Stakeholders in a currency system

The following section explores the different groups that feed into a currency’s planning process and determine its success, often more so than the actual initiator or host organisation.

To distinguish different interests and possibilities for collaboration, we have outlined three broad groups: partners, backers and users.

This group consists of organisations, individuals and entities that have direct interests in a currency’s operation and are usually involved in the design, launch and operation of the initiative.

Effective and efficient implementation and running of a currency is always a matter of teamwork and partnership, requiring all partners with an interest in its aims, or who can help with the process, to be as involved as possible. Partnerships will differ, depending on the main goal of the currency, but it is these groups – be they local charities, independent business networks, university departments, city councils – who will offer invaluable insights into the needs and wants of users.

Backers provide financial or other support and are not involved in the implementation of the currency itself. A community currency’s success will always be influenced by the support, opposition or indifference of related organisations.

Funders and grant-providers, locally, nationally or at European level, might be crucial for the launch of the initiative. They will be particularly willing to support the currency if its goals are aligned with their own purposes.

Last but not least, users are those who make the transactions and circulate the currency – whether as individual consumers, businesses or public bodies. The currency’s acceptance by its intended users is what ultimately makes the difference between success and failure – not only in terms of operation and turnover but, more crucially, in terms of the expected impact of the project.

As these initiatives are not designed to be an end in themselves, but instead tools to serve certain needs or interests, users’ non-engagement would clearly indicate a disconnect between the initiators’ assumptions and the community’s real needs.

Currency users are never passive: all in one way or another shape the project. This group is a crucial component of the co-production process. They are not simply consumers, using the currency as a means of exchange, but ‘pro-sumers’, who take an active role in meeting communities’ needs through mobilising previously underused skills and resources.