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Increased interest in “time dollar” programs raises debate over whether such currencies are money and are a detriment to volunteerism. But time dollars may play a key role in overcoming one of the major obstacles that the field of volunteerism faces. By assigning an explicit and equitable value to non-work tasks, time dollars can potentially lead us back to behaving as though we truly value community.

A “time dollar” program begins when a local community establishes a service exchange network and issues a local currency to facilitate the exchanges. The currency is usually based on time, so that one hour of any kind of service is equal to one hour of any other kind of service. Introduced by Edgar Cahn in 1980, time dollar and similar programs now exist throughout the United States and in some other countries, including the United Kingdom and China.

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