London Creative Labs

Exciting News! Sofia has been nominated by the London Commission for Sustainable Development as a London Leader 2010. They stated that it was for “your innovative work in setting up London Creative Labs”.

Please help make it happen by micro-investing! No amount is too small! From £1 to £10 to £100 to £1000, please help with what you can!

As of December 1st, £2764 still needed for original target of £12,000.

Please scroll down for more information about the Peer Fund!

£9,236 of £12,000 raised! Three Ways To Contribute To The Peer-Funding Drive

Raised total of £9,236 thanks to:

• Manjula Shaw, £500
• Hugo Bustamante, £250
• Anders Abrahamson, £6
• Melissa Bustamante, £120
• Jerry Smith & Christina Bustamante, £1,000
• Sandra de Andrade £20
• Juliette Bustamante £120
• Alex Bustamante £250
• Hans Gaertner £250
• Gloria Charles £40
• Benjamin Degenhart £20
• Pamela Ravasio £10
• Max Schupbach £100
• Fabio Barone £10
• Rachel Lalchan £20
• Sylvana Bustamante £30
• Jeremy Berkoff £1,000
• Anonymous Investor £5,000
• Alexander Nick £150
• Andrew Dakers £40
• Tessy Briton £50
• Scott Panter £250

To  invest by Paypal/credit/debit card, please click on the image above.

To invest via cheque, please email sofia [at]londoncreativelabs [dot] com for a postal address. Thank you.

To invest via (international) bank transfer, please email sofia[at]londoncreativelabs [dot] com for account details. Thank you.

What you will receive

• Transparent Accounting of £2000/month (See Financials)
• A receipt for your contribution (please request this via info [at] londoncreativelabs [dot] com )
• A place in the list of investors which will appear on this website  (optional — please say if you would rather stay annonymous!)
• Regular updates of how the pilot project is progressing and thereby a chance to get involved in other ways. See the Current Plans page
• Pecus from Sofia (2000 for every person who contributes something. Info below on Pecus. Please ignore if it is not of interest to you or seems confusing. Pecus are a new concept which will become clearer with use)
• and of course, a sense of making a difference

Why Peer Funding?

In the spirit of entrepreneurship, I want to undertake a small project, *produce value* while working with others, in order to pilot London Creative Labs:

• we will engage in open peer production
• we will test the basic concept of London Creative Labs
• we will operate as a network based organisation

We will only ask for larger funding once we have produced something of value, and have tested the operational process. Hence, the first project must be funded in a ‘bootstrapped’ manner — before going to any larger investors.

The Plan

In order to do this, I decided to turn my own network of trusted peers. This includes friends, family and work/life peers (those with whom I share similar values).

September 7th: I am now launching the second phase of the Peer Funding. If the idea of London Creative Labs resonates with you at all, please consider being one of the first 50 micro-investors! You will be helping to make it happen very directly! It makes all the difference at this very early stage of pre-seed capital startup!

Just over £2000 has been raised through the peer fund and has paid for one months’ work for 1 cultivation team member

The initial Jobs Lab budget will be produced by mid September. We will be still be seeking investment through early social investors and peer funding at this stage.

This is designed so that the Cultivation Team  can concentrate on facilitating the whole operation, so that a great bunch of people are involved in the work and are attributed/notionally recompensed for their contribution.

An important distinction: At this point in time, your investment is based purely on the trust you have in one person. So far London Creative Labs is an idea conceived by myself, Sofia and inspired by other entities such as Grameen Creative Labs and other change labs that have existed. So at this point in time you are investing in *me*, the person, and my core idea. Later down the line, investors would be investing in a more tested idea and in a full management team.

Hence if you believe in me, now is the time to invest in me!

Investment LCLabs will run as a SOCIAL business. Hence investors will get their original payment back. But will not receive dividends. [Apart from PECUS which I describe below]. Any surplus that the business generates will be put back into the business and will be used to pay back the investors. People who work for LCL will be paid a market rate and have better than average working conditions.

About Pecus

Pecu stands for personal economic unit. Pecus are effectively like shares in another person.

For example, if I allocate to my friends Mamading, Servane and Sara, 100 pecus each, 50 to Andy, 50 to Jon and 100 to Christina, that makes 500 in total. They have received Sofia-Pecus. Now at any point I can decide to make a “Pecu payout”. This means paying a specific amount of hard currency across the people I have made Pecu allocations to in the ration.

E.g.) Say I have a good month and make a surplus of £1000, I might decide to keep £750 but to do a Pecu payout of £250. This means that Mamading, Servane, Sara and Christina each get £50 and Andy and Jon get £25 each. I can make a payout at any point in time.

This may not seem like much, but as more people start to allocate pecus and do payouts, then the accumulation of payouts from people would be more significant. The beauty of this system is that it is self-managed. So if you have a community or organisaton and you want to use this system of reward then there are virtually no organizational overheads. By simply carrying this out as an individual, you encourage behavioural change.

There is more information on Pecus here

Sofia’s Pecu allocations

I am making a list of Pecu allocations. You will see them here soon.

Plus, for each person that contributes financially I will award them 2000 Sofia-Pecus.

Your contribution really makes all the difference

Please donate or invest by clicking the link below!