“Going Green: Communities make their own currencies”

Transforming the way their region works with money, an RSF grantee of the Fund for Complementary Currencies has created an alternative form of currency in western Massachusetts called BerkShares.  Accepted only at local businesses, the residents of the area surrounding Great Barrington, MA, can buy 100 BerkShares for $90, giving them a 10% discount for choosing to use the unorthodox bills.  According to an article in the San Francisco Chronicle, “More than $2 million in BerkShares have circulated through 350 businesses since the bills were first printed two years ago.”  The popularity of local currency systems often grows in times of economic uncertainty, and Susan Witt, co-founder of the nonprofit Berkshire Inc., reports that her organization receives multiple calls a day from people around the country interested in starting similar ventures.  For most, the largest benefit is the opportunity to directly support their local economy, as BerkShare user Shanace Sullivan attests to: “”A lot of my friends and family are people who work in the local trade, so it’s important for me that business stays in the area. And any business that I have, I can try to keep it here.”  To read more about how BerkShares are helping businesses in their local community to thrive, click here.

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• Printed from http://rsfsocialfinance.org/2009/01/going-green-communities-make-their-own-currencies/