Community currency projects are often inspired by strong principles and these are essential to their success; however, any currency design must keep the users’ needs centre stage.
Here, we discuss why the ‘community’ in currency design matters, what kind of partners and stakeholders currency projects typically need to bring on board, as well as their likely level of participation.
Community currencies are distinct from the wider field of complementary currencies – and indeed most other financial innovations – because they are set up with the involvement of the people and organisations that will ultimately be affected by them.
As such, community currencies are centred on the benefits to their users and stakeholders, beyond the purely commercial logic of ‘more consumption for less money’.
Typically, this means community currency projects will be established as not-for-profit initiatives. Even if they are commercial in nature, the benefits directly return to the wider community they serve.
Moreover, by recognising that all money is a social technology that rests, one way or another, on personal, economic and political relationships, community currencies not only focus on the individual as an economic actor, but also consider their position and aspirations within wider social and political networks.
Hence, the interplay between different stakeholders (including citizen groups, the public sector and businesses), becomes central to these unorthodox monetary projects. The projects only work if the operation of the currency involves the different participants who it is designed for.
Since they are voluntary in use, community currencies will only be adopted if they clearly offer added value for all concerned. These benefits do not have to be monetary or financial – here all notions of value, including solidarity and community spirit count in the make-up of a currency.
# See also - Contents - People Powered Money - Stakeholders in a currency system