Timebanking is interesting for TRANSIT because it is a highly versatile mechanism for individuals and groups to self-organise and become active, to do useful (self- and community- benefitting) work, and to develop useful relationships applicable across a wide range of domains, services, and contexts for many purposes. Depending (inter alia) on the extent of geographical presence (areas covered by local time banks), the status of time banks (their levels of organisation and vibrancy), and the management and organisation provided by local coordinators and membership organisations, time banks can offer capacity to respond to many social, economic, environmental and political challenges. They have also demonstrated an unexpected capacity to respond effectively to local emergencies and crises.
In terms of issues of concern to social innovators, at least five stand out as being important for TRANSIT to explore. One is the issue of financing fixed costs. A second issue is that in seeking funding, time banks are required to respond to the information needs of funders and to other ‘conditions’ of funding. Safeguarding is a third issue, which appears to be culturally more evident as a concern in some contexts (such as Western Europe) than in others (such as the USA). Safeguarding is an internal governance issue, but relates strongly also to societal acceptability of timebanking in some of its applications and interfaces with external governance arrangements if/when time banks deliver services on behalf of external sponsors, including government agencies. A fourth issue surrounds the legal and regulatory status of time banks and their activities and concerns the potential need for the status within jurisdictions to be renegotiated as timebanking develops and evolves, including through up-scaling and concept extension. A fifth issue concerns the need to establish an international governance regime for software that has been initially developed by one membership organisation, but is subsequently developed in open innovation mode with international contributions.
The case study focuses on how timebanking initiatives are organised both through networks and, sometimes, as stand-alone initiatives. By doing so, the case has the possibility to contrast the experiences of well-known and less well-networked initiatives. The transnational network organisation under study is the hOurworld organisation. It is one of a small number of timebanking support organisations that have built transnational networks. It has nevertheless become internationally-significant because its software is used by time banks in and beyond the US.
The case study also has two local cases: the UK and Spain. These are strongly contrasting. Timebanking was brought to the UK from the US, beginning with the establishment of Fair Shares, a local time bank in Gloucester, as the first UK time bank. Soon afterwards, its founders together with help from the New Economics Foundation established Timebanking UK (TBUK) as the national membership organisation for UK time banks. Timebanking in Spain is a development that was introduced from Italy. The first time banks were established in the context of international projects funded by the European Union and had support also from regional and city- authorities. Most Spanish time banks are initiated by associations, NGOs and regional or city authorities and they have been fostered at regional and local levels and within city-regions in Catalonia, Andalusia and Galicia.
Weaver, P., Dumitru, A., García-Mira, R., Lema-Blanco, A., Muijsers, L. and Vasseur, V. (2016) WP 4 : case study report : timebanking, TRANSIT: EU SSH.2013.3.2-1 Grant agreement no: 613169.
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