Time bank

Typically, a time bank is based on five fundamental principles ^[5] :

• We all have valuable qualities.
• Some works have no price
• Help works better if it’s mutual
• We need each other on a social network
• Every person matters

Many also add:

• Volunteering
• Charity
• Reciprocity
• Practicality
• Social orientation

In the context of the financial crisis, time is considered as an alternative non-cash equivalent of value (see the economy based on a time factor ).

There are several types of Time Banks: volunteer , production, volunteer-production, combined.

Volunteer Time Bank

Volunteer Time Bank makes operations with time with mutual assistance of volunteers ^[6] .

An approximate list of mutual services of such a bank:

• Creation / manufacture of various goods, products, with the exception of food and medical products
• Installation / movement of household appliances, interior items, cargo transfer
• All types of work related to the use of information technology (installation / administration of computer equipment and software, creation of computer programs and products)
• Pedagogical assistance ( rehearsal , counseling, instruction)
• Baby sitting and social worker services
• Legal assistance (counseling, representation in court , etc.)
• Production of household services (hairdressing, laundry, etc.)
• Information services (search for necessary information and literature)
• Translation work (foreign languages, sign language translation, reading texts on audio media, etc.)
• Services for organizing / conducting events (seminars, trainings, holidays, exhibitions, etc.)
• Transport and courier services
• Cleaning and repair of buildings, premises, territories

Production Time Bank

The Production Time Bank specializes in operations with production time of employees and between organizations. It provides a flexible schedule of working hours, free mutual assistance of people at work, as well as mutual free services between different organizations.

Volunteer Production

Often such a bank is created in an apartment partnership.

United Time Bank

Such a bank performs all types of operations over time, both volunteer and production types.

All operations of the modern Time Bank are carried out by customers through the Website . The bank is coordinated by a coordinator (or the Management Board). Experts are involved in the work of the bank, who check the availability of the certificate when performing specific services by its customers (medical, information, child care, etc.). The number of bank customers can range from a few people to several hundred. To be able to participate in the program, you need to undergo a communication training, prove the quality of the services provided and confirm your own biography. Special software “Timekeeper” is developed - a database of the offered goods and services. The coordinator is notified by the parties to the transaction about the number of hours spent and makes entries in the credit and debit of the relevant accounts. ^[7]

The Production Time Bank operates according to the rules provided for by the Methodological Recommendations:

• The employee accumulated the excess time during the month to the Bank of time, with 85% of this time being credited to the employee’s personal account, and 15% transferred to the public fund (chief’s fund).

• The accumulated time in the Bank is to be used during the year.

• Management of the Bank is carried out by the Board in the amount of two people (from the representative of the administration and the union). The board is elected for a period of one year at the trade union meeting of the unit.

• Time is dispensed from the Bank by the decision of the Management Board upon the application of the employee. The received time can be used during the calendar month and the unused part is returned to the bank. It is allowed, by agreement with the head, taking time off from the bank at the expense of time.

• The total time fund can be used to provide gratuitous assistance to individual employees or to conduct social events.

• When using working time from the Bank, the employee retains the established monthly wage. A record is made in the card for recording hours worked about receipt of work time from the Bank or deduction to the Bank.

In 1977, the first “Time Bank” of a production type was created in the USSR at a bakery in the city of Kohtla-Järve (Estonia), where workers used flexible working hours . ^[8] In the same city, on February 18, 1980, an experiment was performed on the circulation of time, similar to money circulation. During this experiment, time was exchanged for services between the Banks of the time of three organizations: the Shale Research Institute, the Bakery and the CHP . Literary newspaper , ^[9] provided great informational support for spreading the idea of ​​the Bank of Time in the USSR, and the North Coast newspaper in Estonia. .

In 1978, American journalist David Shipler got acquainted with the experience of the Bank of Time, after which they became interested in the idea in the United States .

The initiator of the creation of the volunteer movement “Bank of Time” is the lawyer and public figure Edgar Kahn . He came to this idea in 1980. The time bank is a tool to increase the effectiveness of volunteer activities in the community, which allows you to select the work of certain volunteers, identify their needs, attract and recruit new volunteers, “pay” volunteers for their work, and also monitor and control volunteer activities. ^{[10] The} popularity of Time Bank was facilitated by the publication of Edgar Kahn’s book “ No More Throwaway People ”. The first six American Time Banks arose on his initiative in 1987, in England in 1998. This social mutual assistance movement has spread to many countries of the world.

The revival of the idea of ​​Time Banks in Russia, but in a volunteer form, took place in 2006 in Nizhny Novgorod . ^{[11] [12] [13]} It is planned to open time banks in other cities of Russia. ^{[14] [15]} The first volunteer Time Bank began operating in Tallinn in 2009 . ^[16] , and in 2011 - in St. Petersburg ^{[17] [18] [19]} .

At the beginning of 2010, Ukraine launched the international project “Regional Exchange System“ Bank of Time ”” ^{[20] [21] [22]} . In Russia, the startup “TimeRepublik” has been launched, which provides the opportunity to use the time bank to search for new customers ^[23] .

Increasingly, especially in the USA, the term “Time banking” is used over time for banking operations ( banking ). In total, about 250 models of the “Bank of Time” are known under different names: “Dollar of Time”, Local Time Exchange System, Time Banks, District Services Exchange, Community Member - Community Member, Happiness Bank (social banking banking network in Estonia) . ^{[6] [24]}

• Time Based Economy
• Social capital
• Free money
• Private currency
  • Lets
  • Sochi hour
  • Workday
  • Cincinnati time store
• Food bank
• Unorthodox economics
• Green economy

• Guidelines for the transfer of engineers and employees to a moving (flexible) work schedule / compiled by V. M. Livshits. Kohtla-Järve. Research institute of shales. 1977.
• Livshits V.M. Bank of time. In the book. Abstracts of the II Republican Scientific and Practical Seminar. Tallinn. 1979.P. 138-140.
• Livshits V. M. Sliding work schedule. Tallinn. 1984
• Nikonova G. F. Application of a rolling work schedule at the Kohtla-Järve bakery: Abstract. Rep. scientific-practical conf. Kohtla-Järve, May 22-23, 1980 / Scientific research institute of schists. Kohtla-Järve, 1980. Pp. 79-80
• A. Levikov. Kaluga option. M. Politizdat. 1980.
• Cahn, Edgar S. No More Throw Away People. Washington, DC: Essential Books, 2004.
• Hayek F.A. Private money. - M .: Institute of the National Model of Economics, 1996. - ISBN 5-900520-06-4 .

• timebank.ru // Nizhny Novgorod Time Bank
• ZeitBank.net // Time Bank in Munich (German)
• bankvremeni.org // Regional Exchange System “Bank of Time”
• Edgar Cahn, In His Own Words ... // Edgar Kahn on the Bank of Time (video) (eng.)