• What's the difference between something "free" and something given? A friend suggested, "Charge $20 per issue. People will value it more." There's something true about that. So how is something valued if no money is charged?

  The magazine is not really free. Everything here has been paid for, both in dollars and effort. We don't sell ads, either. We found there's something refreshing about an ad-free space.

  Operating on a gift basis is our experiment against the odds that there's another way of encountering this world and each other -- through generosity. We're grateful to, and encouraged by, the generosity that has sustained us since 2007.

  --Richard Whittaker, editor, works & conversations

• Or put it this way:

  We live in a transactional time, in an if-then culture deeply accustomed to the conditional. The gift economy then, is a whisper in the ear of the collective, a whisper insisting against the odds that there's another way of encountering this world and each other.

  To us that's what it's really about. Whenever we give or receive unconditionally, we participate in a quiet, no-strings revolution where each act serves as its own catalyst, and as a movement from isolation to community, from scarcity to abundance.

  Thank you for your part in supporting the priceless in our culture.

  --ServiceSpace.org Team

If you wish to help pay-it-forward in the same way for other readers, you may:

• Donate online via PayPal. Simply click on the button below:
  
  (Please note that your online donation will be routed via 'ServiceSpace'.)
  
  
• Write a check. Make it payable to 'works & conversations' and send it to:
  
  
  works & conversations
  P. O. Box 5008
  Berkeley, CA 94705
  United States

We are 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, and all donations are tax-deductible in the US.
If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to contact us anytime.