Learning for Change: Three ways to tackle the problem on shortage of monetary resources in time bank

Social innovations such as time banks are often facing the problem that the monetary value of return is too low to cover costs or to guarantee a sustainable income. In the session ‘The challenges of Resourcing and Diversification for Sustainability’ at the TRANSIT conference, three pathways were given to tackle this problem.

For social innovations, in order to have impact potent, it is essential that they are able to sustain and grow. When a social enterprise is established, often they receive grants in the first few years that make it able for the enterprise to persist and thrive. Unfortunately, after a few years, when these grants are no longer given, a lot of start-ups stop because they have no funds to sustain.

Despite this there are some success cases of innovations which have found ways to sustain by working together with institutions to receive funds. Next are three examples of pathways which have proven to be a solution:

1 Start a second social entrepreneurship with an own income to cover the costs of the social innovation. When Partners in Crime, a time bank in Maryland, faced this problem, they started to look at what their members possessed and what they could mean for the time bank. A thrift shop was founded in which stuff donated by members is being sold to cover costs for the time bank. In exchange for the stuff members donate to the thrift shop, members receive time credits. [http://www.partnersincare.org/]

2 Embed the social innovation in a bigger organisation. Time Banking UK is a perfect example of this: Time Banking UK is an umbrella organisation of around 300 time banks in the UK. Because of the size of the organisation, it is easier to find partners, supporters and funders for the innovation and thereby sustain. [http://www.timebanking.org/]

3 Provide commissioned services. An example of this is the American Institutes for Research, a behavioral and social science research and evaluation organization that addresses complex social issues, with the main goal being improving people’s lives, with a special emphasis on the disadvantaged. They receive their funds by providing assessments to governments and other organisations. [http://www.communityscience.com]

These success stories show us that with the right organisational construction it is possible for social innovations such as time banks to sustain and thrive for many years!