<html><body><div style="color:#000; background-color:#fff; font-family:times new roman, new york, times, serif;font-size:12pt"><div><span>This is where my wife and I hang out on our trips to SF to visit children/grandchildren. It's a neighborhood that's quite diverse, including economically, and remarkably unpenetrated by major corporate branding. That said, I doubt that such experiments will prove to be the basis for necessary financial reform.</span></div><div><span></span> </div><div><span>DG</span></div><div><br></div><div><blockquote style="padding-left: 5px; margin-top: 5px; margin-left: 5px; border-left-color: rgb(16, 16, 255); border-left-width: 2px; border-left-style: solid;"> <div style="font-family: times new roman, new york, times, serif; font-size: 12pt;"> <div style="font-family: times new roman, new york, times, serif; font-size: 12pt;"> <div dir="ltr"> <font size="2" face="Arial"> <div style="margin: 5px 0px; padding: 0px; border:
1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); height: 0px; line-height: 0; font-size: 0px;" class="hr" contentEditable="false" readonly="true"></div> <b><span style="font-weight: bold;">From:</span></b> Robert Naiman <naiman@justforeignpolicy.org><br> <b><span style="font-weight: bold;">To:</span></b> Peace-discuss List <peace-discuss@lists.chambana.net> <br> <b><span style="font-weight: bold;">Sent:</span></b> Sunday, February 5, 2012 8:36 PM<br> <b><span style="font-weight: bold;">Subject:</span></b> [Peace-discuss] LATimes: SF neighborhood breaks ground with "complementary currency" debit card<br> </font> </div> <br><div id="yiv1234535543"><div><br></div><a href="http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-bernal-bucks1-20120206,0,6838671.story" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-bernal-bucks1-20120206,0,6838671.story</a> <br clear="all"><div><br></div><div>
<br><div class="yiv1234535543gmail_quote">Los Angeles TIMES/Feb. 6, 2012<br><br>Unified by the coin of their realm<br><br>Insular Bernal Heights — 'this weird little borderline utopia,' as one<br>resident calls it — has updated 'complementary currency' in the form<br>
of a debit card.<br><br>By Lee Romney, Los Angeles Times<br><br>February 6, 2012<br><br>Reporting from San Francisco<br><br>Coiled around a wind-swept hill near this city's lively Mission<br>District, Bernal Heights takes an almost cult-like pride in being<br>
insular.<br><br>With a butcher, grocer, bookstore and bakery, the neighborhood<br>provides the basics. When you add to that some unique establishments —<br>like an organic baby food outlet and a knife-sharpening venture<br>
offering classes in Japanese whetstone techniques — many residents say<br>they rarely feel the urge to leave.<br><br>"It's this weird little borderline utopia," said Ken Shelf, 42, who<br>runs a combination movie-rental and succulent store here. His home,<br>
business, favorite shops and kids' school are all within a five-block<br>radius.<br><br>Now, Bernal Heights is taking its experiment in localism one step<br>further, adopting what is believed to be the country's first<br>
"complementary currency" in the form of a debit card.<br><br>Designed by two neighborhood loyalists versed in technology and<br>banking, the Bernal Bucks card allows residents to pay for their<br>purchases while earning credits every time they swipe it at any of the<br>
two dozen area businesses that have signed on since June.<br><br>Accrued as frequent-flier miles are, the bucks can be printed as<br>coupons and used toward future purchases. Cardholders also can donate<br>their accrued "wealth" to neighborhood nonprofits.<br>
<br>"The convenience of being able to use it anywhere and having your<br>money increase in value because it's giving back to the community,<br>those are really important things for Bernal residents to plug into,"<br>
said Rachel Ebora, executive director of the Bernal Heights<br>Neighborhood Center, which has started to pull in program-related<br>donations.<br><br>::<br><br>The idea of complementary currencies — which enhance but don't replace<br>
an official mode of exchange — is not new.<br><br>Massachusetts' Berkshire region has Berkshares, colorful bills bought<br>with dollars at a slight discount. In California, Davis Dollars<br>(adorned with a bicycle) have circulated for a few years. And two<br>
Marin County communities recently began minting $3 tokens at a<br>discount that are handed out as change. They can be spent at<br>participating merchants or pocketed as souvenirs.<br><br>Other currencies that encourage local trade or barter have sprung up<br>
in Sweden, Japan, Kenya, Venezuela and Britain, among other countries.<br><br>The downside of most of the programs, advocates concede, is that<br>consumers have to carry two kinds of cash. And the most-engaged<br>merchants often get saddled with registers full of funny money.<br>
<br>So Bernal residents Guillaume Lebleu and Arno Hesse worked out an<br>electronic solution.<br><br>They met at an "unconference" on banking innovation in 2009. Both had<br>been pondering how communities could bolster their economic health in<br>
the face of the national downturn. After hosting a forum to toss<br>around ideas, they began distributing $5 bills to merchants marked<br>with Bernal Bucks stickers.<br><br>Residents who reused the bills locally, in what Lebleu called<br>
