Alternative Currency in a Resilient Community
John Robb has a good discussion going on how alternative currency (which may be exchangeable with scrip, social currency, complementary currency, community currency and other names) can be used to keep business activity local and thereby increase community resilience to economic shocks.
Robb mentions scrip as an approach to disaster/crisis recovery, while I have been thinking of it as an accelerator for disaster preparedness. By establishing a redeemable point system for such individual and family preparedness efforts as making a disaster plan, building a kit and ultimately volunteering in an organization such as CERT, Red Cross or United Way, the demographics widen of who actually goes through the process, and data is collected that gives officials a better idea of just how resilient a community actually is.
Robb mentions scrip as an approach to disaster/crisis recovery, while I have been thinking of it as an accelerator for disaster preparedness. By establishing a redeemable point system for such individual and family preparedness efforts as making a disaster plan, building a kit and ultimately volunteering in an organization such as CERT, Red Cross or United Way, the demographics widen of who actually goes through the process, and data is collected that gives officials a better idea of just how resilient a community actually is.
