Over the past six months, I’ve been participating in a Mutual Aid scheme for co-operatives called Giver’s Gain, reminiscent of other referral networks for small-medium enterprises, where members aid one another in making connections that assist routine business needs or further their career goals. The primary difference, of course, is that in Giver’s Gain members are assumed to be pursuing social goals which align to the co-operative movement.

Giver’s Gain is facilitated by one person and follows a format:

1. We start with a check-in, which provides people the opportunity to introduce themselves and also to signal any specific needs.
2. Each person takes a turn to make a 90-second “pitch”. Such a tight time limit forces people to focus on what they are looking for in a referral, and requires you to track the time precisely.
3. Taking it in turns, each participant responds to zero or more referral requests. They can ask clarifying questions and take their time. If there are more than even a handful of participants, taking notes becomes a necessity.

I’ve participated in six or seven Giver’s Gain sessions. In something quite general like “connections for co-operatives”, I’ve found it’s much more fruitful to cast the net quite broadly, for example when I pitch Games Commons, I keep it very short and ask for something quite easy, like contacts with other people who make games, or for things I think potential collaborators would have in common with me, for example people who are interested in Wikipedia. I’m reinforced in my view that casting a broad net works best by my experience of listening to pitches and giving referrals. The most fruitful referrals I’ve been able to give are always tangental: interesting podcast guests, contacts with similar activities, organisations and technologies which the speaker may not have come across. Introducing who you are in the check-in gives everyone a chance to consider how they might adapt their pitches to you, but very precise referral requests are probably better served by a directory, a search engine, and an email inbox.

Taking part in the sessions has been valuable passively for practicing pitches, making connections, and for encountering a fairly random sample of co-operative activities in the UK once a month. Over the year I’ve received referrals to a number of co-operative game studios in Europe, as well as to a number of other connections, and I’ve been able to make some referrals and connections for others. It’s also been an excuse to visit some co-operatives in my local area in pursuit of potential podcast guests and case studies for other people’s projects.

The organisation which pilots Giver’s Gain is Workers.coop, a federation of worker co-operatives from across the United Kingdom. The attendees of Giver’s Gain are not necessarily all there to represent co-operatives, but an implicit assumption is made that everyone attending shares co-operative values (e.g. the Rochdale principles). Giver’s Gain is attended by public invitation, discovered via an events page. Usually meetings feature a mixture of regulars, people who attend sporadically, and one or two people who are attending for the first time. You could certainly run your own sessions, something which we are experimenting with in a freelancer’s mutual aid co-op called SEPHEO.

In one of the months someone sent an AI assistant to record the meeting and take notes, while not being present themselves. After a short discussion, the other attendees agreed to eject the artificial scribe and send a retaliatory email, written by a human. I think that this person completely missed the point of the format; what is being discussed and who attends isn’t what makes it interesting, nor is it even really about finding a solution to a problem you attended with. Usually when you are able to help other people it is mutually beneficial with the person or organisation you are referring them to, and this is what makes attendance worthwhile, as well as having their suggestions rebound off of your initial request in ways that might be surprising.

2. The Lens of Mutual Aid

Mutual Aid is the voluntary sharing of resources, distinct from charity because it comes without conditions or obligations. This well-produced documentary video, part one in the series “The Elements of Mutual Aid”, provides a good introduction to the concept. Members of the group who made the video have revolutionary aims, leveraging Mutual Aid as a tool which replaces competition, and the market, with an economy of sharing. I’ve included a couple of statements made by people during their interviews which I think communicate this potential well:

“When we have our needs met by the state, then we are beholden to their values, whether we like it or not and whether we agree with those values or not. When we are able to take care of our needs via mutual co-operation and interdependency, then we are beholden to our own values, to the values on those whom we are dependent.”

In reference to a two-year long struggle which turned atomised homeless people and a few streets of abandoned buildings, into a thriving community in Los Angeles, members of the Mutual Aid group said this.

“When we have strong networks of mutual aid supporting us, we’re able to win fights that we’d never dream of taking on as individuals”

A Mutual Aid group typically exists to fulfil human needs directly and locally. It’s interesting to see how an organisation like workers.coop can apply Mutual Aid in a professional context, and in one which is broadly public. I think that the “mutual” aspect of Mutual Aid can be a hard thing to get right, and I would be curious to make this a more explicit aspect of the Giver’s Gain sessions, particularly over multiple sessions. Long-term, I wonder if the public and professional scopes of the Giver’s Gain sessions could have the potential for precipitating localised groups and those which specifically aim to fulfil human needs without the use of exchange or a market.