“We are rich when we hire each other. We’re paid more than money. When we shop locally we get more control over jobs and prices, more control over food quality, more control over environmental effects and labor conditions. We start new businesses and create more jobs for kids, parents and retirees. We feel prouder for getting paid to use our skills and hobbies. We export more goods, keep wealth local, and set good examples for other cities. We increase friendly trade and can meet new friends.” 

– HOUR Town Ithaca HOURS newspaper

New community money aims to improve our quality of life

Is the paid work you do enjoyable and fulfilling? Are the products of your work ecologically sustainable? Does your work make meaningful contributions to local community life and the well being of your neighbors? Do you have or are you hoping to start a home-based business? Do you wish that you could earn even part of your living in ways you truly find meaningful and enjoyable? Do you wish you had more community connections for those times when you are in need of assistance from others? Or, would you simply like to make your talents more accessible to the community?  

In over 2,500 towns and cities in the U.S. and around the world, people are improving their local quality of life by starting their own community trading systems. One type of community trading system is creating printed community “money” for use within a defined geographic area. Known as community currencies, these trading systems are completely legal and are becoming quite popular. Federal law states that community currencies cannot look like U.S. dollars, that all denominations must be worth at least one U.S. dollar, and that people must report the U.S. dollar value of professional trades as taxable income.

Here in Flagstaff, Flagstaff Tea Party sponsors the Flagstaff Neighborly Notes community currency to serve the greater Flagstaff area. There are three Flagstaff Neighborly Notes denominations worth one hour and/or $10, 1/2 hour and/or $5 and 1/10 hour and/or $1. We have chosen this form for its flexibility.

Locally owned businesses and individuals voluntarily accept Flagstaff Neighborly Notes. By accepting Flagstaff Neighborly Notes you can earn money doing what you like to do while keeping Flagstaff a friendly and unique place. Flagstaff Neighborly Notes are for everyone: Teenagers, retirees, homemakers, part-timers, hobbyists, the self-employed, retail and wholesale businesses, friends, and neighbors are given the opportunity to help one another in ways that increase community cohesiveness and local economic strength.

Community money systems have a long history. During the Depression, many towns and cities invented their own paper currencies, called “scrip.” Scrip trading systems were sponsored by state and city governments, school districts, chambers of commerce, local banks, local relief committees, manufacturers and merchants. Many types of scrip existed. Experimentation abounded. With names like “Caslow Recovery Certificates,” issued by a Chicago newspaper, and “Larkin Merchandise Bonds,” offered by a Buffalo merchandiser, these currencies helped to keep communities afloat by allowing people to meet each others’ needs without being restricted by the era’s scarcity of Federal dollars. Some systems worked better than others. We can learn much from their successes and failures.

The first and largest modern community currency in the United States is the highly popular “Ithaca HOURS” system in Ithaca, New York. Established in 1991, over $70,000 dollars worth of currency has been issued, allowing over $2,500,000 dollars worth of additional transactions in the greater Ithaca area than would have occurred with just federal dollars. Each Ithaca HOUR has both a time value assigned to labor and a dollar equivalency. There are five denominations ranging from a two-HOUR note, worth $20 to the 1/8 HOUR, worth $1.25. Flagstaff Neighborly Notes are based on the Ithaca HOURS system.

Money with care built in

Flagstaff is an ideal place to establish a community currency. We have an abundance of local talent. Flagstaff Neighborly Notes facilitate the creative use of our interests and skills. The currency helps connect our collective skills to meet local needs, without having to wait for more federal dollars. FNNs give all community members a chance to create jobs for ourselves doing what we like to do.

Those of you who may think you have nothing to offer actually have many skills and talents that would be of help to other people in the Flagstaff area. Even such activities as helping an elderly neighbor buy groceries provides a needed service to others. The Time Dollars trading system, part of the Elderplan HMO in Brooklyn, New York has found that even their most house-bound members are able to help others, such as by making house calls to other senior citizens suffering from depression. Time dollar inventor Edgar Kahn describes community trading systems as “money with care built in.”

Jane Wilson, co-founder of Womanshare skill exchange in New York City notes in an interview in Yes! Magazine that the hardest step is often convincing people that they have valuable skills needed by others. “At first, many women would say, ‘Well, I don’t have any skills that I can think of.’ But we’d press them a bit, asking not only about their money-earning skills, but also about life skills and interests. We found that every woman has a minimum of 20 kinds of skills.”

Because our local money stays within the community, it benefits us over and over again. Flagstaff Neighborly Notes encourage people to shop at locally owned businesses. That helps create new jobs and small businesses, enabling us to become more self- reliant. Greater self-reliance provides a buffer to outside economic dominance and instability.

High Desert Dollars debuts in Prescott

Surprisingly, the town of Prescott is ahead of us. Their High Desert Dollars community currency debuted in January. See the accompanying story reprint on High Desert Dollars. A printed currency like Flagstaff Neighborly Notes, High Desert Dollars are issued by the Central Arizona Mutual Credit Association which formed to sponsor the currency. High Desert Dollars are for use in Prescott, Prescott Valley, Chino Valley and surrounding communities including Jerome, Sedona and the Verde Valley. The four HDD denominations come in 1, 5 10 and 20-dollar bill equivalents. HDDs are not assigned a time-value like Flagstaff Neighborly Notes. The HDD Trading Times directory publishes the listings of community residents who accept HDDs.

CAMCA central organizer Larry and I have agreed to allow mutual exchanges of our currencies. Flagstaff Neighborly Notes may be spent at business that accept High desert Dollars and High Desert Dollars may be traded here in Flagstaff at places that accept FNNs. Linking Flagstaff Neighborly Notes and High Desert Dollars creates an instant regional currency system. This cooperative alliance will greatly enhance both the Flagstaff and Prescott areas’ ability to develop greater regional self-reliance.

To learn more about the history and workings of currency, see The Future of Money: Beyond Greed & Scarcity, by Bernard Lietaer. Lietar spent five years at the Central Bank in Belgium, where he was instrumental in implementing the single European currency system. New Money for healthy Communities, by Tucson author Thomas Greco offers an in-depth explanation of how money works and how community currencies can improve people’s lives. Yes! Magazine’s Spring 1997 issue “Money: Print Your Own!” describes the wide variety of community money systems now appearing all over the world.