Evvy said:

The concept of an alternative currency was just so out of my realm of thought that I was sure it was pure fantasy.

You are not alone. We are so used to valuing everything in money that we have forgotten the value of that which we do for ourselves and that which we do as a favor.

However, there were whole civilizations of Africans (and other peoples) that were built and thrived without the knowledge of money. It is a simple fact that it does not take money to create value - it only takes money to exchange value. So, if it is the lack of money that is preventing the creation of value, then we should be able to find an alternative medium of exchange.

From Denver CIE:

CIE is an investment in lowering your cost of living and increasing your quality of life. As a member of a community, there is always the opportunity to do a favor for a neighbor and have a neighbor do a favor for you. The more things you accomplish through favors, the fewer things you have to pay for thereby lowering your cost of living. The more favors you give and receive, the more you get to know your neighbors and the higher your quality of life. CIE keeps track of those favors,

the foregoing is the time dollars part

creating an incentive to do more of them, and accumulates the tools to make those favors easy to perform.

this is the function of the organization part that does not exist in time dollars. The additional function is further described there as:

CIE treats contributions of labor as capital contributions and issues shares for that labor. Anyone holding shares owns a percentage interest in the assets of CIE and shareholder voting rights. You can also spend your shares for goods and services offered by CIE – collecting on your favors. All transactions in shares trade at cost to CIE whereas those same goods and services are available at market prices for money. Share transactions represent a reduced cost of living for the shareholder and the money transactions allow CIE to acquire buildings, tools, equipment and supplies to further increase the incentives for contributions of labor.

I have been talking to Art Brock about the software to run a community investment enterprise and I have been working with Art and John Connell locally on implementing target currency systems. I will invite both of them to participate here.