Create Your Own Currency  

WorldChnaging has a post on a site for managing local currencies (or locabucks, as I call them) - Create Your Own Currency.

"Money," wrote Jamais Cascio, "is the tangible manifestation of an agreement between you and other people that the oddly-colored piece of paper in your hands has value."

But what's truly valuable is not those units of currency, so much as the units of time they represent to those who earn and spend them. Two women from Ashland, Ore., who follow this philosophy have created a way to turn units of time into currency that can be directly traded and tracked through their online system OurNexChange. This "community currency" allows local residents to buy goods and services without exchanging any money.

Sharon Miranda and Libby VanWyhe recently told the Ashland Daily Tidings about the system:

"The whole idea is to harness the resources of our businesses, organizations and government into a system that provides sustainability," Miranda said.

This would be done through a Web-based system that would track the exchange of currency units through users' accounts. There would be no tangible money.

"The idea is it's an online complementary currency exchange program," VanWyhe said.

To get started, all you need to do is apply. After that, you are awarded "Trade Dollars," which you earn by volunteering, working for a neighbor or bartering. If you watched your neighbor's children for an hour, for example, he could pay you in Trade Dollars online or could trade you for an hour of weeding in your garden. Using the OurNexChange system, you can easily record and keep track of this time and work. Businesses and organizations will also be allowed to participate, and will be awarded a line of credit to begin with to get things moving.

A community cooperative will help run the transaction fee funded system, but what will ultimately sustain the community currency will be a willingness from the community to participate.

The system, which took about six years to create, mostly relies on trust and transparency. Each transaction takes place online, and is recorded within the system. Users can then rate and provide feedback for each other, search the directory or use the systems networking tools.