- Where Do I Start?
- Start-Up Kit
- Order Form
- Tour the Software
- Training
- Leadership Roles
- Time Bank Funding
- Time Banks Directory
Story: I provided service for Holly. I did yard work for her. Community Exchange is great and I keep telling people about it.
Being outdoors with another person, like Holly, to talk with was really therapeutic for me and I would recommend to anyone who is feeling sad or depressed to get out and do something for someone else. It kindles the heart and warms the spirit.
My mother will be dying soon and I’ll be attending her funeral. That’s another obstacle I’ll have to face, but I think I’ll pull through with my Community Exchange family.
Funding Your Time Bank
What Does It Take to Fund a Time Bank?
The expenses and fund raising opportunities are vary quite a bit depending on whether you are a member-led or mission-based Time Bank.
For a member-led community Time Bank, we recommend you charge your members a membership fee of $10-$40/year which should make it easy for any community to afford the software and incidental expenses of running a Time Bank. Use a sliding scale to give people the option of paying less or more if income levels are a concern in your community. We also recommend that every Time Bank ask its members to pay an additional fee in Time Dollars. This is in keeping with the spirit of Time Banking. If you charge $40 per membership. it takes 2 local members to pay for the Wow Start-up Kit, 3 local members to pay for a TimeBanks USA Neighborhood Time Bank membership ($99 for <35 people), and 13 local members to pay for a TimeBanks USA Community Time Bank membership ($500 for up to 500 people and $1 per person after that).
If you charge $10 per membership. it takes 5 local members to pay for the Wow Start-up Kit, 10 local members to pay for a TimeBanks USA Neighborhood Time Bank membership ($99 for <35 people), and 50 local members to pay for a TimeBanks USA Community Time Bank membership ($500 for up to 500 people and $1 per person after that).
As your Member-led Time Bank matures and grows, you may choose to fundraise for a full-time or part-time coordinator to focus on recruiting new members, orientation and matching. For most people, that will be a "down the road" thing. When you are ready, we have a book full of ideas for Time Bank-related fund-raising events. It has more than fifty ideas and instructions for fund-raising events that you can accomplish with a small team in anywhere from two weeks to several months. Mission-based Time Banks almost always start with a paid coordinator. It generally takes someone to working full or part-time to build trust in disenfranchised communities. The good news is that mission based Time Banks can raise grant money. You can save a lot of time by using our Time Banks grants writing book. It contains lists of places to apply for grants and "best of" excerpts from past Time Bank grants. We publish it in MS-Word format so you can just cut and paste from our book into your grant application. We can also put you in touch with consultants who have written several Time Bank grants. Paying them for a few hours time to edit your grant applications can be well worth the investment.
Lao Tsu said "The journey of ten thousand miles begins with the first step." The only money you need to raise at the beginning in $49 for the Wow Startup Kit. If you need to write grants from the beginning you might want to purchase the grants book too for $49.