Get help when you need it. Give help when you can.
Show you’re interested at: https://ringsnetwork.org/signup
What is a Time Bank?
Life’s getting harder. Money doesn’t always stretch, but everyone still deserves to be safe. We can all help protect each other by sharing our time and skills.
In a time bank, every hour of help you give earns 1 hour to spend when you need help, no money involved.
- Rides to appointments
- Simple repairs & tech help
- Childcare swaps & elder check-ins
- Meals after a long shift
- Yard work & snow shoveling
- Admin/phone calls & paperwork help
It’s non-political, free to join, and for everyone.
A time bank is a simple exchange: when you help someone for an hour, you earn 1 hour you can spend later when you need help. No money, no bickering over value, everyone’s hour is equal. Goods can also be exchanged, as well as services. Some software keeps track of all the trades using a “currency” to facilitate transactions.
It’s not a charity, not political, and not a place for debate. It’s a way neighbors get through hard weeks by trading time.
How to Participate
- Join the interest list (launch at 100 people for volume). Sign up here
- We’ll email you when we’re ready.
- Post an Offering of what you can do.
- Post a Want asking for help when you need it.
- Browse the registry and respond to your neighbors’ offerings and wants. Pay your neighbors, or receive payment, using the built-in currency.
That’s it. No dollars. Just hours in / hours out.
Building Trust & Keeping Each Other Safe
Clear expectations: When you create a post, be as clear as possible in what you are expecting. If you read another’s post and aren’t fully sure of what they are saying, send them a message to clarify. Before beginning any transaction, make sure you both agree on the task, to avoid misunderstandings and disputes.
1 hour = 1 hour: Some folks struggle with this idea because we’ve grown up in a world where some people are always paid more than others. If that hierarchy matters to you, the mainstream system is still there for you. But that system doesn’t care if people live or die, our neighbors literally die on the streets every day. The time bank runs on different logic: community care. It’s an emergency intervention to help us survive a dark economic moment. It’s not meant to last forever, but it exists because the systems we relied on have already failed. At its core, the time bank is built on a simple belief: everyone is someone’s child. Everyone deserves safety and care, whether they live with disabilities, have off-the-charts abilities, or fall anywhere in between. And instead of setting people up to live on handouts, the time bank recognizes something deeper: people feel best when they feel useful. That’s why trade is more powerful than charity.
RESILIENCY IS GREATER THAN EFFICIENCY.
Credit and debit caps: To make sure no one exploits the system, everyone starts with a 5-hour limit on both credits and debits. That means you can’t spend more than five hours’ worth of time without giving back to the community first. The goal of the time bank is to hover around zero, where you’ve given about as much as you’ve received. Unlike the money system, this isn’t about hoarding. To discourage that mindset, the software sets caps. After you’ve been active for six months and completed around 300 trades, your cap can be raised.
Radical transparency: Before interacting with another user, you can view their account history: how many transactions they have made, how long they have been on the system, and their current balance. Every week the admin releases the exchange’s transaction history, for anyone to view. Nobody can hide any funny business
Reputation: You can up vote other users and leave brief recommendations for a job well done.
Examples
- You assemble a shelf for someone → earn 1 hour
- Later, use that hour for a ride to a clinic
- You make a double batch of soup for a neighbor → earn 1 hour
- Spend it on tech help you’ve been putting off
Small acts, big difference. Everyone’s lives are better, and nobody has spent any Money. We can all find some relief from the unrelenting pressures of inflation, while also getting to know our neighbors and building the social connections we all crave, which have been decimated by modern society.
We Launch at 100
We’re collecting names now to reach critical mass. When we hit 100, and get some other bits created, we’ll open the exchange so it feels alive on day one.
Want this to happen sooner?
After you sign up, tell two people who’d benefit: a coworker, neighbor, or family member!
Have questions?
- What if I’m busy? Join anyway. You can offer later and still request help.
- What if I can’t drive/lift/cook (etc.)? Everyone has something to offer, nobody is useless. Wellness check-ins, filling out forms, phone calls, organizing paperwork, tutoring, the possibilities are endless. If you’re not sure what you can offer, someone from our onboarding team can help you figure out where you shine. Time banks around the world are full of stories of people the mainstream system dismissed, who ended up becoming essential to their communities through an exchange.
- Is it safe? We start small, local, and opt-in. Everyone chooses their exchanges. Light feedback builds trust.
See a larger explanation at the Community Exchange website.
Stay in the Loop
We’ll send brief weekly updates until launch.
Questions? Email short@ringsnetwork.org