because the GIFT System refers all members to each other through online ancestral and descendant giving lists. These relationships will often involve cash as well as the gifts of products and services. (e) Accurate Reporting The GIFT System provides a way to track and accurately report gifts between members. When gifts are returned, the new balance is calculated to determine the net amount of gifting that results between each pair of members.

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Article II.

How It Works

To illustrate how a giving network is created, consider the following diagram:

Diagram 1. A charitable organization (or a philanthropic giver) [1] gives cash, products and services to receivers [2], [3], [4], and [5]. These 4 members could represent tens, hundreds or thousands of people or organizations that receive beneficial assistance from the charitable organization (or from a charitable-minded person). Using the GIFT System, these members and any other members who receive future gifts commit to do the following (as soon as circumstances permit):

Donate cash, products or services to back to the charitable organization as a tithe of gratitude Invite other persons or organizations to become members of their GIFT Network, Give cash, products, or services to these newly invited members or existing members equal to or more than the amount they received within a reasonable amount of time.

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Section II.1

Perpetual Giving

The GIFT System can inspire perpetual giving within a group of members having high integrity and self-esteem. Gifting is essentially a faithful investment in other people; so it is just as important to give to well-to-do persons or organizations as well as helping people in need. This strategy builds groups of members with resources that can help one another.

Diagram 2. Section II.2 Giving Chains

Let us consider one chain of giving to illustrate the benefits of the GIFT System to a given member [10]. As illustrated in Diagram 2, suppose that after receiving cash, products, and services from charitable organization [1] in the amount of $700 that Member [2] gives $500 to Member [7] Member [7] gives $600 to Member [10] Member [10] gives $800 to Member [12] Member [12] gives $400 to Member [15] Member [15] gives $200 to Member [18] In this giving chain, for example, Member [10] has received the following benefits:

o Member [7] invited them to join the GIFT system and gave them a gift
valued at $700 o Other members [8] and [9] also gave gifts to member [10].

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o Member [10] caught the spirit of giving and invited and gave $800 to
o

Member [12] Member [10] watches descendent network grow as Member [12] invites and gives to a new Member [15] who in turn gives to invites and gives to a new Member [18].

These are some of the normal benefits for those who nurture the spirit of giving in their lives. But the GIFT system provides one more significant benefit because of its unique way of tracking and giving gifts back.

Section II.3 Reducing Gift Balances

Suppose Member [18] gave a gift to Member [2] in the amount of $100. The tracking method of the GIFT System detects that a gift is being given back to a Member in the ancestor network. So instead of creating a new gift, the $100 dollars is subtracted from each gift in the chain; resulting essentially in reduced gift amounts for each member in the chain as follows (see Diagram 3): Member [2] gives $400 to Member [7] Member [7] gives $500 to Member [10] Member [10] gives $700 to Member [12] Member [12] gives $300 to Member [15] Member [15] gives $100 to Member [18]

Diagram 3. In particular, Member [10] incurs a gift balance reduction (similar to paying off $100 of a loan with no interest) in a gift event that did not even involve member [10] directly.

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The GIFT System uses these patent-pending methods to handle all the complex combinations that result in reducing all the potential chains that can be involved in an event; so one event can actually reduce the gift amounts of many other members gifts in a collection of overlapping chains that connect the two participants in a giving event. Section II.4 Mobile Web Application

The GIFT System mobile web application allows a charitable organization to set up a giving network where any member to offer a gift to any other member especially new members that they have encouraged to register in the mobile web application. The receiving member can view all open gift offers and select whether or not to accept (or acknowledge the receipt of) each gift. Members can also view their current ancestral and descendant gifting trees which can motivate them to give back or give more (respectively). Using the member structure illustrated in the previous diagrams, you can experience a demonstration of the GIFT System mobile web application at:

[Link]
Feel free to register and try it out for fun. To see the current ancestral and descendant gifting trees from the perspective of Member 10, you can use m10 for both the username and password. Section II.5 Application Programming Interface (API)

Kokena can also provide an Application Programming Interface (API) to those charitable organizations that desire to integrate the GIFT System into their own websites. This enables them to control their own data and implement their own look and feel. For those organizations that do not have the resources available to use the API, Kokena can help them to implement a mobile web application that allows their members to participate in a GIFT Network associated with their organization. Furthermore, since the web application is built on top of the API, it illustrates how to use the API.

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Article III. Section III.1

Accountability Paradigm Shift

Members continually invite other people and businesses to join the GIFT System by carefully selecting new members and giving products and services to them, even when they may never receive anything back directly back from them. This is a paradigm shift from the traditional business approach. Instead of waiting for a bank to give a loan, or to be hired, or for a customer to arrive at a members door step, the GIFT System empowers members to be perpetually involved in business activities by helping other people and their businesses. Members who catch the spirit and potential of this paradigm shift usually will want to show their gratitude and give back to and patronize giving members business. To facilitate this, the GIFT System provides an ancestral gifting list consisting of all the members whose prior giving has led to a members receiving. This natural phenomenon of giving based on the time-proven principles of faith, hope and charity enables the give-it-forward processes to cycle around for the united benefit of all members very similar to the way members of a church help one another. Members can take idle time and excess products and give such to others with tracking accountability. If some members are now unemployed, the GIFT system empowers them to immediately help other members and excise faith that they will to be taken care of. Furthermore, willingly serving a business for a while without receiving immediate cash compensation (or at least receiving enough to cover their taxes) may open up regular cash employment opportunities with that company, similar to the benefits resulting from student internships. In essence, the GIFT System inspires people to participate in charitable giving - one to another where a portion (such as a tithe) of the gift amount eventually gets donated to the sponsoring 501(c)(3) charitable organizations. Section III.2 Reporting Gifts and Donations

It is the responsibility of each member to report to the appropriate local, state and federal agencies the corresponding taxable events associated with each act of giving if even required. The GIFT System is not a bartering system. It is only a book keeping service used to promote giving by tracking the beneficial impact of such gifts. All gifts recorded in the system are considered cash gifts. So when products and services are involved in an act of giving, other related transactions may need to be reported to the appropriate governmental agencies.

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