"probably the neighborhoodiest neighborhood in San Francisco," got a<br>token of appreciation: a crisp apple or an upgrade to a larger coffee.<br><br>The stickers raised awareness, Hesse said, but their potential was<br>
limited. Fortunately for Bernal, he and Lebleu had the background to<br>take it to a higher level.<br><br>The soft-spoken Lebleu, 36, had developed financial software and long<br>pondered the ways technology was "changing money itself and, with it,<br>
our communities and society."<br><br>The 50-year-old-Hess was a former Union Bank executive who had been<br>involved in the Slow Money movement, which urges resident investment<br>in the local food supply — with often unconventional returns. (His own<br>
investment in a Vacaville organic farm earns him a steady supply of<br>eggs.)<br><br>Bernal Bucks is the pilot program of a company Hesse and Lebleu formed<br>last year to promote community rewards networks.<br><br>They are funding the effort out of their own pockets. Without going<br>
into details, Hess said that he and Lebleu "expect to make a living —<br>not a killing — as the program gets adopted by more communities."<br><br>Branded with a cheerful image of Bernal's iconic hill, their Visa<br>
debit card is issued by the local Community Trust Credit Union and<br>aims to make patronizing neighborhood stores simpler: Residents can<br>earn rewards or make charitable donations without having to keep track<br>of stickers on their bills or carry a passel of<br>
buy-nine-and-get-the-10th-free punch cards.<br><br>Hess and Lebleu track the purchase patterns of Bernal Bucks<br>cardholders — who number in the hundreds — online and check in<br>face-to-face with merchants.<br><br>One recent day, they stopped in at Succulence, Shelf's video and<br>
succulent store.<br><br>After movie rentals began to decline, Shelf tacked a plant business<br>onto the back of the shop two years ago. In addition to succulents,<br>the store sells ceramic and glass planters handcrafted by local<br>
artists and offers classes on building terrariums and vertical<br>gardens.<br><br>An early backer of Bernal Bucks, Shelf said the "economic implosion of<br>2008" prompted him to spend more at local businesses and urge others<br>
to do the same. "It's kind of cool," he said, "knowing that you're<br>keeping people's families going."<br><br>::<br><br>Josh Donald, owner of Bernal Cutlery, is another believer.<br><br>"I love the idea of a local currency," said Donald, who like others<br>
here moved his accounts from a corporate bank to the credit union<br>while signing up for the card.<br><br>But Donald is still waiting for a customer to present him with a<br>Bernal Bucks coupon. That may be because shoppers are saving up their<br>
credits.<br><br>Among them is Brigitte Phipps, a young mother who runs her husband's<br>chiropractic office. She has accrued $100 in Bernal Bucks — her 5%<br>return on $2,000 in purchases from the Good Life Grocery — but has yet<br>
to decide where to spend them or whether to give them away.<br><br>"I think it's pretty awesome," she said. "I don't leave the hill."<br><br>As for the nonprofit donations, Hess and Lebleu said they are building slowly.<br>
<br>Some cardholders give a fixed percentage of their bucks to the<br>elementary school's PTA, while others have chosen the Bernal Heights<br>Neighborhood Center, which offers programs for low-income youth and<br>seniors.<br>
<br>As six elderly women in black top hats tap-danced in the community<br>room recently, Ebora, the executive director, showed off her brand-new<br>Bernal Bucks card. (According to credit union manager Carlos Brenes,<br>20 or so users sign up every month.)<br>
<br>Last month, she said, the center accrued $50 in Bernal Bucks<br>donations. The amount may seem small, but Ebora said it would pay for<br>a month of hot lunches for one senior.<br><br>"Any little bit helps, especially with the decline in public funding," she said.<br>
<br>The program taps into a growing desire to transact business on a more<br>intimate level.<br><br>"People are recognizing that dollars are basically scarce right now,"<br>said Janelle Orsi of Oakland's Sustainable Economies Law Center. But<br>
even when you don't have the real dollars, she said, you still have<br>something of value.<br><br>Orsi said she often is approached by clients seeking to pay for legal<br>services in unconventional ways. In exchange for recent advice to a<br>
food cooperative south of San Francisco, for example, Orsi was offered<br>lessons in "bird language."<br><br>"Money is so weird," she said. "It only has value if people are<br>willing to accept it."<br>
<br><a href="mailto:lee.romney@latimes.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank" ymailto="mailto:lee.romney@latimes.com">lee.romney@latimes.com</a><br><br>Copyright © 2012, Los Angeles Times<br><span class="yiv1234535543HOEnZb"><font color="#888888"><br></font> </span></div></div>-- <br>Robert Naiman<br>Policy Director<br>
Just Foreign Policy<br><a href="http://www.justforeignpolicy.org" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">www.justforeignpolicy.org</a><br><a href="mailto:naiman@justforeignpolicy.org" rel="nofollow" target="_blank" ymailto="mailto:naiman@justforeignpolicy.org">naiman@justforeignpolicy.org</a><br><br> <br>
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