What Types Of Things Do People Do For Time Banking Hours And What Can I Do To Earn Hours?
Can social service agencies use Time Banking to deliver services for less?
Time Banking does many things for different people.
Here is a short list of some ways people have used Time Banking to achieve their goals:
Neighborhood renewal
Community safety
Health improvement
Mutual support for single parent families
Peer self-help, especially young people
Involving older people as active citizens
Integrating people with physical and learning disabilities
Respite for caregivers
Intergenerational understanding
Community colleges
Residents participation
Environmental clean ups
Rehabilitation of substance abusers
If you want to build a network of support within your neighborhood or community, Time Banking can help you do exactly that. Instead of paying professionals to look after your children, care for your aging parents, and do the work that family and neighbors used to do for one another, the members of your Time Bank can do those things for each other. Time Banking creates connections through sharing skills.
If you are a social services professional and/or an individual committed to social change and social justice, Time Banking can help you involve the groups you are working with and give them a way to give back to each other and shape the outcome of their program.
Many folks are looking up from their busy lives and wondering if something essential hasn’t gone missing. Is the nuclear family enough to feel fully alive?
Some of us can remember a time when family members lived close by each other and we knew most of the people living in our neighborhoods. Some of us have only heard about it.
Helping each other out was a given, something we did for each other every day. From watching someone’s kids for a few hours, dropping off meals for a sickly neighbor to potluck suppers and barn raisings, communities were full of exchanges and mutually supportive networks of family and friends.
Few people would disagree that times have changed, that these networks are gradually disappearing and few of us have family members nearby or neighbors we know well enough to turn to for support. There are so many things we do that would be more efficient, fun, and meaningful when shared.
Feel free to browse our site and find out how you can get started sharing with others and creating your own networks of support.
The list of possibilities is endless.
From walking a neighbor's dog, oiling a squeaky door, raking leaves, stuffing envelopes, braiding hair, cooking meals, giving music lessons, running errands to lending professional advice, everyone in a Time Bank has a valuable skill to share.
Not unless you want to give extra time!
Many of the services people exchange in a Time Bank are the types of things they are already doing every day. For example, those of us who have children are already cooking for them, driving them to activities, and helping them with their schoolwork—among other things. Cooking an extra portion of food for someone down the street who is housebound, picking up your neighbor's kids on the way to soccer practice, or helping the child down the street with his homework don't add work to your day. Or, if you have a dog and take it for a walk every day, why not pick up your neighbor's dog along the way?
For professionals like doctors, lawyers and business people, Time Banking is a way to give back to your community without having to go someplace else on someone else's schedule. For example, you can just set aside 10% of your appointment calendar for Time Bank members.
Even better, Time Banking helps you gain extra time because down the road, you can spend the Time Bank hours you've earned and have someone else do something for you that you can't fit into your schedule or simply don't know how to do!
When you spend an hour to do something for an individual or group, you earn a Time Bank hour. Then you can use that Time Bank hour to buy an hour of a neighbor’s time or engage in a group activity offered by a neighbor.
At first glance, it seems crazy that someone is paid the same for web design and pulling weeds, but this turns out to be the core of what makes Time Bank hours really work. In the “Yin” or “caring economy” everyone’s time is valued equally – just like it is inside a family. You wouldn't ask your cousin to give you two hours of dog walking for every hour you spend fixing his computer.
Putting a price on people's time separates us by making some people more valuable than others. Time Bank hours excel in building relationships because they place an equal value on everyone’s time.
Time Bank hours aren’t meant to replace standard dollars. They are designed to counterbalance the market economy where people may have invested in special training to make their time more valuable. There’s nothing wrong with that, it’s just taken over too much of our experience of the world. Almost everything is monetized. We are building a parallel economy where people take care of each other as families. We build extended families by geography, not bloodlines.
It is, but the big difference is that you don’t have to pay back the person who does you a favor. It is a “pay-it-forward” system. That’s one of the reasons why people find it so much easier to do things for others in a Time Banking system. You don’t have to figure out what to give back to the person who helped you. You can choose how to pay it forward doing what you want, when you want.
Yes, and this is another reason why Time Banking is different than bartering: it is not taxable. In normal bartering, you have to declare the value of the good and services you receive to the IRS. We have a ruling that Time Bank exchanges are tax-exempt.
Yes, and many Time Banks do sell things.
In general, most Time Banks follow a simple formula for selling things. You charge for the hours it takes to produce something in Time Bank hours, and charge the cost of the materials in regular dollars.
The important thing to remember, however, is that in order to maintain the Time Banking tax exempt status, you can never make an equivalency between a Time Bank hour and a regular dollar.
Most Time Banks have a part-time or full-time Coordinator who helps set up exchanges and runs the day-to-day business of administering the Time Banks.
People either connect to each other online via our Time Banks web software or through their Coordinator. You can post a request for services online or call your Coordinator to ask them to make a match for you.
There are two ways to keep track of the exchanges.
If your
Time Bank uses the web software, all you have to do is record the
exchange and the number of hours, and it will be credited to your
account.
If your Time Bank has a Coordinator who organizes the exchanges for you, you can just call up your Coordinator when the exchange is completed, and she or he will record the hours you earned.
Time Banks can range anywhere from 5 to 10 people to several hundred.
Yes, there are, but regardless of your ultimate goals, most Time Banks start off with Neighbor-to-Neighbor Exchanges. Once you get going, you can tailor the exchanges of your Time Bank to suit the more specific needs of your community or the types of populations your agency or volunteer organization is working with.
Absolutely!
Everyone can join a Time Bank and all kinds of people do.
Certainly they can, and many agencies have found that Time Banking does help them reduce costs because their clients become active participants and service providers for one another. But, even more importantly, the reciprocity that is naturally built into every Time Bank helps clients to become more engaged in directing and creating positive outcomes for themselves and all the members of the program. This sense of ownership and empowerment is often of far greater value to an agency than delivering services at a lower cost because their clients are creating their own path toward meeting the program's goals.
Each Time Bank establishes its own criteria for screening and interviewing potential members before they join. If you have any doubts, you can contact your Coordinator to find out what the criteria for your Time Bank are or to learn more about another member's background. For individuals who are offering driving or child care services, most Time Banks require a full background check.
Time Banks are built on mutual respect and trust and this type of thing is very rare. In fact, we can't recall a single incident except when someone has made a mistake and debited the wrong member's account. If you think that that someone has falsely billed you for services, all you have to do is call your Coordinator who will straighten things out.
Theoretically, it is possible that someone could cheat, but, again, we can't remember anyone doing it. Whether your Time Bank uses the web software or a Coordinator to keep track of the exchanges, whenever one person earns Time Bank hours, there is a corresponding debit for the same amount in someone else's account. This makes it pretty easy to know if someone is cheating or not. No one is anonymous in a Time Bank, so people don't cheat.
Having a negative balance is not a big deal in a Time Bank account. After all, people have to receive in order for others to give
Each Time Bank sets up its own limits on how far a member's account can go into debt, and it is explained in their Member Handbook. People who have a history of earning lots of Time Bank hours are generally allowed a bigger debt limit.
Generally, not much will happen
other than a call from
your Coordinator to remind you that you will need to earn some Time
Bank hours before you can start spending them again. And, for members
in need, many Time Banks have special Time Bank hour funds
contributed by individual members that are set aside for community
projects or to help out members who are going through a difficult
period.