Douglas Rushkoff offers a robust discussion of complementary currencies, demonstrating the value of community beyond the dollar. An excerpt:

This is where the Internet might be of some help. Networks can connect those looking to reinforce their sense of hope and connection to others. We can share new models that work, collaborate with like-minded members of other communities, and build decentralized constituencies to fight our common battles. Beneath all its flashy, advertising-based social networks, the Internet is still a communications medium. We can use it to find the people and ideas deemed unready for corporate media’s precious prime time.

Perhaps more important, by restoring our connections to real people, places, and values, we’ll be less likely to depend on the symbols and brands that have come to substitute for human relationships. As more of our daily life becomes dictated by the rules of a social ecology instead of those of a market economy, we will find it less necessary to resort to the behavior of corporations whenever things get rough. We might be more likely to know the names of our neighbors, and value them for more than the effect of their landscaping on our block’s real-estate prices.

(h/t Kenley Neufeld)

An interesting article on the Yellow Springs, Ohio TimeBank, including an historical perspective and decades of history in alternative currency and exchange.

While the Yellow Springs Exchange flourished in the cash-strapped Great Depression, modern-day TimeBanking was started in the U.S. during the recession of the early 1980s because of diminishing funds for social programs. Lawyer and social inventor Edgar Cahn, who had previously co-founded the Antioch College of Law in Washington, D.C., then a branch of Antioch University, designed the system “to validate and reward the work of the disenfranchised in rebuilding their communities and fighting for social justice,” according to the timebanks.org Web site. Since then TimeBanks have spread to more than 24 countries.

The Whole Person, an alternative event publication with wide distribution throughout Southern California, featured The Ojai Forum in their November 2009 issue.  Article by Nancy Gross.

[View with PicLens]

April 2009 article from Model D Media on the Detroit local currency known as Detroit Cheers. It is printed on cotton rag paper, and the $4500 in circulation is 100% backed by US dollars held in reserve at a local bank.

That interconnected community of Detroit small business owners seems to be growing stronger, thanks to concepts like Detroit Open City and now, Cheers. “It means something to us … that we’re connected,” says Belanger. “Spending Cheers is almost like giving a secret handshake.”

Meaningful experiences, insights, new possibilities:
Ojai as a think talk – conferences
New Economy “employment” agency

What other voices need to be heard:
youth, politicians, schools, ranchers, business people, CAUSE (Ventura),

Create a City Visioning Process – include all residents – also make it
a Ventura-Ojai corridor visioning process

What do you feel called to do as an act of personal leadership:
Several people said: “Change City Manager” Feeling that he doesn’t
support local business. Business person on City Council. Recognition
that Ojai and Ventura financial well-being are connected. Proposed a
light rail between Ojai and Ventura. See it as an economic corridor.

Important next steps to enrich local community:
AFFORDABLE HOUSING
Places to hang out that don’t close early
Master plan: arts Master Plan
Ventura-Ojai Economic Corridor

SECOND DISCUSSION:
More Collaboration and Networking between businesses in Ojai and
Ventura and between social profits
More responsive Politics
PERMECONOMY!
BRANDING: The New Now!
Awakening the Dreamer workshops
Ojai Brand for food, art, eco activities and actions within Ojai
Pursue: spirituallly based political change, visioning and strategic
plan for communityu
Involve yoga teachers, virtual economy, connect people looking for
work with those who have work. Work Faire?
Emphasize the Love Economy and Social Profits (non-profits)

Ojai’s unique combination of natural resources, human genius, spiritual consciousness, all are lined up in a valley that seems to be calling us forth to create a self-sustaining, socially conscious and healthy community.  This suggests we could very possibly have a real quality of life should we find ourselves ‘off the grid’.

Not from fear, panic or cataclysmic thinking — but from a sense that many systems we rely on in the world may indeed implode — why not have people seriously take stock of our assests and consider how we can make the best use of them for the good of the whole community.

From solar power potential, to gardens everywhere, to bicycles and horses, to barter and sharing, to utilizing the many great healers and educators we have in the valley — we may really have it all..  One thing for certain: if we would have to ‘be off the grid’, within 24 hours every able bodied person, including children, would have work!

Unlike an emergency plan (for short-term disaster) this would be an Emergence Plan! I seek resonant folk who would enjoy exploring this concept with a bit of a sense of sooner rather than later.  Thank you, Julie Heyman (805) 272-8067  jhrymsn1@roadrunner.com.

Stuart Valentine has provided the following documents from the Ojai Forum:

Fairfield Green Strategic Plan (PDF, 2MB)

Ojai Servant Leadership (PPT, 28kb)

A fantastic interview with Hazel Henderson, who will be appearing on Friday via live remote at this weekend’s Ojai Forum. An excerpt:

Complex human societies can never be measured by using a single discipline, especially by economics which was never a science. Economic calculations are blind to most of the social and environmental costs its narrow decisions impose on others, reframed as “externalities,” i.e., costs companies and projects omit from their balance sheets. These uncounted impacts of financial decisions have accumulated unnoticed by economists until they are now crises of poverty, inequality, social exclusion and pollution – culminating in the greatest market failure: climate chaos.

Susan Davis is joining us to lead a KINS process at the Ojai Forum, September 25-27.

Following is an introduction of the process:

• Choose a mission statement that is inspiring, daunting and measurable!
• Identify the top 30 constituencies which could most help achieve that goal.
• Within each constituency, do research to find people whose peers say they most have these qualities:
• High credibility in their field
• Gives back most in their field
• Have a reputation for integrity
• Have advanced collaboration skills
• Have some kind of heartfelt spiritual practice
• Are passionate about the network’s mission.

• Review the 30 finalists and rebalance for sex, age, race and geography (unless the network mission is to empower folks around one of those features).
• Invite the finalists to a founding meeting and facilitate them to design the network.
• Make clear the operating principles, such as:
a. Our strategy is generosity
b. “A deal is a good deal when it is good for all concerned.”
c. Everyone does what they love to do and do well…and little else
d. Everyone gets equal time at the mike.
e. As experts, we sit at the table of unknowing and invite the spiritual world to co-create with us
• The design creates a picture of the future that works for all the constituencies while accomplishing the mission of the network. By asking them to put forward what their constituencies can contribute and what they need to receive back, the giving and receiving are in balance and a picture of the whole emerges.

Fortune Small Business has a good article on community-owned businesses, community-funded businesses and buy local campaigns. An excerpt:

John Halko was halfway through renovating an expanded space for Comfort, his mostly organic eatery in Hastings-on-Hudson, N.Y., when the credit crisis hit. His source of funding — a home-equity line — ran out, so he applied for a loan at a local bank. He was turned down.

Halko wasn’t ready to throw in the dish towel. His solution? The modern equivalent of an old-fashioned barn raising. Instead of soliciting neighbors to lift timbers, he asked them to open their wallets. For every $500 they purchased in “Comfort Dollars,” his patrons received a $600 credit toward meals at the restaurant. As the community rallied around Comfort, Halko says, “it gave us hope.” He raised $25,000 in six months, and the new, larger space – now called Comfort Lounge — opened for business in May.

Plenty of entrepreneurs are turning to their communities for support in these tricky times. As the recession wreaks havoc on America’s economy, finding the money to launch, expand or even just sustain a small business is often a struggle.

(hat tip Michael Weaver)