Money Is Dead. Long Live Money.

always possible is a founding member of Goodmoney CIC, an ambitious social enterprise based in Brighton & Hove. Its main focus is on the reinvention of resilient local finance that does not rely on the conventional banking system. There will be many ways that it does this, with plans for a mutual credit system powered by independent businesses and charities, as well as a time bank that enables local individuals to exchange more of their time, skills, goods and services through a new concept of currency.

I first heard about the plans around 3 years ago, when one of the directors and I were having a conversation about apprenticeships, but it is truly remarkable to now be attending the launch of Goodmoney gift vouchers - as I was delighted to do last week. The gift voucher scheme currently involves 143 independent Brighton & Hove businesses, and is rising every day. 

They work in the same way as any other gift voucher, but with two substantial benefits: 

1. all of the businesses are independent SMEs or micro-businesses who would never otherwise be part of a multi-option gift voucher (a £5billion economy that shuts out everyone but the biggest retailers). Anyone given a voucher can spend it with a glorious range of places - coffee shops, art studios, bike repair shops, wedding DJs, cafes, printing companies, ice cream parlours, life coaches, IT support, watersports equipment hire, brewers etc etc.

2. statistically, 5% of all gift vouchers do not get redeemed - in the UK, that's around £250million per year that is counted as pure profit by big retailers. Any unspent Goodmoney vouchers will be used to fund community projects, education and health initiatives - making the impact of the vouchers infinitely more than the cash paid for them.

People can spend vouchers with my company on coaching or training in skills such as pitching ideas, writing funding applications, networking, facilitating a workshop, putting on an event, leadership and management skills or designing a project for young people (and much more). We can provide ‘critical friendship’ for people wanting to test ideas or products. 

The launch event was great fun, with many of the supporting businesses chipping in to keep costs down and entertainment high (free curry, craft beer and gramophone DJs). Brighton Pavilion MP Caroline Lucas is one of the board members overseeing the development of this scheme, and she came along to give a few words and award prizes to the children who had designed the gift cards in which the vouchers are presented - despite her party conference due to start in Bournemouth just a few hours later.

I am also working with the company on their education strategy, regularly meeting one of the directors, maths lecturer and teacher Dr Mick Taylor, on how we can use the values of the initiative to help school teachers reframe lessons on financial literacy. I am particularly interested in looking at the social impact of money and how that powers attitudes of children and young people - around their own confidence in using maths to manage every day monetary transactions, but also the consequences that social transactions like borrowing, lending, stealing, saving, spending have on an individual's concept of self worth. 

There are some complicated messages about money, debt, deficit, welfare and capital being put in and around children all the time at the moment - and I believe these might be a route in to giving practical application and context to mathematical problems so that some of the basics start to make sense.

The very small team have set themselves an extraordinary target of selling £100k of vouchers by Christmas, and £1m by 2020. If they do, they could well have something really exciting on their hands.