The History of Time Banking

Dr Edgar Cahn, Civil Rights Lawyer and Activist, devised the time banking system, (then called ‘time dollars’ or ‘service credits’), whilst at the LSE in London in the 1980’s. One hour equals one time credit was not exactly rocket science but his ideas were to prove revolutionary, even though economists at the time argued vigorously about whether this new community currency based on time could actually grow social capital and revive the ‘core’ economy of family, neighbourhood and community.

Leaving the economists to their debate, Edgar Cahn returned to the USA to put his ideas into practice. Over the next decade time dollar projects emerged all across the USA, led by grass roots practitioners working in deprived inner city neighbourhoods.

These pioneering projects attracted interest in Japan where there are now hundreds of hybrid time dollar/LETS schemes, many with Government backing.

In the later half of the 1990’s David Boyle, Senior Associate at the New Economics Foundation, visited time dollar projects in the USA while researching his book, ‘Funny Money’. At around the same time, Martin Simon, then a Community Development Specialist, attended the first national time dollar congress in Portland, Maine. On their return they joined forces with Joy Robinson and Sarah Burns and the first time banks were opened in 1998, first the Fair Shares Time Bank in Stonehouse in Gloucestershire and then in Rushey Green at a GP’s surgery.

Since then, the growth of time banks and the amount of interest in time banking in the UK has been truly amazing. The number and range of applications of time banking has far exceeded everyone’s most optimistic expectations and time banks now support neighbourhood renewal, health improvement, life long learning, conventional volunteering, care for the environment and all other forms of community enterprise.

To quote Edgar Cahn, "You have achieved more in the past five years in the UK than we managed in the USA in twenty".