This is a list of some innovative models of giving that involve peer to peer connections between "Helpers" and "Doers"

Really Simple Social Action (RSSA) is a an Uplift Academy theme for developing a software standard for supporting scalable small activities.

Here is the main RSSA web site, and here is an Uplift Academy RSSA Sandbox for exploring tools and protocols, as well as the Uplift Academy RSSA Wiki Page.

The workshop will explore some of the potential of new media for "narrowcasting" patterns of uplift. We will be using Savings-Led Microfinance, or NanaFinance, as an prototype pattern, as discussed by Marcia Odell of PACT and Jeffrey Ashe of Oxfam America. As this form of microfinance requires no external capital (women save their own money), the activity has the potential for rapid spread through electronic communication.

The workshop will explore ways of discoveriing patterns of uplift, and using emerging network technologies to amplify and replicate these patterns. We will be blending both a theoretical discussion of the roles of networks and their effects, with practical "on the ground" application of these ideas. The workshop is supported in part by a grant from the Omidyar Network for the NanoFinance Project proposal.

Our workshop April 27-28, 2006 in Paris will ask, "How can 6 billion people help each other to help themselves?" This question frames things from the perspective of massive abundance - a potential 6 billion people helping each other - in contrast to traditional approaches which begin with the notion that we have "too many problems and not enough money." We will be looking at what is happening "on the ground" in some of the poorest areas of the world, as well as what is happening in our network technologies and capabilities to connect people and ideas in new ways.

The question asked at this workshop is, "What would a network of uplift look like?" We will be pulling together a mixture of folks who know modern network technology, with others who understand the the worlds of philanthropy, humanitarian assistance, and micro finance. We will also be looking at notions of scale, imagining what we might do with massive communication of scalable small things for making the world a better place. We are using the word "uplift" to describe a broad range of activities, not just check-writing to charities.