I’ve had a couple of interesting experiences recently related to GFRF.
First, in the clinic last week I had an appointment with a client who was new to the clinic but had previously come to some of my qigong classes. At the end of the session she said “How much do I owe you, I know you’re going to say its by donation – but how much should I give you”. Obviously a little uncomfortable about it. I told her that she was paying me, she could just choose how much to pay.
This simple explanation seemed to make her much more comfortable and she quickly decided how much she wanted to pay for the session.
Second, I went and watched some acrobats performing on a yacht in the viaduct in Auckland. It was billed as a free performance or by donation. Quite a few people turned up to watch and it was a pretty good show. At the end of the show the female performer talked to the crowd and explained how long they have been doing what they are doing and that the way they are paid is by the money that people give, she then tried to describe that maybe people should think about how much they would pay for a ticket to a show and give that. It was a little bit awkward.
I don’t know what proportion of people gave money to the performers afterwards, or how much. I suspect quite a few just left without giving anything, but at least a fair few did donate (including myself of course).
Both of these recent experiences made me think about the challenge of helping people to understand GFRF. I think people often have an idea around donation that something should be very cheap. This makes them uncomfortable if they feel that something is of significant value (such as treatment in a clinic). Also if something is free or by donation, often people seem to assume that perhaps someone else or an organization is paying for it – so their contribution does not matter/there is no real expectation that they should contribute for the benefit that they receive. This was evidenced by the performers need to explain that the donations are how they are paid.
I think this is resolved by people understanding that what they give is actually payment for what they receive, they just get to choose how much that is according to the value they perceive, what they can afford and so on. This seems to take quite a lot of explaining for a lot of people – and even then it doesn’t seem to fully sink in for a lot of them. I think this is simply because it is so different from what they are used to experiencing in their other interactions with people around them.
On the bright side though, I continue to see more and more examples of people doing things in this way. As this continues, more and more people will be exposed to it, and become comfortable with it. They will not need long explanations and will understand it more readily. This will make it easier and easier for people to operate Give Freely Receive Freely.
Also on the bright side – the acrobats I mentioned have been travelling the world doing their shows like this for several years. So even now while it takes a lot of explanation for people to understand, it is inspiring to see people managing to operate in this way anyway.