Anyone have experience with this program? It caught my interest in an article I read while waiting for the :bat: , er nurses, to take my blood this weekend....

http://timedollar.org/about_us_main.htm


History

The Time Dollar Institute was formally created in 1995, but its roots extend back to the creation of Time Dollars™ in 1980 when Dr. Edgar S. Cahn, co-founder of the National Legal Services Program, author of Our Brother’s Keeper, and founder of the Antioch School of Law, suffered a massive heart attack. He was 46. Recuperating in the hospital and “feeling useless,” he dreamed up Time Dollars as a new currency to provide a solution to massive cuts in government spending on social welfare. If there was not going to be enough of the old money to fix all the problems facing our country and our society, Edgar reasoned, why not make a new kind of money to pay people for what needs to be done? Time Dollars value everyone’s contributions equally. One hour equals one service credit. Seven years later (in 1987) at the London School of Economics, Edgar developed his theoretical explanation for why the currency should work. He came back to the US and started putting service credits (not yet called Time Dollars) into operation.

In the sixteen years since, the currency has traveled a journey of twists and turns. After initial enthusiasm by foundations, funding for Time Dollar Exchanges dried up in the mid 1990’s, and a period of struggle to keep afloat followed. This struggle turned into a time to dig in and to determine what made Time Dollars and Time Banking unique tools for social change. In 1997, a Time Dollar convention helped new and surviving groups identify “what works.” Time Dollars became the backbone of a successful cross-age peer tutoring program in Chicago, a Maine Time Dollar Network, and a Time Dollar Youth Court in Washington, D.C. The Time Dollar Institute became the hub of a small network of independent Time Dollar Exchanges around the country.

The deepened understanding that evolved in the following years led to new ways of using and speaking about Time Dollars and Time Banking as a tool for social change. Perhaps the most important shift involved the development of the theory of Co-Production outlined in Edgar’s book, No More Throw Away People (published in 2000 and re-issued in 2004), which emerged as the overarching framework for Time Dollars.

Mission

Time Banks USA seeks to build local economies and communities that reward decency, caring, and a passion for justice by developing, testing, and assisting experiments with a new medium of exchange called Time Dollars™ (also known as service credits or time banking.) One hour helping others equals one Time Dollar.

The framework underlying Time Dollars is Co-Production, an asset-based approach to social welfare directed to the creation of social capital and system change. Co-Production empowers those who are classified as clients, beneficiaries, takers and dependents to define themselves as co-producers and contributors by recognizing, validating, and rewarding their skills, their capacities, and their contributions.

Tested in communities and organizations throughout the US, the UK, and around the globe, Time Dollars enlist the participation of typically underrepresented populations, increase public participation, and allow people – including those who were formerly labeled the “problem” – to become partners in producing solutions.

Goals

• To create a society where decency and caring are rewarded automatically

• To utilize a new currency that combines market incentives and psychological rewards in order to tap the ultimate wealth of all individuals and their time, in order to meet critical social needs

• To retain and to rebuild everywhere the core economy of family, extended family, and neighborhood in order to enhance self-sufficiency

• To redefine work in the United States and other post-industrial societies to include tasks entailed in raising a family, discharging one's obligation as an informed citizen, caring for others, engaging in life-long learning without impacting adversely on conventional wage scales

• To redefine work in the same way in developing nations while recognizing their different circumstances