By SARAH LOW

Reporter

What would you do if a stranger handed you a package with $100 inside, and told you it was yours to either pass along to someone else who might need it, or to keep for yourself with no strings attached? Would you start looking for cameras? Would you keep the money or pass it on?

This was more than just a hypothetical situation last week for the islanders who became the first recipients of “gifts” from the You or Someone You Know project.

The unusual scenario first came to The Beachcomber’s attention when someone who had received one of these “gifts” and passed it on to a charitable organization on the island, came in to the office to tell us what happened — believing that the mystery, while wonderful, was also newsworthy.

The recipient was the second person that the gift had been passed to, as indicated on a slip of paper that was included in the package. According to the recipient, as well as a Beachcomber reader on Facebook who knew of another gift-receiver, a website address was included in the original package information. Upon finding the site and its informative Frequently Asked Questions section, we also found a “contact us” button — and promptly used it.

Much to our surprised delight, the project’s originator responded and agreed to answer as many of our questions as they felt appropriate, under the condition that we maintain their anonymity. While keen to get the word out about the project itself, they also want the focus on it and not themselves.

So for the remainder of this story, the project’s creator will be referred to as “Zero,” as in the “zeroth” giver, the originator/funder of the gift chain.

Zero is an islander whose ideas for the You or Someone You Know project were born of an interest in the work of Dr. Stanley Milgram. Milgram was an American social psychologist who became famous for his Small World experiment, which led to the concept of six degrees of separation, and the Lost Letter experiment, which essentially showed that people were more likely to do something for strangers when the outcome or purpose was seen to be favorable. At some point, Zero said, the notion of leveraging ideas from both of those experiments to give money away took shape.

“Instead of placing trust in a central organization to find ‘the greatest good,’ we trust people, their networks and/or their judgement to get the money to the ‘greatest good,’ however they might define it,” the stealthy philanthropist elaborated in an email.

That’s not to say that Zero has anything against charitable organizations, on the contrary, as is stated on the project’s website, “we give to them too.” However, the point of this method is more to present individuals with the dilemmas of keeping or passing, splitting, adding and so on — Zero considers the money to be the “least valuable thing” in the gift packets, as compared to each gift’s journey.

After an unsuccessful attempt at an online version a couple of years ago, with input and advice from family and an “advisory group” of friends, the current distribution-by-hand project was conceived.

This is how it goes:

You or Someone You Know makes “gift” packets that contain either $100, $50 or $20 as single bills, instructions to either keep the money or pass it along to someone who might, or does, need it more, and a pre-stamped and addressed return slip where the number of “passes” are to be checked off and the ultimate disposition of the money to be briefly described. No personal information is requested.

The packets are distributed. Some have been given to people that Zero knows and some have been given to strangers. The request is simple: Please get this to the person who needs it most, even if that person is you.

The different denominations are targeted to different groups of people, based on how tempting it might be for people in each group to pass up the money. For example, adults and college-age young adults receive $100 packets, whereas middle-schoolers would get the $20 packets.

As stated repeatedly on the website, the money belongs to the recipient. No strings attached. The money can be split if a recipient would like to keep only some and pass along the rest; the money can also be added to and then passed or simply kept for any purpose.

You or Someone You Know is collecting data (all anonymous) from the return slips received and will publish its findings on the website when there is enough to report. The information will be used to fine-tune the project’s future distributions, as well as to satisfy those who are curious about what the money has been used for.

The data may also be used to inspire future “Zeros” if the project ever decides to fundraise.

The project began on March 13, and initial distributions were done on the island and in Seattle. Future distributions are planned for Vashon, as well as areas outside of Washington, such as New York City, Long Island, Massachusetts, Portland and possibly Los Angeles. Also in the works is a phase of the project that will focus on enabling others to easily become “Zeros” themselves, and providing them the tools to track the distribution of their own gifts.

Ultimately, Zero had this to say about the magical, mystery money project that has captivated the hearts and imaginations of islanders since the distributions began:

“Personally, I’d love to give away, or inspire the giving of, 1 million packets. That’s about $100 million dollars, a number that is orders of magnitude above our current efforts and seems like a fantasy right now. But as Norman Peale said, ‘Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you’ll land among the stars.’ Seems like good advice to me.”

For more information, see www.youorsomeoneyouknow.org.