Time
Banks UK Evaluation
Evaluation of time banks, both individual and at a national level, is
important to help us find out how to improve what we do.
Time banks are succeeding in re-building trust and social capital, and are attracting into volunteering the very people who normally take part least including claimants, disabled people, those with a long term illness and non-white British ethnic groups.
Those are the findings of the first nationwide study of time banks in the UK, carried out by the University of East Anglia with funding from ESRC.
Download a pdf copy of the Executive Summary of the report here (140kb), or for a copy of the full report (64pp) price 11.95 contact Central Books 020 8986 5488.
Individual Projects Evaluation Reports
Community Currencies From LETS To Time Banks:
Mobilising Voluntary Activities
Dr Gill Seyfang, University of East Anglia
ESRC grant R000223453 Non-Technical Summary (from the research proposal)
There is great policy interest in community self-help (such as
volunteering) and community finance (economic initiatives with a social
foundation and purpose, such as community currencies or credit unions), which
aim to tackle social exclusion on a number of different levels: economic,
social and political. These include activities which nurture trust and
participation, encourage volunteering, facilitate access to employment and
appropriate financial services, and foster empowerment. However despite
increasing government support for these initiatives, there is little empirical
evidence to analyse their effectiveness in practice.
This research will examine 'time banks', a new community self-help
initiative, which is a type of local currency designed to promote
volunteering. They are claimed to bridge the objectives, and overcome the
limitations of, on the one hand, volunteering (declining participation,
especially among women, the young and the unemployed), and on other, other
community currencies such as Local Exchange Trading Schemes (LETS, which,
while delivering significant social and community benefits, have remained
small and marginal to the economic needs of members, and have not met
expectations in terms of widespread benefits to socially excluded groups).
Time banks are therefore a potentially significant next step in community
self-help, but are currently unresearched. UK time banks are based on the US
Time Dollars (or generically 'service credit') projects, where there are now
about 200 in operation, some with thousands of members. Time banks reward
community volunteering in time-based local currency, which can be saved,
donated, or spent on other goods or services from the scheme. In the USA, time
banks have increased participation in voluntary activity, particularly among
people who would not normally volunteer, making it an effective means of
organising community self-help and delivering practical benefits to socially
excluded groups. They are increasingly funded by, and incorporated into,
mainstream welfare, justice, health and education strategies.
This research will assess the UK experience. There are currently 10 pilots
and the government's Active Community Unit is supporting time banks, and
anticipates there will be 125 operating by 2003. However, the effectiveness of
the schemes has not yet been researched.
This study will assess the role of time banks as a tool for overcoming
social exclusion - in terms of enabling more effective economic, social and
political citizenship. Time banks will be compared with other volunteering
models, and community currencies (such as LETS), and the study will build on
existing knowledge (and the particular experience and expertise of the
applicants) about community currencies and participation to develop new
thinking around community self-help, social exclusion and active citizenship.
The research will ask:
1) What are the origins, characteristics, objectives and impacts of time
banks in the UK? Who is involved with time banks? Who funds and organises
them? Who participates in them and why? What activities do people undertake on
time banks and how successful are they at meeting their objectives? Are time
banks an effective way to organise volunteering and participation?
2) What obstacles do these projects face? How could they develop in the
future? What are the opportunities for mainstream incorporation, scaling up,
and integration or overlap with other social inclusion initiatives?
3) A gender perspective on community self-help activities warns that unpaid
work can reinforce existing gender inequalities, with low status and
recognition, but that payment in local currencies may avoid this. What are the
implications for women of participation in time banks? Do they reinforce or
challenge existing gender inequalities?
4) Do time banks consolidate existing communities, or build new ones? Do
they straddle communities of interest, geography and ethnicity, or do they
strengthen bonds within those boundaries?
5) How do socially excluded groups perceive and use time banks? What
changes could be made in order for these initiatives to better serve
disadvantaged groups and neighbourhoods?
The methods to be used are:
1) Literature reviews of social exclusion, community self-help, academic
and practitioner literature on time banks, volunteering and community
currencies (LETS) in the UK and internationally, and policy contexts. Visit to
successful project sites in the USA to learn from the international time banks
experience.
2) Two national time banks surveys, conducted at least 1 year apart (based
on postal questionnaires and telephone interviews with organisers), to
describe and analyse the nature and characteristics of time banks in the UK
over time, as they mature and grow.
3) Four follow-up case studies (purposefully selected for diversity of
organisational setting, location, objectives) will comprise site visits,
document and records analysis, in-depth interviews with organisers and focus
groups with participants (some will be gender-segregated) to achieve a richer
understanding of the initiatives, their impacts, and participants'
perspectives. The research will produce both quantitative and qualitative
data.
4) Consultation with representatives of socially excluded groups in the
case study areas will seek to uncover their views on time banks, volunteering
and community currencies.
5) Analysis: a conceptual framework will be developed, to map out the
differences in character, membership, objectives, impacts and orientation,
between these community self-help initiatives, to highlight their different
emphases on economic or social aspects, and on individual utility and
community benefits. Time banks, volunteering and LETS will be analysed using
this framework, and will, in practice, blur the boundaries between the models,
however the typology will illuminate the underlying value dynamics at work in
local currency systems and volunteering models, and the ways in which this
influences their effectiveness at addressing social exclusionary processes.
6) Developing an institutional policy frame to investigate the potential of
scaling up and generalising time banks as effective tools to tackle social
exclusion. Dissemination of emerging best practice and learning, and feedback
from participant groups will be facilitated via the UK Time Bank Network, and
an end-of-project workshop.
The research will enhance policy understanding of community self-help and
community finance, and will feed directly into current debates on effective
ways to tackle social exclusion at the grassroots level. The findings will be
published as a full report and as a summary of findings, in articles for
refereed academic journals and also in more general publications. A workshop
will bring together researchers, practitioners, policymakers, think-tanks and
community finance organisations to discuss the findings, the policy
implications, and the ways forward for community self-help.
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Dr Gill Seyfang
School of Development Studies
University of East Anglia
Norwich NR4 7TJ
United Kingdom
tel +44(0)1603 593678
fax +44(0)1603 505262
[email protected]
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timebanks-rag: Research Advisory Group for the ESRC funded project on
timebanks in the UK
http://www.egroups.com/group/timebanks-rag/