Tradition of Gifting, from Mutual Aid Societies to Cash Gifting Clubs

The act and tradition of gifting –that is of giving and sharing, is a basic human characteristic that has been practiced since the dawn of time. Throughout recorded history, men and women have been giving gifts as a symbol of their love to each other and of loyalty to their tribal leaders. Later as society evolved and became more complex, more formal forms of giving and sharing emerged.

An important concept associated with this tradition of gifting is reciprocity: Receiving is just as important as giving. Giving makes the giver feel good by deriving pleasure from the knowledge that they are helping someone in need. Helping-out the other person rewards the giver with a sense of achievement, caring and purpose. This is probably the reason why most of the time we wish to be the giver rather than the recipient.

Later as society evolved and became more complex, more formal forms of giving and sharing emerged. In particular, following the industrial revolution in the 18th century, a new form or tradition of gifting known as mutual aid societies emerged. Mutual aid, friendly societies or benefit societies were self-governing associations formed by workers to provide against difficult times. In these associations, members pledged to help one another whenever the need arose, such as sickness, education or funeral expenses. Any assistance given was not a matter of charity but of entitlement, earned through periodic contributions to the society.

Initially the societies were local clubs or gatherings of people who knew each other and socialized regularly. Later the local gatherings affiliated into regional and national federations. One of the key features that characterized these more formal forms of gifting and sharing was that all members had the same opportunity for potential benefits.

Later on some of the mutual aid societies evolved into credit unions, trade unions, insurance companies and cooperatives, etc. This tradition of gifting, sharing and self-help continued until modern times. Many of the modern day clubs such as the Odd fellows, and the Woodmen owe their existence to this long tradition of gifting and sharing of the previous centuries. See David G green and Wikipedia

Analogous self-help organizations have also developed in other parts of the world. Particularly relevant in the context of cash gifting clubs are the rotating credit societies in Asia and Africa. In the Chinese rotating credit societies, for example, the person who is in need of money invites a certain number of friends to cooperate with him, and the latter are to do likewise and invite some of their own friends. After the required number for the club has been attained, the members assemble and decide, often through balloting, the order in which members will benefit from the use of the pooled funds. The society meets periodically and at each meeting each member contributes the agreed amount which is pooled together and given to the beneficiary for that meeting date. Further details and variations on the basic structure described here can be found in Arthur Henderson Smiths’s Village Life in China.

The need for participation in mutual aid societies has persisted up to the modern era in many forms. New technology has provided humanity many more opportunities for ordinary people to help themselves through a myriad of self-help associations and clubs. One such possibility has been the emergence of cash gifting programs and private gifting clubs. In private gifting programs, participating members receive cash from others whom they have invited to join the program after themselves.

In the past, private gifting clubs functioned more or less like the the mutual aid societies described above, but in recent years the availability of the internet has created new possibilities as well as difficulties. Thanks to the internet, it is possible to create a self-help group with a truly global membership. On the other hand, the internet makes it rather difficult to restrict the club to a genuinely private membership, accessible only through personal invitation. This means that most gifting programs on the internet appear more like business and investment opportunities, claims to the contrary notwithstanding. The second difficulty is the possibility of scams, designed to defraud potential club members or investors.

Despite the above difficulties, the legitimate cash gifting programs represent some of the most lucrative way of making money online today. Despite the potential for huge profits, this is not a get-rich-quick turn-key business. Anyone contemplating joining a gifting program must understand that they will need to promote the program in order to be able to introduce others to the chosen program. The point we are trying to make is that gifting programs, when considered as self-help clubs, are a natural progression of the tradition of gifting, sharing and mutual aid to the internet age. As we have attempted to show above, this tradition of gifting is both long and universal.

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