Goteo (CC microcredits) is an ongoing research on creative currencies and p2p-financing systems.

Goteo aims to develope a social network for free culture microfinancing based on the notion of community profit introducing the possibility of returning money in the form of packets of "training" and educational methodogies, FLOSS code or physical products (open hardware/open design) involving community development and emancipation.

The aim of Microcréditos CC is to establish together with producers, lawyers, economists and fiscal experts a simple, effective and CC-inspired graphical and machine-readable tool for both donors and recipients to stipulate the core principles they are committed to when they get credits or give credits, establishing social CContracts before the results of the donations are accomplished.

Although the Credits concept is used consciously in 3 senses of the word (cash credits, reputation credits and time credits) the object of the actual research is mainly geared towards evaluating cash credits, and the legal, fiscal and theoretical implications of monetary micro-transactions. In the first year, we'll look at the validity of the system in the context of the Spanish law and territory, before opening it up to Latin America and Europe.

CC microcredits and social CContracts are also a way of reclaiming budget transparency and a real commitment for community development to NGO's, enterprises, public entities and social programmes funded by savings banks. And a way for them to share and guarantee social responsibility beyond passive donations, based on the horizontal evaluation criteria of the community of producers and the most active organisations in the field.

Challenges we expect to face, and how do you plan to overcome them?

-One of the main challenges is to help consolidate a culture of micro-donations in Spain. Contrary to the tradition in other European countries, donations are not generally promoted as fiscal incentives for citizens or organizations. Providing practical and clear information about this could be essential in generating broad public awareness and economic support for social projects.

-Establish some sort of partnership with financial entities in order to reduce the costs of transfers between donors and recipients. To achieve this we will talk to representatives from key Spanish banks, as well as ethical banks and online payment platforms such as PayPal. Banks will hopefully see that our initiative can be beneficial for money transfers on the Internet and the use of online systems like PayPal, still not widely adopted in Spain.

To page 2→