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		TIMEBANKING [TBG]: A BRIEF DESCRIPTION

Report — June 2012

Written by: Volunteering Unit, Office of Communities, NSW Department of Education 
and Communities. 


		C	TIMEBANKING ON THE GROUND	 
 
There are more than 80 Time Banks in the USA and 100 in the UK.  
 
Time Banks are local organisations that allow people to use their skills to help others 
by exchanging hours instead of money. 

Time dollars are earned by taking a neighbour to the doctor, and then receiving the same 
number of hours' worth of other services, such as computer repair or singing lessons in 
return.   
 
One journalist who has written extensively about Timebanking has written that ‘very 
few participants speak about what they could get from Time Banks; most respond to 
the possibility of giving (Rosenberg, 2011).’ 
 
In Wisconsin, the Dane County Time Bank includes a network of individuals and 
organisations working to increase resource sharing through mutually beneficial 
exchanges. 

Dane County success with its Time Bank has influenced the development of numerous other
Time Banks throughout Wisconsin. 

Since its launch in October 2005, the Bank has grown rapidly and is recognised as a 
leader in the international Time Banking movement. 

The network includes more than 1,500 members and exchanges more than 16,000 hours of 
services per year (Mann & Lantz, 2011).  
 
The Dane County Time Bank links individuals, social service organisations, public 
and private institutions, food producers, neighbourhoods, local businesses and arts 
groups to ‘exchange time, talents and skills that someone else values, by sharing  
them we can create community one hour at a time (Kimmel, 2009).’ 

Dane County Time Bank has demonstrated how timebanking can become a vehicle for 
addressing social challenges in 

	1	mental health, 
	2	community development, 
	3	criminal justice, 
	4	unemployment, 
	5	youth training, 
	6	services for older people, and 
	7	public health (Kimmel, 2009). 
 
The Time Exchange is a Time Bank in which participants earn and spend time dollars 
based on hours of services they perform or receive. 

Time Banks can help build a sense of community, said Lauren Kilcoyne, the coordinator 
of The Time Exchange. 

‘We have such cultural and socioeconomic diversity,’ she said. ‘It's great for people 
to interact with people they wouldn't otherwise see on a regular basis. 

You can reach out further into the community.’ 

‘I really love that everyone is valued equally in The Time Exchange,’ she said, noting 
that time dollars are earned solely based on hours of service provided, not on the 
type of service performed (Laidler, 2011). 
 
Timebanking is supported by the Community Weaver software. 

Members fill out a profile online which details their availability and skills. 

Each member posts offers and requests in the system and categorises them in areas 
like 

	1	transport, 
	2	home help, 
	3	companionship, 
	4	community activities, 
	5	wellness, 
	6	recreation, 
	7	education and 
	8	home repair. 

When members are in need they look within the category relevant to their need, 
make the contact, complete the service, and deposit the time credit in to the 
person’s account. 

For those who need support, the broker completes the transaction, facilitates 
connections and manages the overall organisation (Kimmel, 2011).   
 
In Wales, the Learning Network provides a range of education courses to the community in 
exchange for time credits. 

One hour of volunteering for the Time Bank, earns one hour of credit, which can 
be exchanged for one hour of a course. 

This approach has been shown to increase local access to learning and to improve 
employability by improving skills (Gregory, 2009).  
 
Another example is that of a cafe run by a Time Bank. 

Initially run on a cash basis it moved to a partly cash and party time credit basis. 

There were two menus – one in which prices were listed in cash and the other in 
which prices were half cash and half time credits. 

The outcome of this experiment was to create both paid employment and volunteering 
opportunities in the café, and to deliver a new community facility (Gregory, 2009). 



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A	PREPARATION
	ACTIVITY				MINS		UNITS
1	Single Sentence Document	
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2	Web links for References
THD	M 2012/10/01	10:02 - 12:53		171		57
	The Majority of Time was sepnt trying
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3	Highlights, Bolding and Page Links
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B	WEB-PAGES

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