"Giving each other a helping hand"
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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 DollarsT (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