Let’s build a Healthy Community Economy Here and Now Do-it-Together Economic Justice and Community Resilience

What would you do to improve your community if you could? How do you answer this question in your own mind?

What if money were no object? Does the previous answer change when you add this question? How?

But wait... Is Money an Object?

ob·ject Noun: A material thing that can be seen and touched.

mon·ey MONEY IS AN AGREEMENT. 1. A medium that can be exchanged for goods and services and is used as a measure of their values on the market, including among its forms a commodity such as gold, an officially issued coin or note, or a deposit in a checking account or other readily liquefiable account. 2. The official currency, coins, and negotiable paper notes issued by a government. MONEY IS AN AGREEMENT.

Imagine a Martian landing in a poor neighborhood and seeing rundown communities, people sleeping in the streets, children without mentors or going hungry, trees end rivers dying from lack of care, ecological breakdowns and all of the other problems we face. He would also discover that we know exactly what to do about all these things. Finally, he would see that many people willing to work are either unemployed, or use only a part of their skills. He would see that many have jobs but are not doing the work they are passionate about. And that they are all waiting for money. Imagine the Martian asking us to explain what is that strange 'money' thing we seem to be waiting for. Could you tell him with a straight face that we are waiting for an 'agreement within a community to use something -really almost anything - as a medium of exchange"? And keep waiting? Our Martian might leave wondering whether there is intelligent life on this planet. -- Bernard Lietaer, The Future of Money

What is an Economy? Distributed system for meeting people’s needs

What Does an Economy Do? Distribution of Work Reciprocity Incentives Risk-Pooling Resource Allocation

We have options TimeBanking Community-Issued Currency Price-based Mutual Credit Community Banking Cooperative Ownership If our economy is something we do, it’s something we can do differently.

TimeBanking “We have what we need if we use what we have” -- Edgar Cahn Social Services Community Centers Community Justice In TimeBanking 1 hour of work always equals 1 hour of credit. No price, no negotiation. We pool our resources to meet our goals. See Dane County TimeBank’s projects pages for more details. Public & Private Institutions Local Business Dane County TimeBank Artists & Arts Organizations Local Food Production Faith-based

Community Market Economy We can create a community economy that flourishes alongside, and overlaps with, the market economy. We don’t need to be completely dependent on the market economy to resource our community activities. Economy

This shows the Time For the World (a project of Dane County TimeBank to disseminate, support, build and share knowledge about cooperative economic tools and social practice) theory of ecosystem modeling of currencies. We see timebanking and gift economies as the photosynthetic level where abundant value is harnessed and turned into different forms of life. You can build a healthy community economy by tapping the vast resources available in caregiving, creativity, community building and civic engagement, and using those to create and support other forms of community wealth. Read the paper or watch the video of our presentation in Lyon France, Feb. 2011.

1=$10 Locally we’re beginning to explore the overlap between the community and market economies by working to connect the Dane County TimeBank with Madison Hours local currency. Madison Hours is a price-based paper currency where one Madison Hour = $10. It is negotiable and is counted and taxed as cash. It can only be used locally and can’t be lent at interest. It provides more liquidity and loyalty to local business. Madison Hours has also created a price-based mutual credit module which we will collectively work with local businesses to build on and re-launch as we further develop our partnership. We’re in very early stages so there is no foregone conclusion about design or structure for anything. You can watch the process online here.

Price-Based Mutual Credit The WIR business-to-business mutual credit system is the oldest and largest in the world. It helps provide a stabilizing forces in the Swiss economy. Price-Based Mutual Credit

Community Banking JAK bank is a nearly interest-free cooperative community savings and lending system in Sweden, with new models being developed around the world.

Cooperative Ownership And cooperative ownership models have nearly limitless potential for bringing people and resources together for a common purpose. Cooperative Ownership

People in struggling West Virginia earn time credits to make and install solar panels and use the savings on energy bills to fund the program

Notes from discussion of the Allied Community Coop energy project, PowerTime, envisioning where various tools would be appropriate and effective ways to build resources and capacity. T$ is short for timebank hours (crude, I know), M$ is short for Madison Hours or price-based mutual credit (better terms forthcoming), JAK is short for cooperative community saving and lending. We use these terms as rough approximations and expect that we will adapt pieces from various models to suit our needs, and connect them loosely in one network or system.

What would you do to improve your community if you could? What if money were no object? What’s stopping you? Some of our members are currently researching JAK-style community saving and lending models for possible application here. Soon we’ll draw up a potential pilot experiment to piece a few of these tools together in service to one community goal, to test our ideas and see if we can make something cool happen through cooperation. Likely beginning with clean energy and/or wellness. Stay tuned!

We learn by doing Trial and error Do Do Learn Succeed Learn Fail Do These systems are new and have tons of room and need for innovation. Our experiments are valuable - we need to get creative, take chances, risk failure and support each other. Do Succeed Learn Do Learn Fail Fail Learn Trial and error

We learn more if we share Do Do Learn Succeed Learn Fail Do And share our work! Did you try something that didn’t work? Save someone else from that agony. Did you have a great time with something? Share it. Do Succeed Learn Do Learn Fail Fail Learn We avoid repeating mistakes

We build on each other’s work Do Better People can then improve upon it and share it back. And we’ll learn how to cooperate to build a better world. BuildFTW.org is a website where community problem-solving initiatives share what they’re doing, how they’re doing it, what’s working and what isn’t. Then we can learn what kinds of tools and practices work best under what kinds of local conditions, and start to do better. Learn Share buildFTW.org

And make new friends in the process The 2009 Taste of TimeBank Party! When we co-hosted the international timebanking conference with UW-Madison and TimeBanks USA. And make new friends in the process

We all know ways we want our world to be better.

What are we waiting for?